A great recap of our recent hackathon (with video) has been posted on Flying Kite.
A big thanks to Salas Saraiya for putting it together.
I just got a great email from a potential Hackathon-er. The core of it was:
However, if I present the idea and a bunch of people like it, what prevents someone trying to go off and make money with it?
Great question! The short story is: Social pressure, sanity, and 99.9% of people are not thieves prevent ideas from being stolen. Other than that, and a flimsy legal disclaimer, very little.
The long answer is that skipping a hackathon for fear of idea-stealing is like never walking down a sidewalk for fear of getting hit by a car. Can it happen? Yes, sadly. But in reality, it’s a vanishingly small risk, and it’s not really healthy (I’d say it’s outright paranoid) to never share ideas for fear of them being stolen.
Idea theft is extremely rare, and happens maybe 1 out of a 10,000 ideas. Of those, maybe 1 out of 10,0000 of those stolen ideas get beyond ‘Beta’ stage. Of course, since it’s great theater, when one of those extremely rare cases happen, it’s huge news. In other words, You are more likely to win a fortune in the lottery, than to have a good idea stolen.
Now, the problem of “I have a good idea, and I can’t even start to make it” is far more common. Most great ideas never start because people are afraid of some kind of failure, so they don’t even get past ‘I made a mockup with friends’ stage, and they stay as raw brain crack.
It’s like worrying about taking your car out of the driveway, since it could get hit. It’s far better to take an idea for a drive, and take a tiny risk of a problem, then to just admire it parked in your brain, forever.
In fact, just go watch ‘the show’ Ze Frank. He explains it a lot better than I ever could, and is 100000% funnier than I am.
Explaining what we do at Ship It Society (SIS) in words and hand gestures is pretty easy for me, but getting it across in type is a constant source of frustration. Everything turns into 1,000 words. Even then sometimes it’s hard to explain the arrows. Our new friend and collaborator Mike Smith stepped up during our meeting last week, and put together a graphic that covers that those words in a much better package.
Ship It Society Hackathon tickets for July 30th are up for sale. With that ball rolling, we are now recruiting to get more Domain Experts to the event. Domain Experts are people with some specific skill in design, project management, who are willing to spend a few hours helping other people in their area of expertise.
SIS asks Domain Experts to :
SIS helps out Domain Experts with:
Sound like fun? It is. If you are free Saturday July 30th, like to help people, and want some lunch: sign up to be a Domain Expert! We are currently looking for experts in a lot of topics, including:Project Management, Android Development, Linux Basics, Web Design, Graphic Design, C# and Obj-C.
Come help make Philly a better place to launch projects.
To help designers and programmers in the Philadelphia region collaborate and launch great projects, Ship It Society (SIS) is holding a Hackathon and Design Day on July 30th. This is a chance for developers, designers, and hackers to get together for a launch a project, and or get expert input on their ongoing project. This is a chance to find collaborators on existing projects, or get involved in a new project just getting started.
The event will be on July 30th from 8:30 to 5:30 at Indy Hall (thanks Indy!) To keep collaboration tight, we have only 30 seats at this event. You can RSVP to save yourself a spot, which includes on-site lunch the day of the event. Or you can just show up July 30th and hope there is still space at the event.
Schedule:
8:30 - Doors Open
9:30 - Project Pitches
9:30 - 12:00 -Design, Collaboration, and work time
12:00 - 1:00 - Lunch Time, and lunchtime talks,
Food is provided for people that RSVP
1:00 - 4:00 - Afternoon Design, Collaboration, and work time
4:00 - 4:30 Showcase: S.I.S. projects old and now show what they’ve accomplished
For more info visit: http://ShipItSociety.com
For tickets visit: http://shipitsociety.ticketleap.com/hackathon/
About: Ship It Society is an organization of coders and designers dedicated to getting projects of all kinds launched. For-profit, or just for the experience, we want to see more great software, design, and art projects launch in Philadelphia.
Sponsors: Ship It Society is sponsored by Indy Hall (Gold), Laan Labs (Silver), and Clickable Bliss (Silver). If you want to be a sponsor, contact FarMcKon@gmail.com
Last year, Ship it Society launched to help people build and ship apps. We’ve seen some projects fade and some projects ship. Over the next few months we plan to relaunch Ship it Society, learning from our experiences and giving the group a new focus.
Interest in coming together to work on interesting projects hasn’t waned from the Philly scene. The problem has come from day jobs, ambitious project scopes, and soft deadlines. One aspect of Ship it Society projects that was almost a universal success was the face-to-face hack days where teams came together and made real progress. Ship it Society 2.0 embraces these hack days and all major events will be formed around them.
To help people develop their ideas and projects outside of the hack day environment, Ship it Society is embracing the various “office hours” events that have been popping up. Office Hours allow hobbyists to work next to experienced developers. This encourages lots of questions, pair programming, and mentoring.
PhillyCocoa and Android Alliance are teaming up to provide bi-weekly office hours. The PhillyCocoa office hours will be the fourth Thursday of the month, 6pm-9pm at IndyHall. The next one will be Thursday, June 23rd. The Android Alliance dates will be announced soon.
The PhillyRB crew holds regular hack nights every Monday at 6pm. For more info check out their website.
We hope to have a broader list soon, and are also working with other local developer groups to hold similar events. If you have a suggestion, let us know.
Ship it Society will continue to make its legal framework and Apple Developer Account (via IndyHall Labs) available to those who look to continue development from a hack day session and want to use it. More detailed info on this will be posted to the website soon.
Ship it Society was previously lacking in the communication department. We are bringing more people on to help run the group and greatly increase the content produced. You can look forward to more detailed announcements, recaps of past projects, and articles about the best practices to help you become a better shipper!
In short, we are really excited about the upcoming changes to the Ship it Society format and hope you are too. If you have any questions or comments let us know.