Ever attended a hackathon? You probably think of a bunch of guys in hoodies, writing lots of code, right? To some extent, that’s true, but hackathons aren’t just for developers.
Earlier this spring, I came across an article on TheMuse.com which declared a hack day “the event you should plan for your team ASAP.” Everyone on the team leaves their standard work behind for a day and devotes the time to building something from start to finish. The day fosters team-building, while also creating something of value that probably wouldn’t happen during the regular day-to-day activities.
So, we decided to give it a whirl. Admittedly, no one in my office is a true coder (a few of us know just enough to be dangerous), so we decided #GebenHacks would be part modified hackathon, part company retreat. In the weeks leading up to the big day, we discussed what we wanted to get out of the day, what topics we wished we could focus on, if only we had more time, and how we could use this time out of the office to foster creativity and team bonding.
Our next step was determining the location. We knew we wanted to get out of the office. My recommendation: This is a very worthwhile expense. In the office, there would be too many distractions and temptations to sneak away to do “regular” work. Instead, we rented a room at Sparkspace, a creative, inspirational business retreat center. 
Then, we built out the agenda. If you’re interested in hosting your own (modified) hackathon, feel free to start with this and then customize it to meet your own specific needs. Here’s how our day unfolded:
12-12:20: Creative exercises to get started
12:20-1:20: GAMESTORMING, two activities: one for a client and one for Geben/prTini/our enewsletter content
1:20-2:40: GROUP BRAINSTORMS: Split into three teams (we’ll draw names out of a hat), with each team focusing on one of the following three areas: 1) How can we increase revenue? 2) How can we decrease costs? 3) How can we increase client retention? Each team will spend one hour brainstorming/coming up with the frame work for a plan to address their topic (ideally, these can be implemented Q3/Q4), then we’ll spend the last 20 minutes discussing as a group.
2:40-3:40: PROCESS BRAINSTORMS:
- How to improve discovery sessions/client onboarding?
- How to improve reporting/deliverables?
- GOAL: At least three actionable takeaways from each group
3:40-4:00: CULTURE DISCUSSION Beyond happy hours, what other activities could/should we be doing as a team? We’ll brainstorm potential activities, outings, etc., laying the foundation for a Q3/Q4 “cruise director budget” to be allocated to team building.
After each session, we left some time to share what the groups had discussed and the ideas they came up with. Additionally, we tried to be fairly lax about the timing (thankfully because we fell behind schedule almost immediately!). We needed to stay on track, but we also wanted to leave enough space for open discussion and additional brainstorming. My recommendation: Create an agenda to follow, but build in some flexibility to allow for sidebar conversations.
At Geben, we talk a lot about the need to take a fresh approach to best practices and innovate PR. The hackathon was very much in line with that, helping us develop new ways to approach situations, opportunities to serve our clients even better, and ideas to strengthen our company culture.
To be honest, looking back on it, this was really more of a company retreat than a hackathon. While we left the day with a range of solid, exciting ideas, these are all things that we’ll build and implement in the coming months. The next time we do this — and there will be a next time! — I want to align more with the spirit of a hackathon, where we actually build and complete something in one day. Though, #GebenHacks was an incredible experience and I’m already starting to think about when we should do our next one!