After the September hack day in Sunnyvale, I wrote a wrapup of the event. It was one of those Doogie Howser moments where you’re caught up in what has just happened and you need to make sure you write it down somewhere. Hack day hasn’t been around for that long but it’s impact on my life has been immeasurable. The excitement of my first internal hack day, the recognition of my peers in my second internal hack day, the pride of releasing my hard work to the public at the first open hack day and finally the epic events of the unforgettable London hack day. Hack day is a special thing. If you attend a hack day, internal or external, and come away from it unchanged then you clearly weren’t at a Yahoo! hack day. The London hack day will be talked about for years to come because we were struck by lightning. Nobody will forget that event, even if you didn’t attend. And while that was impressive and memorable, that’s not what I’ll remember from hack day.
I’ll remember being out until 3am in London pubs with members of the Yahoo! Developer Network. Such a great bunch of people…incredibly smart, wonderfully friendly and wickedly entertaining. I can’t imagine a better team to hang out with both at work and away from it. YDN super intern AJ Arora blogged that interning for the developer network was his dream job. Working for that team is everyone’s dream job, whether they know it or not. You’ll not find a more passionate group of individuals anywhere and I’m proud to have a close affiliation with them in the work I do for Yahoo! Mail.
I’ll remember the joint Yahoo! UK/US beanbag line during the Friday setup. On this trip I met a bunch of fantastic people who work in the London office. People like Anil Patel who organized a massive group of volunteers and kept hack day running smoothly despite the hiccups. These are people I never would have met without hack day and we all work for the same company. Hack day didn’t just unite hackers from all over, it united Yahoo!’s from all over.
I’ll remember Ash, once again, wrecking my demo during my talk. Not because he wrecked it, but because he was there. From the very top of the organization Yahoo! has embraced hack day. That couldn’t be any clearer with Ash and Filo spending so much time at both the Sunnyvale and London hack days. In Sunnyvale, Ash and Filo popped into classroom 6, where I had set up shop, at 2 in the morning to see what was going on. London was no different…they came to the pre-party on Friday, showed up early for the talks on Saturday, stayed late into the night hanging out, showed up early Sunday to check out the progress and sat through 73 hack demos to judge them and award prizes afterwards. It’s tremendous that an event that means so much to those of us who work on the event gets so much support from the major decision makers in the company.
Photo courtesy of ChameleonGreen.
I’ll remember people from the BBC, like Matt Cashmore and Ian Forrester. They were fantastic co-hosts for the event, we really couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to team up with. Matt was a man possessed, constantly in motion taking care of something. I bet he slept really well after the event. He’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Ian likewise…together we hacked a WiFi adapter to get the Nabaztag bunnies on the network. I’m incredibly impressed by the BBC people and I can’t wait to get together with them again the next time I’m in London (or the next time they’re in Sunnyvale…hint, hint, nudge, nudge).
Photo courtesy of Bahi P.
At the end of the event I’m taking away the connections I made with other people. The Sunnyvale hack day was a major step in my professional life, giving me a sense of pride and accomplishment that will last forever. The London hack day was a huge step in my social life, building friendships that (I hope) will last forever. Who knows what I’ll take away from the next hack day? Every hack day is different and that’s what is so wonderful about hack day. Expect the unexpected and you’ll never be disappointed.
3am? Wasn’t it 4am?
It was good to have you there — thanks for coming!
Maybe for you, but Kent and I bugged out at 3am. Perhaps you were still waiting for someone to step up to your “become a VP challenge”.
Wo! You changed your blog theme! Honestly… when I came… I thought I typed the wrong address;)
Yeah, I decided I wanted to be able to use the new WordPress widget support, which meant I had to pick a theme that played nice with widgets.