evangelizing your thing (extended edition)

Evangelizing Your “Thing”Lessons learned bringing hardware devices to hackathons

by Rex St. John (@rexstjohn)

Rex St. John (@rexstjohn)Internet of Things Evangelist, Intel

We brought Intel Edison to more than 30 collegiate events last year.

Many of the developers we met had never seen a Linux terminal before.

We made these developers successful.

And so can you!

Here is what you need to know.

An evangelist’s job is to maximize projects built with their technologies.

Their job is to convince developers to choose their devices and finish projects.

They are not salespeople, they are there for the good of the event.

That means helping people no matter what technology they choose.

Developers engage like this (hands on).

When developers receive a gadget, their brains turn off.

No one reads at a hackathon.

That’s why it is called a “hackathon.”

Reading is work. They came to have fun.

If you have important information to communicate, you must do it up front.

Developers will listen for a bit if they know they are getting hardware.

But you need to keep it short. (45 minutes or less ideally)

So do it in the first few hours.

The first day of a hackathon is the most

important.

85% of your work as an evangelist happens in

the first few hours.

No one knows about your “thing.”

You need to get them excited to use your

product.

On the first day, people are still forming teams.

By the second day, developers have made

their choices.

It is often “too late” for you to convince them to use “your

thing.”

(although there are always exceptions)

You are not the only company at the event

with a “cool thing”

It’s a good idea to approach folks and

asking them questions…

“So what are you thinking of building

this weekend?

“Have you built many hardware hacks

before?

“What programming languages do you

know?

“JavaScript?

“Cool, we have this cool device called “Intel Edison” that lets you program hardware using

JavaScript!

“We are doing a workshop after the keynote, stop by if you want to get a device.

“We also have a prize for best use of Edison this

weekend, hope to see you there.

You get the idea.

You must market your device at the start of the event to build interest.

You should also do a workshop.

A collegiate hackathon may have 500 – 1,600

participants.

There is only one of you.

If you hand out devices without a workshop, expect to answer the same questions dozens of times.

The average team is 4 people, 40 devices mean 120 developers

potentially interacting with your gadget.

That translates into a lot of redundant questions…

Where are the docs? How do I plug it in? Which USB do I

need to plug in? Where are the docs? Which USB do I

need to plug in? How do I get it online? Which USB do I

need to plug in? How do I get it online? How do I get it

online? Which USB do I need to plug in? How do I get it

online?

You should really do a workshop to cover these questions.

You should also have an intro slide deck for the

keynote.

No more than 5-10 slides, don’t waste

people’s time.

Don’t spend 15 minutes rambling.

Developers came to build fun projects, tell them how they

can use your thing to do that.

Introduce yourself, your product, what people can do with your product and your

prize.

Then say “join me for a workshop after this to

get devices.”

The end. Keep it simple, not

boring.

Advanced evangelists often have interactive demos with

audience participation and live coding.

You are a technical resource to support the participants, even if

they have questions on other topics.

You are an ambassador on behalf of your company into the developer community.

Leave a good impression.

Why do hackathons matter?

Hackathons are now a college sport(and students are in charge)

“1,500 hackathons planned in 2014”–Vivek Ravisankar (@rvivek)

*a non-complete list of sponsors for HackGT, in it’s first year!

Competition for developer attention is intense

Attendence Total Prize Value

MHacks ~1,300 ~$31,000

PennApps X ~1,300 ~$30,000

CalHacks ~1,200 ???

HackGT ~700 ~$60,000+

HackRU ~700 ~$10,000+

DubHacks ~500 (capped) ~$10,000+

HackTX ~500 ???

Attendance is taking off(a few events we attended this year)

Hardware + wearables stand outBe the first device students learn to hack on

Developers cross-pollinate + talkStudents may attend dozens of events before graduating (travel

reimbursements)

Some Lessons

Developer Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only MetricDeveloper Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only MetricDeveloper Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only MetricDeveloper Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only MetricDeveloper Success Is The Only Metric

Developer Success Is The Only Metric

Lesson #1: Developer Success Is The Only Thing That Matters

Not impressions, conversions, devices distributed etc

The target metric is “projects built per device distributed”

If you hand out 40 devices and get 3 projects, you are

probably doing something wrong.

We averaged 50% or greater projects per device issued. Sometimes 80% or more.

These metrics can vary wildly based on the schools and participants, nature of the

hackathon.

Hardware focused hackathons at schools with strong EE

departments often did well.

Lesson #2: “Hackathon ready” is a higher standard of ready

If your product is “hackathon ready,” then it is ready.

Lesson #3: Hackathons are not a branding exercise

Looks like marketing, smells like marketing, sounds like marketing…not marketing

“We traveled 2,000 miles to be here and spent 72 hours for nothing because of you”

Lesson #4: Your device can ruin a team’s entire event

We are not perfect, sometimes technology

doesn’t work well.

Apologize and take the blame and promise to see

that the problems are fixed.

“I am going to send an email about this now, we will make

sure this doesn’t happen again

“Can you give me your email? I will follow up with you when I

hear back about this next week

Consider sending them a “make good” item if you can do so

DXDeveloper Experience

Introducing HDXHardware Developer Experience

HDX is synonymous with strong performance at hackathons

How do you achieve HDX?

Work backwards from “hackathon conditions” to your product

8-36 hours to build a project with your hardware, no time to waste

Power on, Wi-Fi, BLE in less than 10 minutes

Expect HTML based login screens, isolation mode to be turned on

Your “thing” must handle bad Wi-Fi gracefully, be useful regardless

Tips & Tricks

Pro-Tip: Bring your own Wi-Fi routers.

Collegiate Wi-Fi tends to be terrible, infested with

HTML login screens.

This makes it really hard to build hardware projects on

most devices.

Make sure to also provide Wi-Fi at the end of the event during

project demonstrations.

You can usually find open ethernet jacks.

Pro-Tip: Load useful software onto USB sticks to

avoid large downloads.

Start developers 30-50% of the way to their goal

Sample code and prefabs for common use cases

Finished Projects = Happy Developers

This is the only marketing you need to worry about

Ration hardware (conditional loans)Hardware is for teams who are building, not stuffing in backpacks

Set up a supply tableExpect people to show up with nothing

Document, share relentlesslyDon’t let your success disappear down the “memory hole”

If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.

Collect team names, take pictures of *every* project built with your technology, save links to projects posted online. Hackathon success is

ephemeral, you need to keep a record of what happened or it will disappear.

Offer prizes.

Prizes should be geeky in nature, developers don’t want

money, they want fun toys and things to play with.

Generally we spent $450 on three prizes for a team

of up to four per event.

Prizes are important to motivate developers to use your products.

Tell stories about your productBe prepared to inspire developers with ideas

Developer Success = Your SuccessDeveloper success is the only metric

Celebrate developers.

Use social media channels to reward developers with public recognition, doing this regularly leaves a strong positive impression

on your organization.

Learn.

Ask developers to share their code, chances are solutions built by one developer will be needed by other developers at other events. Be

proactive about documenting solutions to common problems.

Forketing

And read this.