Yahoo has a very cool tradition named Hack Day. For one day, every developer in Yahoo is allowed (and encouraged) to develop anything he wants to. In the end of the day, a group of judges pick the best ideas that were developed and showcase them in front the all company. Some of the projects may even become, well... real projects.
This is a very cool idea I think other companies should adapt. But now it seems Yahoo decided to do even better.
On Friday, September 29th Yahoo will open up Hack Day for every developer out there who want to join, and not just for Yahoo employees. The all event will be accompanied with music and parties (full details can be found on http://hackday.org).
Now this is a really great unconventional thinking from Yahoo. In one day they will get to first publicize their platform, promote their brand, attract great developers to their campus and maybe convince them to stay and on top of all - get great free new ideas for the future of Yahoo.
Still... I wish next time Yahoo will take Hack Day even one step further down the road - a virtual Hack Day.
I bet there are many developers around the world (me included) that would love to go to participate in this kind of event, but simply live too far from Yahoo headquarters. So instead of bringing them to Hack Day, why not bring Hack Day to them?
With the use of the right combination of tools - video conferences, VOIP platform, IM, some hosting servers and CodePlex/CodeProject or similar platform, you have everything you need to organize people around the world to team up together and develop great ideas.
Instead of harnessing the mind of a few thousands that will actually come to Yahoo, you can harness the minds and hands of tens or hundreds of thousands.
Yes. It could be expensive, but I'm sure there will be a lot of companies that will gladly give their platforms for the event, in order to promote their brands.
Now that I'm think of it, I'm sure there are some platforms out there that already gives you everything you need out of the box... and if not... hey. I just gave you an idea for the next start up :)
