By five, the hackathon was supposed to become a party.
The day itself belonged to the Reonomy team. Normal work could move aside while people made something, tested an idea, or joined a group they did not usually work with.
The office had only just become usable after a full weekend of internet and phone work. The network was now “working swell,” which was a much better condition for an internal hackathon than the office had been in two weeks earlier.
We planned for the serious and less serious parts at the same time. Somebody offered to bring an Xbox. I voted yes and said we could figure out the games. Mario Kart came up. I love me some Mario Kart.
I had to decline another plan that day because the hackathon was all day. My alternative offer was simple: come by the office, have beers, and eat with us. I told the people who had helped with the network that they should drop in for drinks or just hang if they wanted to kill some time.
The party did not erase the work. We were still in the office late enough that “working / party” was the best available description. People had built things, and a few of them were more than throwaway demos.
The follow-up came a few days later. I wanted the top two hacks discussed as possible real product work. We needed to turn each into a spec, understand the effort, and see what it would take to bring it to life in production. Another prototype already had people talking about what came next.
That did not mean every hack deserved a roadmap slot. The point was to look at what the team had made before the energy disappeared and decide whether any of it should keep moving.
The new office had handled a full day of code, games, food, drinks, and people hanging around well into the evening. Two ideas survived long enough to earn another conversation.
That was a solid Thursday.