2. Hello!
I am Taylor Barnett
Currently a Developer Evangelist at Keen
IO, Organized HackTX for 3 years, Trying
to make hackathons more inclusive
You can find me at @taylor_atx
23. Promotional timeline
1 Month Until the Week Before:
▣ Facebook posts and email lists
▣ Update the website with details
▣ Give talks
▣ Highlight hackers
25. ▣ Bitcamp - Marketing to Humans, not Robots:
https://youtu.be/VSFN9P1bZtM
▣ Tess Rinearson - Hackathon Stories:
https://medium.com/hackers-and-
hacking/hackathon-stories-2077482865f3
▣ Application Development Initiative - When
"awesome" is isolating: Making Hackathons
Accessible: https://youtu.be/3L68tkWIc30
Other Resources:
26. Thanks!
Any questions?
You can find me at
@taylor_atx
taylor@keen.io
SlidesCarnival: This template is free to use under Creative Commons Attribution license.
Notas del editor
This talk is:
Promotional plans are kind of dry
Change the way we attract students to our events to find and welcome more inclusive attendees
Easily forgotten for newer organizers
This talk is not:
Telling you how to graphically design your marketing materials.
I’m personally not great at that, but I can give a few tips on setting the tone
I’ll give resources to help with this at the end
Those are great, but they are not enough
Why am I giving this talk?
Narrowed down in three areas
These are pretty high level ideas, so let’s break it down into actual things you can do
You need to get on their calendar because it fills up
Also don’t want to be on the same day as one of their events
Ask to get 5-10 min at one of their general meetings and make it mutually beneficial
When speaking at a meeting:
Explain what it is
Why it *might* matter to them
Be open for questions and more explanation
Try to lower the barrier of entry as much as possible
Don’t want to go and intimidate a whole organization
Which leads to another great thing to do...
Friends with a capital F
These Friends can post and email on your event’s behalf
Doesn’t need to be a hacker but they do need to understand the event and have similar values
The key is that they are trusted within a community, organization, or school department
A recommendation by someone you trust goes a long way
The more tailored the message, the better and more successful it is
Enlist the help from your Friends to post in Facebook groups and advertise through email lists on campus
We need to do a better job of this because copy and pasting the same thing in 10 different Facebook groups is not targeted or personal at all
It’s spam
The posts should be specific to your audience you are talking and express why it might interest and matter to them
This is an opportunity to make a connection between two different groups or communities, use it wisely
Be careful to not make mistakes of assuming certain things about your audience and respect guidelines that group, organization, or community has
Be thoughtful
Use to the same messaging to stay consistent and build momentum
You don’t always realize it but wording and tone you use in promotion of their event can make a big difference
Less “hacking”, less non quantifiable words, and more welcoming words like “creating,” “building,” and “making”
When you think of it, hacking is an art form so let’s approach it more like that
Talks can show a focus on learning and help newer hackers
Sometimes there’s a barrier that they don’t feel they don’t know enough to attend, talks can help lower that barrier
Helps include more hackers
Stories can say a lot
We are lucky to be here at Hackcon to talk about our experiences and values, but this is a way to do it outside of Hackcon and to promote our awesome community members and our events
Writing posts to highlight hackers is a great way to have stories “live on”
Example from PennApps in 2013
https://medium.com/@pennapps/team-profile-trachoma-tracker-5068cbf3aeff
Show where someone came from, not everyone was coding at age 12, or is instantly is a hackathon winner
How? Interviews, general reporting, photo essays
Can also be something to pass off to the press that communicates your values without them doing it for you or incorrectly expressing them