As you might have seen on our Facebook page or Twitter feed, Team Shutterstock survived our first company-wide hackathon! For those wondering what exactly is a hackathon, Wikipedia defines it as “an event when programmers meet to do collaborative computer programming.” In our case, it wasn’t just programmers, but all Shutterstock employees – from Marketing to Human Resources (and everything in between), who formed 36 teams and worked around the clock for 24-hours straight from July 21-22. The only requirement was that we had to create something that would improve the company or site experience for either designers or contributors. In other words, no boundaries or boss approvals – just passionate employees working on their own passion projects. Check out our first video teaser, showing the thinking that led to the event, and check our facebook page and blog for more teasers and a final timelapse recap in the coming weeks.
Hack to the Future – Timelapse Teaser No. 1 from Shutterstock on Vimeo.
Our founder and CEO, Jon Oringer, kicked off the event with a nod to the early days of Shutterstock, when, one night in 2003, an all night “hack” gave birth to Shutterstock. That same thinking – that one person or a few people can make a big difference – is what was behind this modern-day hackathon.
Being that we are a few people larger than the Shutterstock of 2003, we decided to sprinkle some motivational fun into the 24-hour experiment (there was a photo booth, confessional, midnight ice-cream sundays, nerf wars, and video games – just to name a few).
People worked around the clock, and when the Red Bull ran out, a few crawled off to remote corners & couches to catch a little shut-eye…
At the end of our 24-hour hackathon, we all gathered at an off-site location and presented our ideas to our peers. Needless to say, it was a thrilling, tiring, and energizing experiment and one I don’t think any of us will ever forget. Ideas ranged from new sharing tools, to entirely new websites, to new contributor applications. Many of these ideas will become real company-initiatives and we’ll be sharing them with you over the coming weeks. (And don’t forget to check back often for more video teasers!)
*True to the heritage of Shutterstock, we crowd-sourced these photos from a few members of our staff. A huge thanks to Hani Hong and Chris Becker for their contributions.
