{"id":12861,"date":"2015-10-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/post\/cleveland-learnings-from-a-hackathon-noob\/"},"modified":"2021-12-15T00:12:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T05:12:22","slug":"cleveland-learnings-from-a-hackathon-noob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/cleveland-learnings-from-a-hackathon-noob\/","title":{"rendered":"Learnings from a Hackathon Noob"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sept. 26-27, Centric participated in the inaugural Cleveland Medical Hackathon\u00a0at the Global Center for Health Innovation. The goal was to build an app in 24 hours that would improve care, reduce costs and enhance overall patient experience. The team included experienced hackers and first-timers, and not all developers. So what did this disparate group think of the event? What were the lessons learned? In this series of articles, hear their unique perspective on this enlightening event.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Cleveland Medical Hackathon was my first hackathon, and I found it an enlightening and humbling experience.<\/h2>\n

Below are the lessons I took away from the event.<\/p>\n

Embrace the Spirit of the Hackathon<\/h2>\n

Gravitate towards the idea that most interests you. You can\u2019t substitute passion, as it drives the desire to commit the next 24 hours to the project.<\/p>\n

Don’t Be Shy<\/h2>\n

The subject matter experts are excited about sharing the issues facing their industry. Be outgoing, and use this as an opportunity to educate yourself about a problem. For example, I learned about the penalties associated with hospital readmissions as it pertains to Medicare reimbursement. This is an issue I likely wouldn\u2019t have been exposed to outside of a client project.<\/p>\n

Further, solutions to address this particular problem could be of great value to companies operating in that space.<\/p>\n

Do your Due Diligence<\/h2>\n

Spend a few minutes on Google doing quick-and-dirty business research: Has this idea been done or tried before? If so, why did it fail \u2013 or succeed? Is there a way to improve upon it, or make it better? Based on what you find, don\u2019t be afraid to change course and go in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Set Yourself Up for Success<\/h2>\n

Trying to learn a new technology or tool during the event can be challenging. Be flexible to the role within your team, but also be realistic about your strengths \/ weaknesses.<\/p>\n

I tried to learn a new BI & Analytics tool called Tableau to display our sample data, but I stumbled through and couldn\u2019t complete basic tasks which resulted in increased frustration. I reverted back to using a technology with which I was more familiar and found myself much happier \u2013 and more efficient.<\/p>\n

Learn to Settle<\/h2>\n

Solutions aren\u2019t going to be perfect; there won\u2019t be enough time. The idea is to develop a rough draft of a solution \u2013 failure is an acceptable outcome. You may find that your solution or idea isn\u2019t technically or economically feasible, but the value is in the exploration.<\/p>\n

Colin Skopinski is an Architect for Centric\u00a0Cleveland.\u00a0 He primarily works with the Microsoft technology stack.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colin Skopinski shares the lessons he learned while participating in the Cleveland Medical Hackathon – his first hackathon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","resource-categories-blogs"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-09-25 21:15:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12861"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}