The group that organizes them has recognized a few powerful factors:
- The organizers are diverse and have a wide array of skills
I didnt start the group that I have collaborated with, but I immediately tried to contribute to the best of my ability. We have people who are good at promoting, thinking about diversity, good a logistics, organizing speakers, etc.
- Intentionally diverse groups in gender/skill/background
We spend time to open applications, then manually select the participants who are accepted. From there, we keep a high touch relationship with 100-150 people, so that they are excited even before attending.
- Pre-crafted/well-rounded teams
Based on applications, we make pre-crafted teams that have balanced skill sets. We make these teams based on our understanding of the participants, and their own experiences.
- (most importantly) NO PRIZES
We make our events based on the valued gained from meeting and working with people who are fundamentally interesting. We build the concept of the event based around getting cool people together to work on cool problems.
For the past two years, we have welcomed well over 600+ people in 4 different cities.
- Partner with awesome organizations with strong brand names
We spend significant amount of time to raise sponsorship. We make a point to involve cool organizations in the space, so that the event attracts high quality participants. Even if a great organization that we like cant sponsor money, we try to involve them as a partner in someway, so we can involve their staff. This has always paid off.
---------------------------
Reference:
- http://hackingjournalism.com/mobile/ (Based on mobile journalism at MIT in Cambridge)
- http://hackingjournalism.com/video/ (Based on video production at Conde Nast in New York)
- http://hackingjournalism.com/ (Based on data science at Washington Post in DC)
- http://codexhackathon.com (Based on book publishing at SF and Boston)
- http://audiohackation.com (Based on podcasting with ThisAmericanLife in New York)