Performing hackathons as a way of positioning boundary organizations

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare two boundary organizations situated in Malmö (Sweden) and oriented toward opening production. Particularly, it looks at how the two organizations tried to establish and communicate their boundaries during their official opening events, which were structured according to the format of hackathon. Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted an ethnographic approach and followed the two events, observing and interacting with organizers and participants. The findings reported here draw upon data collected through direct observation, the authors’ experience as participants, unstructured conversations, e-mail exchanges. Findings – This paper analyzes the two events in order to show how different cultures of opening production lead to different ways of performing hackathons and, consequently, how these events affect the process of establishing and communicating the organizational boundaries. Originality/value – The paper looks at the potential of events structured according to the format of hackathon as a way for boundary organizations to position themselves.

A System of Innovation to Activate Practices on Open Data: The Open4Citizens Project

“…The hackathon is certainly an effective tool to support such a process, especially if it is based on the construction of the ecosystem in the pre-hack phase and followed by a solid support to the development of the outcomes in the post-hack phase. This temporal articulation (pre-hack, hackathon and post-hack phases) goes beyond the typical duration of such events (24-48 hours [9]). The hackathon per se is an accelerated and compressed learning process that works very well to raise the awareness of the potential of open data, but is often not sufficient to consolidate the process of learning that the generation of a practice would need.…”

“…Traditionally, hackathons are a well-known strategy to accelerate innovation, by grouping IT experts in a "pressure cooker" event, which in few intense days can produce innovative solutions [9]. The presence of IT experts in hackathons is giving a relatively high certainty to develop interesting solutions; the absence of possible users of the hackathons' outcomes, however, also implies an equally high possibility that such solutions do not match real and concrete problems.…”

“…Especially in the early days, hackathons were self-organized gatherings, where a group of people (typically, IT experts) would meet for 24 or 48 hours and work on issues of common concern. The organization of such early hackathons was quite loose and spontaneous [9]. Conversely, the hackathons of O4C required a long preparation process, which is needed to make sure that an ecosystem of relevant actors is gathered in the hackathon event: this means a long preparatory work before the hackathon and a post-hack process ( Figure 1).…”

Designing for the Level of ‘Service as Systemic Institutions’

“…In some cases, Living Labs have a tangible, physical dimension. Over the past ten years, the Living Lab, Fabriken, located in Malmö in the south of Sweden, has been in operation, offering the public free access to a workshop equipped with a laser cutter, 3D printer and other prototyping tools (Seravalli and Simeone 2016). In addition, Fabriken also hosts a variety of events open to the public and organised either by the Living Lab managers or by the local community of users.…”

Researching the Emergence of 3D Printing, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and FabLabs in the Global South: A Scoping Review and Research Agenda on Digital Innovation and Fabrication Networks

“… Ethnographic case study to conceptualise shared-community workshops and what they mean for the people who use them (Lindtner, 2014;Williams & Hall, 2015;Seravalli & Simeone, 2016). …”