Some 36 hours after the conclusion of the event and after about 11 hours of sleep I am still amazed by the experience that is the Overnight Website Challenge.
In case you missed it, I joined fellow Minnov8er Tim Elliott’s Team, dubbed Full Court Press as a bond to the WordPress platform we used, for the 3rd annual Nerdery sponsored event. This unique gathering pairs 10 person teams of web site professionals with deserving non-profit organizations. Those non-profits, some who have no web presence, receive brand new websites valued at well over $25,000 at the end of the 24 hour period. (Check out the Minnov8 podcast that originated from the Challenge.)
You couldn’t help but be taken by the dedication of these web pros. It’s not easy to spend a relatively short period of time with a “client”, then accelerate the design and creation of a website that accomplishes the goals of the non-profit…much less spending part of it in a sleep deprived state.
This being the third year of the event the folks at The Nerdery do a great job providing what teams need including entertainment and food. The carnival-like atmosphere is definitely not what you would expect from a bunch of web site developers. From human pyramids and massages to oxygen bars and ice cream the 24 hour period was anything but sedate.
The winner of the Challenge was Team Placeholder and they produced an incredible site for Dakota Wicohan, an organization working to preserve the Dakota language. However, all of the teams built great sites and all of the non-profits benefited from this 24 hours of design and production. All of the challenge participants deserve to be applauded for their commitment, ingenuity, patience, and generosity. Remember, these teams accepted only gratitude as their reward. Bravo!
Here’s a brief light-hearted recap of our 24+ hours that started at 7:30am on Saturday and ended just after 10:00am on Sunday…
Arrive and set up (“We didn’t bring enough stuff.”)…Coffee, pastry and bananas, yum…Observe other teams in the room. (These guys brought a lot of stuff, including really big monitors. Note case of monitor envy.)…Arrange tables for work-flow. Choose a “w” shape to reflect dedication to WordPress…Meet rest of team…Rearrange tables for real workflow. (You saw that coming.)…Snacks and coffee…DesignWise Medical draws Team Full Court Press. Brad and Janine appear to be great…Coffee…Get acquainted, planning and design meeting
….DesignWise Medical is great…Note team spreadsheet indicates plenty of Red Bull and coffee consumption (Do we have a problem?)…Coding….Found the ice cream…Team meeting…Coding…Spicy lunch…Browse raffle prizes-iPad, 30″ monitor (more monitor envy), Threadless gift certificates, robot, bacon gift set, light saber and Ton-Ton sleeping bag?…Geek-meter pegged…Grab raffle tickets inside a giant blower…coding…Power past design disagreement…Tim Elliott displays strong penchant for Arnold Palmers (Iced-tea and lemonade)…Coding…Snack time and coffee…Team meeting…Burritos for dinner. Spicy again…Coding…Note funky smell…Minnov8 Podcast-Ask indecipherable question…Coding…Team Meeting…Visit to oxygen bar…Coding…Midnight pizza for 2nd dinner…Is that my colon screaming?…Coding…Team meeting…(Insert unexplained gap in time here.)…Bagel for breakfast…Final touches on site…Present to judges…Prepare for group presentation “just in case”…Watch finalist presentations (we aren’t one)…See raffle prizes awarded (didn’t win one)…Watch winner announcement…Clean up…Walk back to car (glad we didn’t bring a lot of stuff)…nap time!
Special thanks to all of Team Full Court Press: Tim Elliott, Mitchell Hislop, Carl Bliss, Patrick Lewis, Josh Leuze, Crystal Colby, Bharadwaj Parthasarathy, Toby Cryns, Ben Wallace as well as our chosen charity DesignWise Medical’s Brad Slaker and Janine Johnson. Look for their new site soon.