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Corporate Hackathons: the Fine Line Between Engaging and Exploiting

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-announcing-a-hackathon-to-make-me-a-sammich dept.

New submitter dasacc22 writes "Campbell is inviting developers to hack the kitchen with their recipe API. But wait — the API is private, so first you need to submit an idea. If they like the idea, you'll be given access to develop the app. If they like the app, they may give you some money. Otherwise, you can expect to have an app that connects to an API you no longer have access to. The author of this article covers his recent experiences after engaging with Campbell's Adam Kmiec to try and answer the following: '... my question to software developers out there who are thinking of devoting any real effort to a corporate hackathon like this is: "Why?"'"

7 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 5, Funny

    So that Campbell can do to developers what Andy Warhol used to do to his most fervent followers. Use them in new and interesting ways for their own amusement.

    1. Re:Why? by dasacc22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As it was put over on reddit, "Another way to look at this is that if you were to work 3 weeks for 40 hours a week on the app, and have a 1 in 30 chance of winning the $50,000 prize, then your expected value is $13/hour. And that doesn't include the time spent on the initial proposal."

  2. What are *YOU* getting out of it? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's the question to ask. Experience? Fun? Bragging rights? Whatever... if you can't think of anything like that, all you'd be doing is bolster the company's bottom line. Which personally I wouldn't even consider doing unless money was changing hands.

    And in this age of IP-madness, check the rules carefully. If you write code for such an event, are you handing over any rights? Would you still have the right to use that code yourself elsewhere? You might expect so - that's not the point. Make sure. Before getting into any agreements, or spending significant effort on it.

    1. Re:What are *YOU* getting out of it? by westlake · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's the question to ask. Experience? Fun? Bragging rights? Whatever...

      Campbell's has been around since 1869. Revenues $8 billion US a year. A company with a global reach and instant brand name recognition in North America. Clients like that do not fall from the sky ---- if you want their attention you are going to have to work for it.

  3. come up with the next big thing and win 5,000$ by tommeke100 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...That way we don't have to invest > 1M$ in R&D to do it ourselves!

  4. Bottom line: not worth it by lucm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From a probability point of view, here is the true value of that thing:

    (Total prize: $50,000 + $10,000) / (Number of challengers: 30) = $2,000

    The access to the API is limited to 3 weeks. This means that what they offer is the privilege of working for $16 per hour as long as you initially provided a good idea for free.

    Financially speaking, one is better off working at Mikee Dees for 3 weeks and using the wages to buy lottery tickets (you also get free soft drinks while you work if I'm not mistaken).

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  5. Campbell's shows why closed source is bad by kawabago · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Campbell is demonstrating exactly why closed source is bad for everyone. Campbell has wasted no one knows how much time and effort creating a library to create and manage recipes then doesn't want anyone to use it, rendering it completely useless. Campbell's could have saved considerable time creating a recipe application instead. No one gains from a library no one can use. Maintaining a library for no one is a waste of resources. Everyone loses in this closed source stupidity created by Campbell's Soup.