Last weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in #blackhack, a hackathon held in Atlanta for the black tech community. Hackathons allow me to binge on the things that I’m very familiar with: building, teamwork, healthy competition, sleep deprivation and consumption of copious amounts of food! The event, thrown by #BlackGirlsHack (they like hashtags), brought together developers, designers and startup entrepreneurs from as far away as Washington, D.C.

The goal: to build mobile and web applications for local nonprofits and tech startups with black founders in 24 hours.

The Hype is real!

The event was hosted at Hypepotamus, which offers fantastic co-working space in the heart of Midtown Atlanta near Technology Square for free. Its aim is to bring great developers, designers, storytellers and innovators together into one place to foster collaboration, education and creation.

THE Event

The hackathon started off with a public meet-and-greet, and the competition began on Friday night, with startup founders pitching their ideas to the hackers and designers. Projects ranged from developing features for an existing site to building an entire minimum viable product from scratch. Once the teams were chosen, everyone not hacking or building was kicked out so we could focus and eat all the food. Once the 24 hours were up, each team presented and was judged by a panel of entrepreneurs and investors.

My team took home the first-place prize for Airfordable, and we won the prize for best startup idea. Our product allows users to book a flight and accept payments; not bad for 24 hours of work! Huge props go out to Airfordable founder Ama Marfo for an amazing idea, and to Christopher Walker for creating and executing the game plan.

The winning Airfordable team at #blackgirlshack Hack at the Hype Hackathon. From left to right: Darren Pottinger, Ama Marfo, Christopher Walker and Don Pottinger.

I’m happy to report that all proceeds for #blackhack went to Black Girls Code, who even took part in the competition by building a content management system. In addition, the support from the entire tech community and sponsors was spectacular.

Final thoughts

The dearth of black representation in the tech startup community is already well-discussed and over-analyzed, so I won’t harp on the topic. Dr. Paul Judge, who happened to be one of the #blackhack judges, authored an excellent TechCrunch piece if you are interested in reading more about the subject. He shares his thoughts on the current situation and proposes solutions to improve the state of black tech entrepreneurship.

What I will say is that #blackhack demonstrated that there is a larger presence of black tech entrepreneurs in the area than I realized. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing an even larger turnout at the next #blackhack, and I expect more developers with deep skills in languages like Ruby and Objective-C to be in attendance!

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Building products as a Highgroover and a co-founder of Body Boss has taught me that saying “No” to scope creep can mean the difference between a bloated, unfinished project and the successful release of an MVP.

As a former Big 4 consultant, I was taught that scope creep is ugly, and a supervisor once told me that it in an ideal world, it should never happen.

In reality, saying “No” to your client’s inane/insane feature request could end with you getting scolded, rolled off a project—or even worse, left without a job. So adding additional scope to a project was a no-no, but saying “No” to a client’s feature requests was detrimental to your career. Paradox much?

Learning to say “No” is hard. Learning how to say “No” effectively is even harder.

Before joining Highgroove, I was a “Yes” man.

Client A:

“Hey Don, I know you’ve been working on this feature for the past three weeks. I was thinking… funny thing… it came to me while I was on the back nine earlier today. [Insert feature request, aka scope creep] I know this is a big change, but can you add this feature by tomorrow at 8 a.m.?”

Don:

“Sure!”

Needless to say, these situations tend not to work out well for anyone involved. Aggressive deadlines and scope creep don’t mix.

Just Say “No”

For many of our clients at Highgroove, the goal is to release a minimum viable product (MVP). It’s our job to help them figure out the best route to acheive that goal, even if that means saying “No.”

Client B:

“Hey Don, I was thinking… I’d love if we could add all the bells and whistles for this release.”

Don:

“We could definitely do that. Hmm, take a look at Pivotal Tracker. If we add all the bells and whistles, it will push out X feature past our MVP release marker. You mentioned that X feature is crucial to the MVP.”

Client B:

“Yeah, you’re right. But I think all the bells and whistles would really put us over the top.”

Don:

“In that case, let’s schedule all the bells and whistles to be done after we complete the features for the MVP. If we end up having extra time with the allocated budget, getting it done will be the icing on the cake.”

Client B:

“That sounds like an excellent idea.”

Highgroove is great at saying “No” effectively, without using the word itself. It helps that we have tools like Pivotal Tracker that help us manage and communicate the potential effects of scope creep. More importantly, we work with awesome clients that understand what a creeper scope creep can be.

In what ways do you prevent scope creep with your projects?

Image credit: Peter Blanchard

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One of the great things about Highgroove is our commitment to balancing work and free time. However, when I decided to embark on a month-long European adventure, I was determined to give the international working vacation a shot. I thought that I had prepared myself for the challenge of working abroad, but what ended up happening surprised me. Read on to discover three lessons I learned from my working vacation in Barcelona.

Prepare for the worst | Prepararse para lo peor

Leading up to my trip, I worked out a plan with my client about how best to spend my time between work and vacation. Since there was no hard deadline for completion of the project, we decided that it would be best for everyone if I worked only a few days during the first week of my vacation and enjoyed the three remaining weeks without having to worry about getting work done. I also consulted Chris’ excellent post on working vacations and talked with Highgroovers who had tried them.

At home, our trip preparations went smoothly. We’d booked a direct flight and reserved an apartment with WiFi. When my wife and I took off, I felt confident that I’d be able to be super productive as soon as we touched down. However, the realities of an international working vacation proved to be much different.

We arrived in Barcelona safely, but our luggage didn’t make the final boarding call and was still in Atlanta (one of the perks of traveling on buddy passes). Hours were spent futilely waiting for luggage to turn up on the baggage claim belt, filing a claim for the lost luggage, and traveling back to the airport to retrieve our luggage the next day. Good thing we had packed extra clothes in our carry-on luggage, and buying toiletries was trivial.

Although I had an excellent apartment to work from, WiFi was unavailable for the first few days of my stay, despite previous assurances. Hunting for WiFi was not only difficult and frustrating, but it also turned out to be unproductive. I had to juggle between using the impractically slloowww Barcelona city-wide wifi service or trekking over to a friend’s apartment to use their Internet. Both options were less than ideal. Once WiFi became available at my apartment, I was able to get a lot of work done at my leisure while enjoying the cool sea breeze.

Lesson learned: Prepare to be surprised by the unexpected. Also, finding a cool, comfortable and quiet place to work—one with a solid Internet connection—is crucial to the success of your international working vacation.

2. Manage your time effectively | Administra tu rato eficazmente

While we work hard at Highgroove, we also understand that there are adventures to be had, especially in a city rich with attractions like Barcelona.

I found that plugging away from late morning to late afternoon, Barcelona time, worked very well for me. I was able to work without interruption for the first half of the day, and could interact with my client and other Highgroovers during the second half. Furthermore, I could work without distractions, since my wife ventured out with our Barcelonian friend during my work hours.

Lesson learned: Work diligently and effectively for a set period of time, so that you don’t miss out on the amazing experiences that your vacation spot has to offer.

3. Enjoy your vacation! | ¡Disfruta tus vacaciones!

If you are anything like us, we really really enjoy our work. So much so that we had to make vacations mandatory. Read between the lines, and you’ll see that we mean that enjoying your vacation is required. As a result, the decision was made that I would work only the first three days of my vacation. I’ll be spending the rest of the time focused on exploring Spain, France, Italy and Greece by car, train and plane.

Lesson learned: Don’t work if you don’t have to!

Despite all of my preparations, effective time management and commitment to enjoy my vacation, I found my first attempt at an international working vacation to be a bit trickier than I expected. I believe that an international working vacation can be mastered with enough time and practice. However, it’s not something that I would recommend unless you plan to plant yourself in one location for an extended period of time.

Have you worked internationally? Where did you go, and what lessons have you learned from your experience?

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