Announcing the Management 2.0 Hackathon

In the spirit of constant experimentation and evolution, we continue to invent new modes of engaging the most adventuresome practitioners and boldest thinkers in tackling the big challenge of making our organizations as resilient, inventive, inspiring, and accountable as they need to be to meet the future.

One of those approaches is a twist on the software world’s hackathon: a burst of intense, coordinated effort designed to generate an enormous amount of progress (or code) in a relatively short time. With the MIX Management Hackathons, we aim to unleash the collective intelligence of progressive management thinkers and doers from around the world in an intense, hands-on, collaborative effort to generate truly fresh and radically practical new ideas and practices.

We recently wrapped up our pilot hackathon: the Communities of Passion Management Hackathon. I’m delighted to report that it was such a success that we are launching a second—even more intense, inclusive, and (we hope) productive—management hackathon today.

Before I get to that, a few words on the Communities of Passion hackathon, which was ably moderated by our own community guide, Chris Grams. Designed to tackle the crucial challenge of widespread disengagement at work—and to explore the power of shared passion as a great multiplier of human effort—the hackathon turned a collection of some sixty contributors into a genuine community of passion.

Following a meticulously crafted methodology, Chris and his compatriots led this group of volunteers on a journey of exploration, insight generation, and invention over a number of weeks. Just as extraordinary as the insights, hacks, and experimental designs the group produced was the fact that these sixty individuals volunteered their time, energy, and imagination even in the midst of extraordinarily demanding “real” jobs. The MIX hackers included the president of an alternative energy company in Cleveland, a futurist from Melbourne, a communications professor at the University of Southern California, a management consultant from Milan, a product manager at Mozilla, a 12-time author and a college student from Caracas, Venezuela, among many others.

You can learn more about their experience and the progress they made on the subject of communities of passion in the Communities of Passion Hack Report (PDF), which, like everything in the hackathon is a product of collaboration.

Introducing the Management 2.0 Hackathon

We’ve taken all of the deep lessons and practical tweaks from our first round of group hacking and incorporated them in an even more robust approach for our next effort: the Management 2.0 Hackathon.

Over the last decade, the Internet has had a profound impact on business. It has spawned a slew of new business models and has helped make operating models vastly more efficient. But, more than winning business models, the emerging social technologies and undergirding principles of the Web offer up a new emanagement model for making organizations fit for the 21st century.

Thanks to the Web, we can imagine wholly new organizational life forms—where coordination happens without centralization, contribution matters more than credentials, power flows to those who add value, the wisdom of the many trumps the authority of the few, new ideas get amplified rather than crushed, performance is judged by your peers, contribution is opt-in rather than commanded, and the default is to share information rather than to hoard it.

The Management 2.0 Hackathon is designed to explore and invent progressive practices and disruptive ideas when it comes to how the governing principles and practical tools of the Web can make our organizations more adaptable, innovative, inspiring, and accountable.

Along with our partners Saba and the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, we invite you to join this effort today. You can hop on to the hackathon platform here and sign up to learn more about the logistics (hint: the hackathon is designed as a series of sprints to allow even the busiest folks to make a meaningful contribution) and to get inspired by watching Gary Hamel’s introductory videos and exploring the orientation resources.

What’s in it for you? A chance to:

• Be part of a bold new experiment in inventing the future of our organizations
• Make a real impact by inventing radical yet practical hacks to current management practices
• Get recognized for your ideas and contribution on a big stage
• Learn directly from some of the world’s most celebrated management thinkers and doers
• Work in close collaboration with your peers from every realm of endeavor to make progress on an important problem

We hope you’ll join us in this important effort—we expect hundreds of energetic and inspired management innovators from around the world to take part. As always, let us know if you have any questions or concerns here in the comments or directly on the hackathon platform.