Hack the MIX Hackathon

Amplify our Applicability Action as Proof the MIX Works

By Aaron Anderson on February 8, 2022

I find a great deal of fantastic content on the MIX. I enjoy the interchanges with other MIXers.  What's absent are the success stories.   Evidence where some one (or company/organization) has taken any one or a number of the ideas posted at the MIX and found it to work, fail, or needed modification is rarely presented unless the original post is a case itself.

I wrote about three legs of a stool in a hack last year where I stipulate that "applicability is the true measure of worth."  We are rich in content; the first leg of the stool. We are short on results - the applicability use cases - that prove or disprove these ideas are useful.  What we need to do is allow people to post stories about how they have tried to use and apply the different ideas, and then amplify these actions as the proof cases that these ideas aren't simply a lot of creative thinkers simply shouting into the wind. 

As we amplify our applicability action, these successes can resonate across audiences, and possibly be used to replicate those successes elsewhere.  It's only when the content proves applicable that we can then "monetize" the whole platform.

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alberto-blanco's picture

Hi Aaron, I like your idea a lot. It even inspired me to complement my particular view of the subject. Here’s my idea which is also my build-up of yours:

http://www.mixhackathon.org/content/let%E2%80%99s-give-hacks-room-grow-0...

chris-grams's picture

I like this idea a lot Aaron! Maybe there could be a way that a reader of a hack could add a "build" on that hack once they've tried it in their organization, where they could tell the story of what worked and didn't work in their case. That way anyone who was reading the originally hack could immediate see both 1) the number of people who were considering trying out the hack in their organizations and 2) the people who had actually implemented the hack in their organizations, and a place where you could read their review of how it worked.

Even better, if you could see a lit of the people who are considering or have implemented the hack already, perhaps there would be a way to contact them so you could get more advice before you try it in your own organization.

One of the things folks who know me complain that I'm too much of an idea guy, with may be a fault of mine. I would enjoy getting directly into the weeds with people who are more action oriented, who say, perhaps are not "idea guys," but hard core do-ers. Perhaps the next challenge will necessarily be a practice based challenge, open to the whole world (via LinkedIn or other some such social media platform). The promise would be that we need to get people to act on these ideas, but the people who are nearest and dearest to the idea may not be willing to bend enough to make the idea fly in reality. But, these MIXers could mashup with the implementation challenge team and support them along the way to realize the dream. The team that is able to measure the highest ROI over time could win the "prize" whatever that would be. This would be a double or triple victory: One, the idea gets a full blow test ride and 2) if it is successful becomes a real best case example of how people can mine the MIX for great ideas. 3 the team reaps the benefits of successful implementation of a great idea, and then 4) they win the prize - if they reach the top of the heap. Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like a good hack for here. I'm going to post it. Thanks for the comment Michele!

sam-folk-williams's picture

This reminds me of another idea I just commented on: http://www.mixhackathon.org/content/put-mix-practice?theme=hackathon&spr...

Something like a stackoverflow type of area on the mix, where people post challenges and solutions. The connection I see is that a content type that is more like a dialogue vs. a story can be a good way to dive into the details of actually getting some of this work done. I could see a system where people share what they've done, maybe in response to a posted challenge, or maybe just on its own. People can comment, build on the idea, etc, and you could vote on different responses or select a response as helpful or something like that. I wonder if somebody has posted an idea on gamification yet...

michele-zanini_4's picture

Hi Aaron, thanks for sharing this--we completely agree! One of the ways we'd like to encourage real-world impact is by having specific organizations / individuals tee up on the MIX specific challenges they're dealing with. The idea is that those who are posing the challenges will have a more direct incentive to implement the best ideas surfaced by the MIXer community. Would be curious to get your thoughts on this, as well as other specific things we could do to bridge the gap between inspiration and application...

thanks

Michele