Running Successful Hackathons with Ulrikke Akerbæk

[Mark Smith]: 4:34
In this episode, we'll be focusing on running hackathons by somebody who has run many, many successful hackathons in the far north of the north of the world,otherwise known as Scandinavia.Are you in Scandinavia?

[Ulrikke]: 4:52
Yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 4:52
Is Scandinavia still a thing?

[Ulrikke]: 4:54
Yeah,

[Mark Smith]: 4:55
It is, right?

[Ulrikke]: 4:55
very much so, yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 4:56
Okay, it's still a thing. Okay. Today's guest is from Norway. She works at Iterra as a low-code practice lead. She's been on this podcast before. She's a public speaker and involved in events around the power platform, both nationally and internationally. She's a blogger, active community contributor, and is part of the Portals Zero to Hero League. You can find links to a bio in the show notes, of course. Welcome to the show, Ulrikke.

[Ulrikke]: 5:30
Thank you so much Mark. I'm so happy to be here.

[Mark Smith]: 5:34
Good to have you on the show back again. This time, of course, to talk about running hackathons. Before we kick off, because, you know, I found out all about your family and everything last time we chatted, I would like you to tell us about the amazing new podcast you are now co-hosting.

[Ulrikke]: 5:53
Oh, thank you for that opportunity,Mark. So long story short, are you familiar with the AUC podcast by Lisa Crosby and Megan Walker? Right.So I used to listen to that while running and it was my, you know, special time of the week where I would just catch up on everything. I'm not a big newsletter reader. So for me, that was the only, you know,the prime source of what's new. And then I would have that backlog in my mind and go back to the office and read more about. So when they stopped doing their podcast,it was, yeah, I found that I didn't get that,you know, catch up, that weekly catch up anymore. And I wanted someone to read. So we had those amazing two newsletters,the Power Platform Weekly and the Power Platform Developer Weekly. I wanted someone to read those in audio mode so that I can listen to it. That was what I wanted. We talked about it in the communities. We talked about with a lot of other people and everyone had the same, oh yeah, someone should actually do that.And no one did. And Nick and I met up at the Arctic Developer Challenge Hackathon that we'll talk about later this February. And you know what it's like. You go to the bar, you have a few drinks, and you decide to start a podcast. And it's a very good idea at the time.But we found that was still as a good of idea. Then in the next morning, it was still a good idea.So then we decided, you know what,let's do it. If the community is ready and people want it and no one's doing it. Why not us?And Nick, of course, from a couple of other podcasts, has a lot of experience.So it was very quick for him to put this together. And actually, I just piggybacked on him and his experience, actually.So he's the prime render of this. But we did this together. We were a team. And this is our podcast. So we want to be a podcast where you can get the top news from the last two weeks. So we are a bi-weekly thing.We read through the newsletters and we follow the community and to pick out the most important things from the last few weeks. So it's a way to catch up on all the new stuff that's coming out.

[Mark Smith]: 8:02
Awesome. We will make sure we put in the show notes for this episode links to the podcast. So if you want a new podcast to subscribe to go check this out. Now the today's discussion of course is around hackathons and it's a it's a it's a subject that I'm very much interested in and the reason I'm interested in it is I see that whenever hackathons are a run. people's learning level increases considerably. It's like an opportunity for people to try things that they don't get to do in their normal day job.And really look at bleeding edge technologies in some situations and apply them.And then of course spark off whole new ideas.Now, tell us about... the Arctic challenge and how long has it been running?Give me some stats of it, how it came about. And so you can set the context for those listening that this wasn't just a single event that was run last year. Tell us about the story.

[Ulrikke]: 9:12
Oh yeah, absolutely. So this in 2024,which is the next one in February, will be the 14th time that we run this.

[Mark Smith]: 9:20
14th.

[Ulrikke]: 9:20
It started actually, yeah, it started as a community thing. A couple of guys doing from the SharePoint community back in the day in Norway, SharePoint community in Norway has always been great,very tight community. They wanted to have exactly what you're pointing to, kind of.give me just a couple of days to get my head around this new feature. There's so much new stuff coming. I want to be able to play with it, explore it, see where it can do, you know, see the boundaries of what it can do without having that pressure of billing hours and project managers and everything. Just let me play with this. So they took time out of their day job and they took some personal time, got together at a hotel at Gardermoen,the national airport in hackathon style just dove in and they did that for a couple of years and it grew very fast. It became something for the whole community of in SharePoint in Norway and then as most of you probably know SharePoint is not really what it was back in the day. It's not that you don't customize it anymore and it was and then Power Platform was introduced and the communities kind of merged and very a lot of people from SharePoint side joined the Power Platform movement. And so it was very natural for us. So those of us in the committee as well, being the organizer,we moved into the Power Platform.So it's very natural for us to transition the whole thing into being a full Microsoft Stack kind of thing, also including the Power Platform. And now also, if you want to, you could actually bring in Amazon, you can bring in whatever you like in terms of technology. We've had Raspberry Pis and IoT devices and we've hacked Teslas. There's no limit really. but we want to scope it so that it's easier to get started. So we kind of scope it in the Power Platform scope, but if you want to use something else, you're free to do that if you like. So this year,just to put it in perspective, we had 50 participants across 10 different teams. We said that it's a limit of five people per team and a couple of companies have had double teams. So you would have one company, two teams competing of course. internally against each other, very,very nice competitive edge there.So traditionally, it's been the consultant companies that assign a team, send their team to battle it out because it's a competition as well as a hackathon.But now, actually, the last couple of years, we've seen big customers that have their own Power Platform team, they also bring teams in. And that is,of course, because we have a couple of guys in the committee that work now, moved from the consultant world into the customer side of things at the IT organization. And they advertise for this internally and they bring a team. So it's still, we're still relying on the people, knowing people and having experience from the hackathon. And it's an amazing, so I've built my whole network.It comes from ACDC as we call it,short. I know, I know it's a band as well.Don't get me started. But so my whole professional networks comes from those experiences,those events. It's, it's magic because we do, we make a point of the event being at a hotel so remote that no one would ever think to go to the city center. If you want to have a, grab a drink, the bar would open anytime with day, you know, and then so everyone's there. And that creates an intimate sphere, an intimate culture where you don't go and everyone's together. It's a community feeling that I don't get anywhere else. And that is that that creates a special atmosphere. That is what I go to.

[Mark Smith]: 13:17
Are you having people attend now from outside Norway?

[Ulrikke]: 13:21
Yeah, we've had Swedish competitors for a couple of years now.And every time, because one of another important thing that we do and that we've always done is we bring out big headliner people as judges.So this is a competition we have between four to six judges each year.That is very popular community people,MVP's, Microsoft employees, people that are important. to these competitors.So that is also one of the selling points.Not only do you get days off of your day job to experience, to play with the new stuff, but also you get exclusive access to five prime community, the experts in their fields.So then we would make sure that the judges across the board would cover all the bits and pieces. You would have one Azure DevOps person, you would have a hardcore developer, you have... a Power Platform,a Flow, Logic Apps expert, you would have all these different disciplines. And then, so if you have a problem in your organization,you would bring it in and you would have the expert to ask. And that's really one of the key selling points here as well, making it really important as well to bridge and to learn and, you know.

[Mark Smith]: 14:40
I like it. Let's talk a bit about the mechanics of running an event like this that's obviously been running for a long time. First of all, is there a website people can go and check out to see what's happened in the past, photos, that type of thing.

[Ulrikke]: 14:54
Yeah, so our website is changing every year because we have different themes every year, but yeah, sure,you can get a couple of images off of there. We have a blog that, so we'll probably get back to that, but it's a big part of the competition and the experience is a blog where every team will blog.That's where we can go to see previous stuff.And then we have two SharePoint sites.So one from the SharePoint version and then now for the platform version. where you can actually go and see pictures as well. So,yep.

[Mark Smith]: 15:25
Awesome. So if you can provide the URLs to those, we'll put those in the show notes as well. Tell me about the logistics to running an event like this, because I know that you're now key to running the event. How far out do you start planning the next event? What are things that make the event a big draw card?You mentioned the word theme before,and I know you weren't meaning a website theme.Tell me about what are all the logistics that you think about when you put on an event like this?

[Ulrikke]: 15:55
Very good question. And by now we would want this to run itself pretty much because it's a lot of reoccurring things.But so from the first thing that we do, and this starts now. So the last event was in February and we're now in April. We start now looking for new judges. That is the first thing that we do because that is the drawing, right? So that's the buy-in.That's a big advertising experience, you know. He's coming and she's coming and this is so cool. So that's the first thing that we do. Uh, we set the date for the next event and we set the theme. And so the theme has been, so let's talk about that for just a short second. Um, we've had made the matrix, we've had star wars, we've had Vikings, pirates of the Caribbean,we've had. I don't, I don't, we Marvel,you know, you name it. All the geeky stuff has been the theming and, and it's all it's gay cause we're all geeks, right?We're all nerds, so we love those kind of things.But it's also, in terms of marketing and branding and that kind of thing as well, it gives you that opportunity to have a more centered theme around your solution. So when we had Star Wars, of course,Darth Vader always had to have that dashboard and you have the personas and you have the, you know, the color schemes and everything.That... it brings another layer or level to each competition. And you know, nerds will be nerds. You will have Darth Vader in the room, of course. And you would have, you know, we have, you can get points for being creative on your setup.There would be mascots and, you know,people would dress up and we create a lot of fun around it. I really love it.And then of course, in all the gadgets and all the giveaways is also branded like that on the theme.

[Mark Smith]: 17:49
If you get to choose 2024's theme,what are you going to choose?

[Ulrikke]: 17:55
Okay. So a little secret for all of you listening this year, we didn't decide on a theme. So this is new for 2024.We're going to have a voting kind of thing.So we, in the committee, we've said we've named four different themes and we'll post a poll where people can vote for whatever theme they want. Now, I'm not here to persuade anyone, but it's kind of three kind of dull, you know.yeah, all right, themes and there's one kick-ass theme that it's my idea and I really like it and I hope that's the winner and that's My Little Pony.

[Mark Smith]: 18:35
My Little Pony. It's gotta be the winner right? It's gotta

[Ulrikke]: 18:38
Yeah, I know,

[Mark Smith]: 18:39
be the winner.

[Ulrikke]: 18:39
I know. Of course, can you imagine you going into a room, 50 adult men, because it's probably men dressed up as unicorns and the My Little Pony theme and the, you know,

[Mark Smith]: 18:51
I love it. I love it.

[Ulrikke]: 18:53
it's a dream. I hope my dream comes true.

[Mark Smith]: 18:56
If you're listening to this podcast,there's going to be a link to where you can vote on that theme. And there's only one option on that link that you can select. It's My Little Ponies.

[Ulrikke]: 19:08
I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to go to bed. I'm going

[Mark Smith]: 19:11
Tell me about you talked about prizes, you have prizes, giveaways, that type of thing. What do you give them away for? What do people do to earn a prize?

[Ulrikke]: 19:22
Yeah, so first of all, you get a good bag when you walk in through the door.It's,yeah, snacks and drinks and a couple of giveaways in there as well as stickers and you know, sometimes you have them.So when I'm out, small story, but whenever I, you know, in the winter, when you have to, you know, you have the hat on,that is usually from ACDC. I have a scarf. It's usually ACDC. I have a jacket with ACDC on. Mittens, everything.A lot of Norwegian warm giveaways, right? So that is always one thing. You get free drinks and you eat throughout on the event.We cover all of that. And then we have a couple of different opportunities to earn prizes. So throughout those three days, we suddenly, out of the blue, there's a head-to-head competition.one of the judges has a really difficult problem, that one that all the teams can go for if they want, and there's points to be earned and there's a prize at the end. So the team that wins, it's the first one to solve it wins kind of thing, and the judge has to approve that winner.The team get the points and the person get the prize, and that can be everything from huge duffel bags with a lot of stuff in there, or it could be a Lego set, so it could be anything.Then, So at the end of the competition,we announced three winners, third, second,and first place. And they all get LEGO sets. And then there's also four awards, being Killer App, Best User Experience,Best Business Value, and then the fourth one that I can't remember.Last time, I won the Usability or User Experience award. And that's also a LEGO set kind of thing.So it's a lot of prices to be had, a lot of Lego going around. Yeah, very cool.

[Mark Smith]: 21:24
How is everything funded?

[Ulrikke]: 21:28
used to be that we had sponsors.So Microsoft has been the primary sponsor for this over the years. Now we've seen recent years that it's harder to get sponsors for this. It used to be a community event where the people that got together and planned this or in the committee, they would have their own company sponsor it. So now recent years, We rely more on the attendance fee.So it's, we think it's very pricey,but when we compare what you get with a price for attending other conferences,for instance, it's not really that much.So,so we're relying more and more on that actually. And then the, the giveaways,usually that's a part of the sponsoring as well. If we have companies sponsoring that would be more of the giveaways kind of thing.

[Mark Smith]: 22:23
And so you said you stay in a hotel. Is that one of the things is to make sure that everybody, is it like over a weekend or over a few days? How does that work? And like, cause obviously you wanna keep everybody together. So you get the comradery and things like that.

[Ulrikke]: 22:38
Yeah, that's the one of the keys to the success of this event and what differentiate this from other events as well. We take Thursday and Friday off.So our employees will give us Thursday,Friday, and then you take Saturday as your own time.So the event starts on Thursday morning at nine o'clock and then we run, we deliver on Saturday at four o'clock in the afternoon.We clean out the room. We do demo presentations. You get to sleep or run or eat or wherever you need and then there's a final award dinner ceremony at them at Saturday night and you stay over till Sunday morning and then everyone's either throwing up or too tired or drive home to their families and usually actually so you know Mother's Day in Norway or I don't know if that's an international thing or it's always always hits that Sunday is always Mother's Day. So everyone's driving home so tired after three days of hacking and buying flowers on the gas station on the way home.

[Mark Smith]: 23:46
If you were to distill down what are the keys to success of running a hackathon like this, what are they? What do you got to get right as an organizer?

[Ulrikke]: 23:59
You got to get the people right.So for us, the judges is the key, right?So you have to have those experts in the room and dedication. We tell, so the people participating here, they know they can't have meetings. They cannot, they cannot go to the city center for something.They need to stay there the whole time.Cause that is, that is what is, it's the bubble. And if you burst a bubble and you're done, it's keeping that bubble together. And that's why the hotel is always remote. It's covered, it's buried in snow. You can't go anywhere. No one wants to go anywhere.Um, and it creates that amazing bubble.And yes, we're competing. Yes, it's a competition,but we help each other. It's community camaraderie.And also this, what I find amazing and It's been a challenge. So I just, uh, last year I moved to companies. I switched them. I have a new employer now. They're not used to this.So I will bring in people from competing consulting companies in the customer meetings and my, my manager is like, what are you do, do, do, do, do, stop, stop, stop, stop,stop, stop, stop. And I'm like, yeah,no, it's no problem. We're, we're colleagues from another mother. Right. So it's.The spirit leaks into our daily work as well. If I need anything, if I'm stuck on a custom connector, I'll call Amma directly and he'll answer because we've been, he's always helping me. And if he has any problem with part pages, he'll just call me directly and I'll help him. I don't matter if it's a customer problem or if it's an internal problem, I'll help him out. And I think that is so valuable.And it's lifting each other up. That's community spirit through and through. And yeah, so this will always be first a community event and second. So, and we've had, we've had people saying it's, um, it's a recruitment area. So people will look at the competition and say, so we've seen so many examples of people being recruited at that event. So, and we've had also a company saying, we don't dare to send our employees there because we know that they'll get recruited. And our answer is. Well, if you're scared of your employees being recruited at that event, maybe you should up your game.So yeah, if that's your fear, then yeah, sure. Lock them in and see how long they'll stay, right?So it's, yeah. And we've also seen our, so the, we're also seeing, because we,when we get to the hotel, they, you know, we need a lot of internet, right? So they'll plug us all up and it'll set everything up. And then after a couple of years at the same hotel, we got to know the guy that does that for us every year. And he says,you'll be surprised to see how many people come to us and say, excuse me, sir,can we book a hackathon? Like the one that they have in February for our internal company.So they've had to replicate that experience for other companies, big companies that have internal hackathons and they want the ACDC experience. Isn't that Oh, I love it.

[Mark Smith]: 27:15
Tell me about outcomes. Like over that time, what have been the kind of highlights that you've seen from the events?Obviously recruitment was part of it. You're seeing who the top talent is in Norway at any time in this space. What else?

[Ulrikke]: 27:34
Easy. So last year we had a company coming in. Um, making they, I think they brought a kind of a customer, you know, um,something they wanted to create for a customer.They brought a problem into the hackathon.They created a solution that was, you know,it's a hackathon, so it's all, you know, almost keeping together. When they got back to the office after the hackathon,they finalized it. Um. took a couple of hours out, made it production ready, brought it into a couple of customer meetings to show it off, to demo it. And they got new customers coming in, new work coming in based on what they did at ACDC. So first of all, they sold it to the customer that had the problem in the first place, realized,oh, shoot, this is something that many of our customers have struggled with,sold it to them, actually required new customers because of that idea. and built on it and delivered it across the board and actually financed five people going into this year's event.And so a pressure on them this year to make do it every even better. Right.So we're very excited to see how it goes with them this year as well. And I think that is also,so for me, it was this year is all about AI, of course, and chat TDP and everything.And I,I was so busy before Christmas. So when, when the news hit in November, December last year, I didn't have time to dive into it and I knew ACDC is coming. I'm going to have those three days to dive into it. So I'll just wait. I'll put it on the shelf and I'll pick it up once I get there. And we did something. We created so many cool stuff with it and dived really into it,so much so during those three days that I'm on the task force in ITERA doing policy work around AI and Chat DTP at ITERA globally today.So it's. is that emergent, it's that collective problem solving, it's drawing on everyone's experience and everyone's perspective,and it's developers and low coders and user experience people coming together.And that is where the magic happens. In my world, I'm not a trained developer by education.I've been sitting next to developers for 15 years. That's how I learn all the things that I know. And it's small bits and pieces that They don't really attach in the start, but then once I build out all those little nibbits of knowledge, and now I see 15 years in, in my career, it's all just coming together perfectly. And it's all learning by doing and yeah, I love it.

[Mark Smith]: 30:27

Very cool. Tell me are there any gotchas? Is there any kind of over that time has there been any kind of like oh fuck kind of scenarios that you've come across that have happened at an event or something you know that things rules were interpreted differently people weren't happy with the judges decision anything like that that's gone down?

[Ulrikke]: 30:51

a lot, a lot. And that comes down to the people as well. So we've had some judges that have taken over the whole event,suddenly throwing in points that are not there,making decisions over our heads.Cause you know, we're 10 people in the committee now, I think, and all of us want to participate. So once the event is running, we're participants.So all of a sudden, yeah.So then it's the judges actually that run the whole thing once we get there. And then they, some of them have taken on a little too much power, uh, and kind of got to, I don't know what you say in Norway, we say warm in our shirt, you know,they warm up and they think it's their event and they run with it.Um, so that has happened and we've had a lot of complaints and the judging as well, the points it's hard to get that perfect. So we've, I think it's evolved.So over the last 10 years, we've.always made changes to the point system and how we judge things and how we give points. I think last year, and we talked about it during the event as well, it's probably the best we've had in terms of points and ruling and judging.So kind of getting to that point where the point system is almost perfect. It will never be perfect, but it's fair.The right team won. And then that's good. And it's... And by the end of the day,this is something that we do for free on our free time. We love technology. We love hacking.It's fun. It's community. It's hackathon. It's competition. And we, we try to remind people as well, you know, have fun, relax.It's, it's all games, you know,just go with it. But you know, you always have those people that take it a bit too seriously and get a bit too,but that's fine. It's, it's all right.

[Mark Smith]: 32:44
Is the judging criteria always the same for each event? Is it pretty much the same? Like if you attended last year you could expect a similar type judging criteria point system or are you always tweaking it and changing it year on year?

[Ulrikke]: 32:59
Yeah, so up to this point, we've tweaked it and changed it a little bit each year based on the feedback that we've gotten.But then this year, going and saying that I think this will be the first year that we're not doing anything. So, and then of course, need to remember we had a year where we did it virtually. So we had a digital one during COVID. Yeah. And so that also changed up a couple of things, stirred up a couple of new requirements that we brought into the the in-person version and then so it's continuously evolving. But I think now it's first time that I can actually say that if you were attending 2023,then 2024 will be much of the same experience. Absolutely.

[Mark Smith]: 33:43
been involved in hackathons where a there might be a hack for good or a hack for education or a hack for health care. In what the teams come together do they choose what they're gonna hack on so like they can do some pre-planning or what they're thinking about doing or is it a kind of thing that happens on the day it's kind of drawn out of a hat and this is the thing that you're doing so it's a surprise to everybody how does that work?

[Ulrikke]: 34:11
Yeah, so the experienced teams, they will know what they're doing going into this.But we do encourage teams to not do any real work.

[Mark Smith]: 34:22
pre-work,

[Ulrikke]: 34:22
So yeah,

[Mark Smith]: 34:22
yeah.

[Ulrikke]: 34:23
sure plan. Yeah, you can have meetings,you can plan what you're doing. You can brainstorm and have good ideas, but don't do anything more in advance. Cause that takes kind of the fun out of it for everyone else. So provision your tenant, do those kinds of things that you don't have to wait for that portal to provision. That's fine.

[Mark Smith]: 34:41
Totally.

[Ulrikke]: 34:41
but keep it to a minimum. So what we do in the morning, on Thursday morning,oh, we have an introduction, we have a keynote, and then every team comes up on stage to say, hi, we're from this company, this is our names, this is what we do, and we think we're gonna make Darth Vader's dashboard, we're gonna connect to this in this API,we're gonna join some weather, and this is what we think we're gonna do. And so it's... And we film it, of course, and we have the prime point site that they make. And by the end of the three days, they created something completely different.No weather, no dashboard.That's what happens. And that's a bit of the fun as well to see that gap. And also, we have badges.So we have categories, first of all.Every day, we have a leaderboard that shows all the teams and how they're doing in terms of points within all the categories.But we also have badges that give points.So for instance, we have, I talked about the community spirit. If you dress up,if you do some fun stuff, if you help other teams, that's points you can get.And also you can hunt for a best use experience or we have a dash it out for dashboards,et cetera, right? And so that is where the blog comes in. So if you created something cool, created a dashboard and finalized your dashboard, you would create a blog post writing how you did it, what it is going, you know, showing it off and you claim badges for it to get. And we actually have physical badges that you can attach to your key card or the badge around your neck. And by the end of the, you know, that those huge,so in Norway, yeah, you know, the, yeah.

[Mark Smith]: 36:19
I know what you mean, yeah.

[Ulrikke]: 36:20
So yeah, that's really, really cool.So then by the end of three days, you're wearing that heavy thing around your neck as a badge of honor, because that's all the points that you've gotten, right?And Yeah, so that's a big part of it as well.And then of course, so we have early delivery and show and tell are two different badges that you'll get the first day. So early delivery is submitting a blog post, showing off what you're gonna do by, I think, by lunch. So that's really a short time. And then show and tell is a blog post showing off what you think you're gonna make. So that's the plan, that's the idea. That's a blog post as well. So that's pointing that for him as well. But then...Other than that, you can do whatever you want. It's do whatever you like.

[Mark Smith]: 37:07
Do you see success patterns of teams that kind, that consistently do well?And what I'm thinking of it here is that, you know, as consultants, we know how projects run. We know that there needs to be somebody that's keeping track.Are we on track? Are we delivering on what we're committing to managing scope,scope, creep, that type of thing,running out of time, you know, by deadline to do the presentation, to get to ship something, you know, by that. deadline date. You know, do you see people like somebody puts an architects hat on, people,developers, user experience designers,change management, all do you see those components come into play at this type of event? Or is it pretty much the worst case scenario like in a company where they people just start building shit and nobody knows where they're going?

[Ulrikke]: 38:04
Yeah, that's a very good point that you're making. Uh, the most successful teams are the most diverse teams, first of all. So, um, so now we have, so there's only allowed to be five people in a team. So you need to build that team very carefully.And those teams that are the most diverse and where people overlap a little bit,those are the most successful ones because they talk the same language and they can translate between each other. And then you have one of those five people being. Not necessarily a manager, but someone who has that personality that brings a team together and set a path and people will follow.So those teams are also very successful, I think. And I also wanted to mention something else. So historically, with my old employer, we had this as an onboarding opportunity.And that was also before you could only be five people in a team. We had one year,I think we were 11 people in a team.But then we use that as an opportunity. Anyone that would join us in the developer department during the year would automatically be signed up. They would have first pick if they wanted to go or not. Because it's such an amazing opportunity to get to know someone. You know what it's like, people coming into your workplace and your department is, what do you know? Yeah,I'm a business application consultant.You don't know. They know a lot of other stuff that they're not saying. It's not on their competency card. It's not on their CV, but they know it somehow. And that comes out at a hackathon like this. Because suddenly you'll have someone who's like, yeah,I know how to do this. Yes, of course I knew how to do that. And you'll get to know each other professionally at a completely different level. It blows my mind every time. I love that.

[Mark Smith]: 39:59
so good.

[Ulrikke]: 40:00
And... Oh yeah, absolutely. And this year as well, we had from my Tira, I brought on, I brought with me an architect that has never seen Power Platform. So first day we're out, we've had the keynote presentation,everything, grabbing coffee and he's like, so, so Power Platform, is that like in the browser? Is it a desktop application?You know, what is it? And I'm looking at him like, dude, you're going to be here for three days hacking on,in the, on the Power Platform. You know. Wow, we have a way to go. And by the end of those three days, he was building Flow like a pro. He had built a canvas. He had a dashboard up and running. It was just amazing to see. And just in dataverse,creating the data model, I was so proud. It was so fun to watch.

[Mark Smith]: 40:53
That is so cool. That is so cool.Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you feel like, ah, this you should be thinking about? Because what I'm hoping is that people that listen to this in their own countries will think about,you know what, this is a community activity I could kick off or I could, you know,I could bring the various businesses,I like that whole competition element amongst the consulting partners within a city or a geography or, you know, and. even that concept of having end user customers that have their own teams of folks come and be involved. Because what would you pay for three, four days intense training? It would be expensive for an employer to pay for that. And what you're getting here is this real practical hands-on type of training experience. Yes,it's not like a book smart type thing. It's an actual. deep dive hands-on experience.Any other any other recommendations and things that you would say to the audience?

[Ulrikke]: 42:00
Just do it. Because I think after the pandemic and everything, we're so ready to be hands-on. We're so ready to get our hands dirty and get to know people.And I see this popping up so much these days. I think it's just do it. And bring,you know, on the top of your mind,the five people around you that you know are tactile learners, right, people that like to pull things apart and put it back together. And just... If all those five people bring in a couple of other guys,and then you have five teams, four, five, six teams, and then just do it once and see what it is. Because that is, and then you're off. I think that's the way to go.And I see customers as well having internal hackathons that they allocate one day. I don't think that's enough. Because I know when you're new to this, I see that in the new teams, they dedicate three days. And they're, by the end of those three days, they're like, oh, I wish I knew all of this the first time next year. We're gonna kick some ass. If that,I'm allowed to say that. But I know, so I think just do it, get some experience, and then do it better next year, and it will grow, and it will be fantastic for everyone involved. I know it will. And this is the highlight of my year, and I'm so thankful for so many things. Goes back to this hackathon and this amazing community. and you'll make friends for life and you'll learn so many new cool stuff. And this is also, you know, you do your podcast is about MVPs. This is how I met all the fantastic MVPs that I know today. This is. This is how it started for me. Ten years ago, it's very powerful, it's very cool, and it doesn't take that much effort when you're multiple people. putting it on, the committee is diverse and the people are committed.Just make the effort that one time and you'll love it.