TechHui

Hawaiʻi's Technology Community



Aloha TechHuians. As part of our initiative to grow the TechHui community, we are announcing what is, to our knowledge, the world's first meta-contest. This is a contest to come up with a clever contest :-) The winner of the meta-contest will have their choice of two months of free top level sponsorship (see the Sponsors area to the right) on the TechHui site, a $998 value, or the new 16GB iPod nano.
The Rules 1) You must be a member of TechHui. 2) The contest you propose must relate to science or technology. 3) Employees and contractors of TechHui's sponsors are not eligible. 4) The contest cannot be oriented toward promotion of a company, product or service. 5) The contest must only be open to members of TechHui. 6) Submissions must be made as responses to this blog post received on or before February 1st, 2010 (midnight HST is the cutoff) Any other form of submission will not be accepted. Entries will be judged by a panel of five judges put together by the TechHui team. The criteria with be creativity and expected efficacy in increasing membership. TechHui reserves the right to exclude entries, at its discretion, for any reason, including the expected cost and complexity of the entry's implementation.

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Comment by Katharine Osborne on January 1, 2010 at 1:52pm
Most tech people I know in Hawaii weren't originally from Hawaii. This is the only state I've lived in where this is the case, and I think it means that we could be doing a far better job of educating children, teens, and young adults in science and technology, and doing more to encourage them to pursue technology as career choice. If we reach out to the greater community we can increase TechHui membership in the future.

I propose a contest where TechHuians submit course curriculum, workshop, talk, or expo ideas that could be given for free to island children, teens, and young adults to get them interested and excited about science and technology, or to give them useful tech skills. I think the contest should be weighted towards ideas that focus on poorer areas of the island (I think the SL idea excludes those without access to computers, and frankly that's not fair). The top five most feasible, cheapest, broadest ideas win.
Comment by Rik Jadrnicek on January 1, 2010 at 10:21am
Virtual classes and seminars could also be given at the
virtual TechHui location at the University of Hawaii sim in Second Life.
"Best Class", "Best Seminar" contests,
with donations in SL dollars to attend the winning classes.
Keep in mind that SL dollars can be converted into real dollars.
SL is a great environment for "Real Time" global collaboration,
and links to participating (sponser) company websites can be implemented (further donations, subscriptions for space)
the events could be collected and produced with HD Machinima techniques and distributed on YouTube and elsewhere for further exposure for TechHui.

Vist TechHui on Second Life:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Hawaii/34/116/43
Comment by Gabe Morris on January 1, 2010 at 10:19am
This idea will require a bit of you need to pay to play...

Contestants put up ~$10 each and submit Google AdWords copy intended to recruit new members and the search term(s) they want to put it against (e.g., "Hawaii Technology"). The contest organizers input all the submissions under a special dedicated Adwords account. The submission that results in the most conversions for the desired action (filling out a new member application) wins the contest.

Additional Points:
- Admittedly, some room for gaming here.

- Assume that cost to have ads appear for most probable search terms will be very low, since no relevant ads currently placed against terms like "Hawaii Technology" or "Honolulu Technology"

- Assume that $10 is minimum necessary to get "statistically significant" results?

- Given the cost barrier to submission, perhaps contest organizer can defray ad costs 50/50 with contestants?

- Very easy to ascertain winner. Nothing subjective.
Comment by Rik Jadrnicek on January 1, 2010 at 10:13am
Chris's idea of a compost solution e.g., "Best Composte Model"
Could be a great example of a virtual contest for the
virtural TechHui location at the University of Hawaii sim in Second Life.
Participants could submit working models in 3D.
The winner could remain at the virtual site as part of a virtual "Sustainability" area.
(Hold virtual receptions at the end of each contest, where people can donate SL dollars)

The TechHui site is looking pretty empty right now:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Hawaii/34/116/43
Comment by Chris Kutler on January 1, 2010 at 10:01am
The landfills on our islands are filling up fast. Some places are having to ship waste, and more will soon have to follow. The contest could be to design a waste solutions exchange that connects businesses and people who are looking for various types of waste with those who are looking to get rid of waste. This exchange can also be used to exchange ideas on how to minimize waste and how to convert/reuse waste (such as suggestions for the best way to compost).
Comment by Rik Jadrnicek on December 31, 2009 at 11:22pm
Create contests for the following at the
TechHui location at the University of Hawaii sim in Second Life:
(Hold receptions at the end of each contest, where people can donate SL dollars)

1. Have a "Best Sign-up Board" contest (leave the winning board in place to sign people up to TechHui)
2. Create a "TechHui Donation Jar" contest (winning jar stays in place and collects donations for TechHui)
3. Have a variety of art contests and reception (e.g., photo, lantern, candle, jewelry, clothing, pots, plants)
and sell the winning items for donations at the reception and leave them on display to collect further donations.
4. Have a "Best TechHui T-Shirt" contest, and get donations by selling the T-Shirts at the reception.
5. Have a "Best Green Item" contest (wind generator, solar cell, etc.)
6. "Best Media", "Best Audio", etc. etc.

Guidlines could be set up for number of prims and "created by" logo sizes with links.
Eventually have a "TechHui SL Intro box" that is given to new members,

Rik Jadrnicek
Microflow
Comment by Shawn Drost on December 31, 2009 at 10:52am
2 ideas:

1) Retweet contest: retweet "Have you heard of TechHui? " and be entered to win. Not very creative, but I think it would be very effective. BAMP does this for concert promotions, and I've seen it elsewhere. (Possible variation: you must have a TechHui account to win. I think it would be more effective, but it does apply some perverse incentives.)

2) Give everyone a different bit.ly url linking to the TechHui New Member page. (You can do this automatically with their api.) Whoever drives the most signups (tallied by HTTP referrer) wins. I know I have some contacts that I haven't sent here -- no particular reason -- and a contest like this would make me look through my recent emails and see who might want to join TechHui. (There are some perverse incentives, but with a community like this, I think it would work to just ask people not to invite uninterested parties just to win, and maybe to include a clause that lets you rule out signups if they're not in the spirit of the contest.)
Comment by Andy Sabo on December 31, 2009 at 8:47am
A meta-contest using one word to describe yourself.
Comment by Andrei Sherstyuk on December 30, 2009 at 10:28pm
How about avatar beauty contest? Show all members on one page, vote by clicking. Let your avatar work for you!
Comment by Gabe Morris on December 22, 2009 at 6:23am
Like my previous idea, this one isn't a direct method of acquiring new members, but an indirect one of attracting them through publicity.

Hold a reverse million-dollar pixel contest, with the pixels filled in with the logos consisting of Hawaii-based tech companies.
In the traditional set-up, people pay money to put their logos on a matrixed image.
In this set-up, people (or the winner of the contest) gets paid to put logos up.

Whichever contestant uploads the most logos wins. Contestants aren't restricted to placing logos of companies they work for.

The hope is at the end of the day to have a nice representation of the breadth of the Hawaii-tech community.

If figure you can automatically allocate ~1000 pixels to each company.

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