#ApricityHack – Live Blog
7.01pm
That’s a wrap. Or should it be, ‘that’s a hack!?’ Our devs have done themselves proud. 12hrs of code – nailed it! If you weren’t lucky enough to join us for the live reveal earlier, keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for more on our new CPD tool.
6.30pm
Half an hour until the grand reveal of our #ApricityHack! It’s feeling very tense in the office!
5.29pm
We asked our team for 3 words each to describe how they’re currently feeling towards the hack.
Here’s what they said:
- Luke – Stuffed
- Andrew – Hanging
- Naomi – Flagging
Wonder if that’s anything to do with all the pizza?!
4.46pm
OK, time for a quick break. Throughout lockdown we kept our team bond strong with exercises at our desk (via Zoom of course) so we’re going to quickly revisit these – stretching our body to stretch our mind!
We’ll spare anyone the embarrasment of sharing pics, but we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do to get through our 12-hour day!
4.10pm
What part of the newly hacked software will you be heading to first? Head over to Twitter to let us know!
3.01pm
Here’s that sneak peak you’ve been waiting for! What do you think? Did we hit the funky brief?!
2.32pm
We keep having to tell each other not to deviate from the brief. The problem is we’ve got too many ideas – which is not a problem at all really! But to hit our deadlines today we only need the essentials in place. So we’re sticking a pin in all other ideas but we’re sure the software will be updated soon with so many creative juices flowing.
1.35pm
Well, that lasted long!
1.19pm
We’ve never been so excited to see Erin!
12.57pm
Soo, the pizza order is in! But the big question in the office is – pineapple? or no pineapple?!
12.12pm
We stole Andrew (Andrew Rees, Head of Development, The Verve Group) for 2 minutes – he couldn’t spare more – to get his take on the hack so far. He says:
“Having never taken part in, let alone managed a team through, a hack before I knew this was a big challenge. But it’s one we really wanted to rise to and so far, so good. The trickiest part of our morning has been making sure we have a clear plan for the project that is shared across the whole team and I’m sure there’ll be more hurdles throughout the day, but we’re all excited about the end result, particularly to hear what our clients think about how they will use it going forward!”
11.37am
How much coffee is too much coffee? Surely we shouldn’t count today?! We’re onto our 4th cup of the day but it’s really well deserved, we’ve made great progress so far.
11.13am
Our dashboard is starting to get busy! Designs are complete and over to the dev team, keep an eye out for a sneak peak coming soon…
10.18am
Our design team want your input! We have some lovely colours in our Apricity brand palette. Which should be the dominant ones in the swanky new CPD tool they are building?? Head over to Twitter to cast your vote.
9.03am
We’re nearing the end of the design stage Sam (Samantha Lennie, The Verve Group’s Marketing and Events Manager) says:
“We’ve worked hard over the past couple of years on a really strong brand for Apricity, and with that in place this stage of the hack has been fairly straightforward, using existing brand templates and principles – and of course our recognisable bright colours – to ensure ease of use for this new software. That said, our style is starting to evolve recently and as this is something new, there’s room to push the design boundaries. We can’t wait to see what you think!”
8.25am
7.56am
The countdown is already on, as Cathi and Kim will be checking in on the hack at precisely 5.55pm and we want to be able to show that having 1 hour left at that point is more than enough!
Here are a few of the deadlines we’re aiming for throughout the day…
- 9.30am – marketing to complete designs
- 11am – update CPD rules as per todays DB changes
- 3pm – finalise CSV upload/download functionality
- 4pm – complete data entry screen
- 6pm – test functionality and make last minute updates
7.10am
So now we know our brief is to create ‘A funky interactive CPD tool, that also carves out IDD and new DB requirements’ as voted for by you!
To be honest, this is the option we wanted you to choose and we’re full of ideas! Coffees are being poured to make an early start on keeping up the enthusiasm, and we’re busy deciding who is doing what – and most importantly who is adding the ‘funkiness’!
7am
And so it begins! Meet our Super Dev Team Andrew, Naomi & Luke (L-R) who are raring to go and are supported by everybody in The Verve Group’s office today, who have been instructed to be at their beck and call so they can use every precious minute (they have exactly 720) ‘hacking’.
