I've been using Bombfell for the past three months and have been pleased with most of their selections. It allows me to not have to worry about selecting clothes and have something/someone else do it for me.
We love Bombfell, in fact Gil, my co-founder, uses them too. But there is nothing like meeting a personal stylist in real life and having him or her help you find or refine your own personal style. :)
Side projects are a great way to improve your knowledge of a language or learn a new language. Creating a number of side projects, most of them fit under this category. Each project has furthered my knowledge of a language, framework, or best practices.
From my experience, developing a project (regardless of scale) is a better form of learning than reading about it. You get instant gratification when you see your project render/compile without error. You're learning in real time, seeing your project work, and learning from trial and error.
Having a side project doesn't imply you're trying to create a startup. What happened to just creating for fun/enjoyment? Reconstruct your sandbox and play.
1. How so? I participated and won this hackathon is a resume booster? How does that compare with actual paid work from a client?
2. Getting a client and working on a paid project gives me plenty of direction as to what to build in my spare time.
3. What?
4. You're only getting money if they think your idea is best. One person/group wins, not everyone. You could have been doing something with guaranteed pay, not spec work.
5. Sure, you get new ideas on the table, but that doesn't mean they're good ideas. Not to mention you're giving away free ideas.
6. You're not really getting feedback from the community. You're getting it from the corporate sponsor.
7. No. They'll simply award the winner(s) $10k for IP and off they go. A win for the company.
1. How does dropped out of college to start startup compare to completing college degree? From the mouths of corporate hiring managers, suprisingly well. Until we get someone who does these kinds of decisions to comment on this, both statements are moot.
2. *paid time.
3. 2+ guys get together and do something. Everyone feels the fuzzy feeling of doing something with other people covering their backs. It's the tech equivalent of jamming.
4. Yes. Money is the measuring standard in this thing. I'm a big fan of money, but it's a means, not the end.
5. Doesn't mean they're bad ideas either. Also, if out of fear of bad ideas, we stopped pursuing ideas all together, we would stand still exactly where we are.
6. Nor is solving crossword puzzles. It can still be fun and relaxing/agitating.
7. If your company doesn't take down the names of those people who completely reengineered one of your key products in 2 days, I'm very sorry for your company.
8. Hackathons are fun. I want to sit with a couple of friends and play with ideas. If you're doing it for the money or the resume building...you got different priorities.
1. Because it shows you succeeded in a driven project; and, as bluehat said, bluehat's hired people based on that.
2. Participating in hackathons is an easy, passive way to participate. It also doesn't leave the opportunity to fail as easily. If you mess up or get bored of the hackathon, you just stop. You're not screwing over a client-base. If this is your first project like this, you can even use it as a litmus test of whether you want to keep doing this type of thing, or not.
3. A common goal. There's an idea that maybe you hadn't thought about before; and now you, and your friends, can focus on this goal. Also, you, your friends, and several other people who found an interest, can all work on developing a new thing. It'll probably be more innovators than a normal team that would be designing the new machine.
4. True, but it's still nice incentive. TopCoder contests have prizes for the best contestants, too; and some of those are especially sponsored in much the same way.
5. You never know a good idea until you see it executed; and... so? Some people are freely willing to do that.
6. You, the company, are getting feedback from the community by some of the people in the community making a version of the product that handles some of their problems with the current models
7. Maybe, maybe not. I'm not Coca Cola. They /could/ use it for scouting, even if they don't.
Thanks for the feedback. Prior to the current styling, I had a screenshot with title, author, description, etc to the right. I found it cluttered and difficult to read through a list of projects. I'll keep working on it and see if I can find something.
