[jiggyboy]

I’m wincing a bit at the word choice. In the old days, “hack” meant to just slap something together to get it to work. “Just hack something together” was a directive to get the product through the upcoming trade show or investor meeting or whatever. A “hack” is not intended to be in the final product. “That’s a good hack” was a compliment, but it was also a recognition that it was still a hack.

But “that’s a hack job” meant it was bad. And of course, modern parlance is that hacking is malicious, &c.

Maybe “brainstorm a thon” or “contribute a thon” or somesuch . But that doesn’t quite have the same snap of course.

[usconservative]

The term "Hack-a-thon" has a much different connotation than you'd think. The bank I work for conducts them and it's all about finding a problem and giving your best, brightest and most creative people a shot at "fixing" it using a greenfield approach. It's also about getting outside the box solutions and breaking patterns that don't work when solutioning a problem.

Personally, I think they're very effective ways of looking at a problem differently and coming up with solutions that would otherwise not be proposed.