gwf. if you, and salesforce, really believe it was an improbable series of poor decisions and not malicious intent, tell your bosses it is time to build the redemption story. and we can speak about how to reboot this together, the company and the contestants.
actually, you could do us all a favor. ask salesforce to open up the entry gallery. we've been trying to construct that ourselves. but some people are scattered to the wind. and others have relationships with salesforce and don't want them jeopardized by being an active voice.
people did hard work. and i'm not just advocating for myself. it is appauling that the work went into the circular file. and what they would have been judged on is the marketing brochure.
unfortunately, that was the cut of the video that i made prior to seeing the entry form. the actual video that was submitted to the office guideline is here:
the only views were me. i included the other video after i spoke with a salesforce person about the issue. and they had directed me how to enter the links. that full one is the one that's getting hits because i like it more. it was obviously labeled as not the official video with directions to the official video in case it was accidentally seen.
here's the big problem though. this contest was supposed to validate real applications. healthcare.love is nice, but it's a hollywood set. it doesn't wire into that much. it makes the erroneous mistake of targeting the new healthcare marketplace with an application for expensive iphones? in a demo state that is already covered by covered california? not the government exchange that it's adorable name harkens? i actually wrote simulated systems to pull member plans off the db and fake authorize them and submit them back into the system so that notifications could travel back to the app. oh, and instead of text i included twilio for VOIP and data coordination between the client, not assuming the target individuals would be text savvy youngsters. oh, that, and having to pull of the 85,000 healthcare plans that actually come from the healthcare.gov open marketplace. not just a single json list. so in the end, yah, i guess maybe i should have just focused on the icons? didn't think that was the point.
i held back until now, but looks like the makers of that app are also employees of a salesforce invested company. so they are DQ'd. this is all the kind of thing an open judging with actual use or connection with the entrants could have simply identified. but it all happens in the dark.
so here's the thing. when you lure people into such a large development period with this statement:
But it’s not going to be easy—$1 million is going to bring out the best of the best. So don’t wait until Dreamforce, you’re going to want to get started now.
and you only have 150 entries, you owe everyone a run. video review becomes inexcusable. people flew in with weeks of work and teams of people. and you reviewed their video? was this supposed reward video craftsmanship? the last thing on many people's minds when you intentionally led them to believe it was the work that counted?
There are a lot of things wrong with that, not the least of which being that you can't modify rules in obscure places. That changed participation. Why not modify and notify the official rules. If they stuck in an obscure forum post an hour before deadline that the winner had to sell their code to salesforce for a dollar, would that still be a legal modification? That aside, they knowingly or unknowingly did not pass the modification rule to the judges.
NEW BREAKING NEWS> THIS THING WAS FULLY RIGGED. HEALTHCARE.LOVE CAME FROM SALESFORCE PORTFOLIO COMPANY.
Violates:
Neither you nor any of your team members are an employee of
salesforce.com or its related companies as of September 1, 2013 or during the
Hackathon; nor an immediate family member (parent, sibling, spouse, child) of
or household member to an employee.
unfortunately, they are also in a bind by stating that only the new work would be judged. @aliciatweet cites that it looks like they webview'd their existing site (would have to be verified). so, that means they judged using a webview as a million dollar contribution? my guess is that the call happened in which partners were allowed in with existing tech. and that information was never passed to the judging team with specific reference as to work accomplished within the hack period. possibly an innocent mistake or specifically designed to pass people through.
