ppi Media has held its first ‘ShipIt Day’ hackathon.

In 24 hours, 60 participants and 16 teams delivered “lots of good ideas” in the inhouse event in Kiel earlier this month.

Colleagues worked independently on cross-departmental projects for the company, as well as projects not directly linked to it. Ideas ranged from generating automated content for websites – using shipping news as an example – to a prototype of a sales app for media consultants based on Apple iOS and AdX.

Almost half of ppi Media’s staff took part: “None of us expected such an overwhelming response,” says chief executive Jan Kasten.

With senior vice president for product management, Manuel Scheyda, he was responsible for organising the hackathon. “We have broken away from our everyday routine and can put our ideas into practice unhindered,” he says. “Whether product developers, managing directors, support engineers or vice presidents, everyone has a common goal.”

With the time schedule motivating participants, teams presented their results in three-minute pitches, with the loudest applause and most points going to ‘CX digital goes Content-X’ (and Content-X goes cross-media), the idea being that by integrating CX digital in CX planner, print and mobile – which were previously separate entities – can be combined seamlessly.

A project called ‘ppi Media TV’ – which shows news on ppi Media, Twitter feeds or photos – was runner-up. The format will be presented at the company’s Open Days event in Hamburg on June 23-24.

It wasn’t all work: Third was ‘Web-based vacation management’ which organises annual leave without paper applications.

On our homepage: Jan Kasten and Manuel Scheyda, organisers of the ShipIt Day