The Why Behind Hack Weeks
On Friday, Jonny and I unveiled hackweeks.com, a project we’ve been collaborating on to run AI sprints that help non-engineers ramp up and build confidence using AI tools.
Today’s newsletter covers a bit more of the why behind it. But first, the LinkedIn post:
✨ Introducing: Hack Weeks Dot Com ✨
Four-day, hands-on AI sprints for non-engineers who want to learn practical AI skills through doing.
AI is everywhere. But for many of us, it still feels a bit abstract. We read the headlines, try a few tools, groan at the hype, and feel the pressure to “get ahead.”
With new models launching constantly, and dystopian futures striking fear into our feeds, it’s hard to know where to start, or the practical steps to build confidence with this new medium.
Hack Weeks give you the space, structure and support to explore how you can get the most from AI tools, in an immersive, grounded and creative way.
You’ll spend four focused days experimenting with real tools to ‘ship a thing’, alongside a small group to share learnings and reflections with, led by Jonny Burch and me. We’re experienced product and design leaders who’ve built our careers around helping individuals and teams grow at companies like Monzo Bank and Deliveroo.
Whether you’re in Design, PM, Marketing, People, Ops, Leadership (or another role entirely!) we invite you to join our first open hack week on June 2nd, or bring us in to run a bespoke sprint for your team. No coding experience needed.
👉 Hack weeks dot com 👈
Why AI? Why now?
While not always framed explicitly as ‘AI’, this theme seems to have woven itself into the fabric of most conversations happening across my coaching and consulting practice. Whether it’s helping folks figure out what their future roles look like, the skills they need to hire for or the near-term tactics that could just help them unlock more of their own capacity.
And for me to! As an independent person, AI has been an invaluable tool and thought partner in shaping my own practice and amplifying my capacity.
But the AI hype is real. And depending on your disposition, equal parts terrifying and exciting. Your eyes may have already glazed over before reaching this bit!
But really, all of this came down to a simple feeling I couldn’t shake. One that hit me during a holiday last month. I kept feeling drawn to read more, learn more, and build. Not from FOMO, but from a deep curiosity. Something about this space keeps tugging at me.
Why Jonny and me?
We’re not AI gurus.
We’re not leet vibecoding experts.
We’re (hopefully) not vacuous hype merchants.
But we are curious makers and care about creating the conditions for people to thrive.
If the world really is accelerating toward an AI-first future, more people will need help making sense of what that means, and how to use it to be more creative, compassionate, and capable in their work and lives. And that’s something we’re both super passionate to help enable.
While working through this process, Jonny and I mapped out how we think work is changing, where things might be heading, and what kind of future we want to help shape. You might find the exercise useful too. But the bigger question we asked ourselves was: what role can we play? What value can we add?
For me, the answer lies in unlocking more of people’s creative human potential, and giving them the confidence to actually use it in their daily work. And I believe AI holds a lot of potential to help with this, whether it’s freeing up people’s time, or helping push and challenge their creative muscle to unlock new heights.
Why Hack Weeks?
You could take a course or read a guide, there’s no shortage of them! But with things moving so fast, theory only takes you so far. Until you get hands-on and experiment, it’s hard to grasp how these tools can meaningfully impact your day-to-day work beyond that first (often underwhelming) impression. Doing it alongside peers only accelerates the learning. At least, that was my big takeaway from the prototype we ran in April.
And then there’s the concept of the Jagged Frontier. Coined by Wharton Professor, Ethan Mollick, in his excellent book: Co-Intelligence:
“AI is weird. No one actually knows the full range of capabilities of the most advanced Large Language Models, like GPT-4. No one really knows the best ways to use them, or the conditions under which they fail. There is no instruction manual. On some tasks AI is immensely powerful, and on others it fails completely or subtly. And, unless you use AI a lot, you won’t know which is which.”
Which, to me, says this: the only real way to learn how to use AI tools is through regular, messy, hands-on experimentation. And I believe the fastest way to do this is through clear structure, accountability, peer-to-peer learning and guides who’ve been where you are before.
Of course, Hack Weeks isn’t the only way to do this, but we’ve designed it to be one of the most energising, grounded, and collaborative ways to start. So if you’re curious to see what AI can do for you, we’d love for you to consider joining us.
Check out hackweeks.com, or drop us a line at hello@hackweeks.com if you have any questions.
Lastly, a quick editorial note: this newsletter isn’t going anywhere. Hack Weeks will run alongside my coaching and consulting work, and this will remain a space for sharing ideas to help design leaders level up. That said, you can probably expect a few more AI-flavoured posts in the mix.