How does a large company like Sabre get the innovation vibe going? All-nighters with lots of caffeine flowing.
Sabre ran one of its global HackDays last week in which teams of developers, coders or hackers (you pick the term) have at it for 24 hours straight and enter a competition to build the best hack.
Hosted by Sabre's Bring It Council, the teams attempt to build a hack which might be targeted as a new business solution or even to merely to improve employees day-to day workflow.
HackDays take place throughout the year at Sabre locations in Southlake, Texas; New York; Montevideo; Buenos Aires; Krakow and London.
The latest hack-fest took place at headquarters in Southlake last week, and 20 teams entered the fray, with the entries judged by a panel of executives.
The teams hailed from a variety of Sabre business units, including Sabre Travel Network (GDS), Travelocity and Sabre Airline Solutions.
Teams gathered in small groups or large ones like this.
(I can't read the whiteboard from here, either, but I wish I could.)
During the 24 hours, participants tweeted away about #hackday10, but gave away no secrets, as far as I can tell.
The "coding ninja peers," as Sabre put it, built hacks with HTML5 (Flash who?), Near Field Communication (NFC) and geolocation technologies.
The final entries included iPad apps, iPhone apps and SharePoint mashups, Sabre says.
The hacks were pointed at travel management companies, travel agencies, Travelocity consumers and the airline business.
And, the winner was -- drum roll please -- an iPad app developed by a team from Sabre Airline Solutions.
No word on how much coffee it took to build the app.
Note: Photos by Marcelo Somers