Do they actually encourage innovation / entrepreneurship? What's valuable about them? What do they do right? What do they do wrong?

I agree with you Evan, this is about stepping outside your comfort zone and networking.

However, let's pretend (and this is NOT a hypothetical by the way, but I don't want to call anyone out by name) someone goes into a startup weekend believing they will actually start a company that weekend. They may have an idea, they may not.

Then, they come out of the weekend energized. They're going to do this! But they're not a developer, so they get some developers "on board". They start trying to raise money because "once they raise money, the developers will 'build it'"

So now we've got someone who believes startups have software that is just "built" and then they have the software

Now where did this attitude come from? It came from fucking startup weekend and the idea that a weekend is enough time to start a fucking company! Evan, Startup Weekend is PERFECT for you, you've been part of a startup before. You know it's a grind, but you're not at one now and it gives you a chance to visit.

And you know you'll do a startup sometime, so it's great for you to visit.

Questions to ask:

What kind of entrepreneurship do we want to encourage?
What do we want people to really internalize and understand about entrepreneurship before going in?
What kind of businesses do we want built and how do we help people build them?

Also, I like this branch thing.

Well I've attended two Startup Weekends in Dallas and I'm a big fan of these. First, it gets many technical folks thinking about how to actually develop a value proposition and differentiation for their product. While there is value in creating an actual demo, I personally don't think that is as valuable as using the weekend for market validation. My first S/U weekend we won 1st place and it was primarily due to solid market validation.

I find the opportunity to connect with like minded motivated individuals in your backyard can lead to further discussions.

I'm planning to attend Lead Startup in September in Austin as this drills deeper into the market validation function to demonstrate there is an actual market for your product.

For me, events like startup weekends have very little to do with an idea for, or creation of an app/demo. I look at it as more of a networking opportunity and a way to grow your contact base. It's a great way to connect with people, and as a result I think the idea of the 'startup weekend' is still quite valuable