Yesterday, like many other techies and Apple fans, I turned on my MacBook and searched for the Apple Event live feed. After a few seconds, I was whisked away into another world (quite literally as Tim Cook and Pharrell joined TV Host James Corden for an episode of Carpool Karaoke) and when Tim Cook got out of the car, and entered the stage, I couldn't wait to hear about all of the new and existing things I would be lining up to buy this year.
The event started off highlighting Super Mario Brothers - a huge win for those of us who long for the days of playing Super Mario and my initial thought, how exciting that I can introduce my 9 year old niece to a game that I loved when I was her age! Following Mario would be hard, but there were several very exciting topics shared. For starters, Swift Playgrounds are going to help kids learn to code - and that is critical for the future of the nonprofit industry.
Real-time collaboration in iWork is a great addition that nonprofits can make use of. One of the best ways to collaborate during a software project is in real-time. We use Google Apps for Business and specifically Google Docs and Google Sheets, to work in real-time with our team members and clients around the country.
The biggest surprise of the day came for me when they introduced the second version of the Apple Watch and low and behold, Pokemon GO will be available on the Apple Watch. For me, it wasn't really the fact that it was going to be available on the watch that struck me, it was something the presenter said that made me sit back and think. The introduction of Pokemon GO on the watch will allow for "heads up play." If you have seen people around town playing the game ,the common theme is people have their faces buried in their phones and are missing what's happening around them (literally we've seen some sad accidents occur!) So why is this important to nonprofits? Here's my thinking:
The number one goal of any nonprofit CRM is to provide better data to the end users. In order to provide better data to end users we often find ourselves saying let's build a report. After thinking about Pokemon GO's philosophy for the Apple Watch ,"heads up play," I thought this must be our new mantra for nonprofit technology delivery!
We need to work to ensure the data we collect is useful data. We need to invest in data hygiene efforts so we're delivering quality to our end users. We need to appoint resources who can slice, dice, and manipulate the data meaningfully so that we understand our organizations in different, more modern ways. We need to prepare our fundraisers to be "heads up" so that they may better serve their constituencies.
We all want our fundraisers on the front lines, out and about meeting donors and prospect. So, the next time a fundraiser tells you they can't make that call, or get out to a meeting because they're buried in the database, the info is hard to find, etc...challenge your IT team to enable "heads up play" for your end users by delivering data more effectively.
If you'd like to talk about ways that you can incorporate this concept into your organization, please connect with us! We'd love to hear your ideas as well.