#nptechleaders
Over the last 3 days I’ve had the privilege of sitting with many of our sector’s great technology leaders. Microsoft graciously hosted a first of its kind, NonProfit Tech Leaders Summit. In addition to sharing many of their newly released and soon to be released products (Office 365, Silverlight DeepZoom , Volunteer Live and Azure) , we also had some deep conversations about the power of data, the need to bridge the gap between techie and nontechies in the sector and how we increase our impact.
Originally posted on community.npowerseattle.org/npowering on January 27th, 2011.
Over the last 3 days I’ve had the privilege of sitting with many of our sector’s great technology leaders. Microsoft graciously hosted a first of its kind, Nonprofit Tech Leaders Summit. In addition to sharing many of their newly released and soon to be released products (Office 365, Silverlight DeepZoom, Volunteer Live and Azure) , we also had some deep conversations about the power of data, the need to bridge the gap between techie and non-techies in the sector and how we increase our impact. I spent most of the time vacillating between my brain hurting from new ideas to exhilaration of the potential of technology (and cross sector collaboration) to change the world.
A couple of key themes came out for me:
- CIO’s as the new strategic driver. There is a real movement to use technology as a mission driver. Organizations are shifting their thinking from tech as a line item in their budget to a strategy to deliver measurable impact through increased efficiency and effectiveness. I think this is especially evident in disaster relief and NGO work in the developing world. I think traditional US nonprofits are slower to “get” this. I’m anxious to see how we might drive more “technology as a mission driver” thinking. At the end of the day, it likely comes down to leadership--leadership that can see the possibilities and shift to action.
- The power of data. Of course we all know that data is important, measuring our impact and outcomes is top of mind for all of us. But, do we really understand the potential of data sharing? High powered computing to answer questions we’ve never able to answer. It’s big stuff, hard to comprehend at times. Here’s a couple of great resources that were shared on data visualization, and an article on the power of data.
At the end of our time together, I had a real sense that the more I learned, the less I actually knew. I’m looking forward to more conversations with our team about how we make these new solutions accessible and useable for the sector—because at the end of the day it’s not the technology that really matters, but how we use it as a tool to serve our community.
-Alison
