How can IBM better meet non-profit technology needs?
Facilitated by Juan Hindo, IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs.
IBM has a history of philanthropic giving to the non-profit sector that has traditionally concentrated on donating hardware. As IBM moves towards donating software and consulting services instead, what non-profit technology gaps can be met by these donations?
Session Notes
How can IBM better meet non-profit technology needs?, Facilitated by Juan Hindo, IBM
-- go around about what folks hope to get out of this session - folks mostly say they are hoping to get senses of or give feedback to the ibm non-profit agenda.
juan works with corporate citizenship for ibm which is about to turn 100 years old. her department is feeling like there is more energy
she explains that they do is reflective of what they do -- they don't hand out cash, they hand out what they are making, so hardware when they are making hardware. There is more energy on software and now services as the business changes.
they think of themselves as strategicly working on the concept of "smarter planet" - this new focus -- they are woking on integration and focus on transparency and to create efficiency
what are they working on - city forward - making data about cities and the stakeholders to be available to decision makers. - world community - grid which is a cluster for use by non-profits - some smaller items, virtual tour of the forbidden city on water, water issues internationally, translation models used by organizations for international organizing, corporate volunteer database, education.
finding the right partners - the question of what is the criteria for a good relationship is ibm making an impact? is there a need? what is the value? it has to scale. Maintainable relationship? is it in the smarter planet strategy?
Their funding comes from IBM foundation so they have to meet these criteria when they ask to support something.
open source has important role of being something that if smaller orgs need further support they can reach out to the open sources community.
Juan is asking us "what next?" what can they do to be responsive to the needs.
what are the things that orgs asks ibm for when you go to ask them? - there is more mergers and cost cuttings, emphasis on collaborative tools, a lot of misunderstanding about social media, data integration.
are you creating API for big data sets? - we are only interested in working with data that is free and public.
problem we've seen is a need for case management and intake stuff, a huge form needs to be filled out, they lose people. there are privacy challenges but they want a way to make this a central data. Some folks have done this but with government approved software, they are literally sending screen captures to other agencies.
there are reasons about capacity that keep orgs from being able to do this work or innovation, they are in over their heads but if a third party was to coordinate this they might be able to over come the lack of resources, technical knowledge.
collaboration tools, everyone wants them? - meeting everyones needs is a real challenge. - you sometimes just have to meet people where they are. - the lack of technology knowledge never is part of the strategic list of todo's, identify that the knowledge and the infrastructure are good investments.
interested in the intersections of the cloud computing and consulting, the ability to grow beyond the limits of your folks are resistant to the need for connectivity, we need to understand the fears and concerns to really address and overcome their concerns.
who should ibm go to get information from about what the sector needs?
what about training? - honestly, they aren't necessarily trying to sell things but it's hard to justify promoting other folks tools. it's a struggle. they are working with more open source and that's been helpful but there's still some pressure to promote ibm and not trap people into it.
what if the focus is on data? teaching people about data, just how do . who to share it? so many people have their data in garbage systems, access, paper. - ibm has really been focusing on open data, it's been more complex to address data with a more limited
can selling them a story about the value of the data?
Offer social media workshops and then bait and switch to talk about data.
what is the ROI on doing training for IBM? - that eventually are an organization that can take advantage of our tools and services.
how do does ibm convince people that the cloud is worth using? - convince them it's safe. use stories and statistics. - consistent data - how do we get your data out, export tools - who do you call when it doesn't work, folks want to know who is gonna be accountable - cloud don't care! - needs to work when you are offline - they have to see a gain from using this, benefit, they have to see how it's gonna make things easier. getting reporting tools, folks are underpressure to get outcomes.