In the latest article from PSFK Labs, the company spoke to Steven Gold, the Vice President and CMO of Partner Program for the IBM Watson Group, about the collaboration and creative partnerships being developed in technology to inspire positive change in the world. PSFK Labs examines trends in major corporations to determine trends, consumer behavior, and researches new ideas in business, technology and more.
By PSFK Labs| 7/08/15
PSFK and IBM Watson teamed up for The Good Data Contest to find out how IBM Watson’s capabilities can improve the lives of communities and spark a conversation about what cognitive computing will mean for the future. The winner, a life planning software, received $50,000 to spend on prototyping, marketing and consulting from IBM Watson talent, as well as the opportunity to fly to New York City to visit the Watson Labs.
PSFK speaks to Steven Gold, CMO and Vice President of Partner Program and Venture Investments for the Watson Group, about our collaboration and creative partnerships being developed with the technology.
PSFK: What is your favorite thing about working with Watson?
Steven Gold: Working at IBM Watson provides the opportunity to bring together humans and technology to make a profound positive change in the world.
Technology Partnerships for Good
What would you do if you could harness the power of all the world’s data to help people live, work and play better?
Well, the winner of PSFK’s and IBM Watson’s The Good Data Contest is a life planning software that could help the 3.3 million annual high school graduates literally plan their life in the “real world” based on personality, passions, digital usage data collection and personal preferences. Forget life changing, this creative little app’s ability to compute cognitive data will set millions of teens on a clearer path to happy and passionately successful lives.
The Benefits of Nonprofit Partnerships
We’ve all heard the line, “Two heads are better than one.” Probably because it is true.
Nonprofits are constantly pooling resources and innovating ways to get the biggest bang for a buck. Nonprofit partnerships have the best strategy ROI (and potentially, financial ROI) for these reasons:
- Combined resources, expertise, insight and creative thinking
- Enormity of vision and ideas generated can not be accomplished without help
- Balance between technical and creative concepts
- Increased interest in, and awareness for, your cause
- Leverages the strengths of all parties to expand boundaries
- Co-branding opportunities on social media and donation forms
Technology for Good: What Will You Do?
Imagine what your organization could accomplish if you were able to collect endless combinations of contact information, donor preferences and segmentation demographics from your very own supporters.
Like any strong relationship, common interests/goals/etc. and frequent communication will empower both your organization and your supporters to continue to improve lives and communities. Smart donor data records can be used to better understand your donors and spark an ongoing conversation between your org and your biggest fans.
Don’t know where to start? We’ve got a few suggestions:
- Upload a list of past donors to the MobileCause platform to validate mobile numbers you can use for future donor communications. It takes less than 5 minutes to upload a .CSV file (or import really old lists by hand) and have the numbers automatically validated and stored. Speed and efficiency–who doesn’t like that?
- Set up a subscription keyword for supporters to text and subscribe for future updates, volunteer opportunities and campaign appeals.
- Use a mobile-responsive form to create a custom survey then send the link through your mobile communication campaign to find out what info or merchandise supporters would like see in their text/inbox/mail or what event attendees loved about your last fundraiser, and areas you can improve for next time.
Smart donor data is securely recorded and stored MobileCause’s cloud-based fundraising platform and can easily be accessed or downloaded to use in segmentation, communication campaigns and fundraising strategy.
