Tuesday’s #AppleEvent brought great news – two new iPhone models, the new Apple Watch and the Apple Pay. These much-anticipated releases didn’t fail to deliver great new bells and whistles, and with the Apple Watch, a completely new mobile technology with features that haven’t been grappled with.
Apple is known for its innovation and quality products. But they’re also the source of frustration for many companies who’ve got to shell out cash every time there’s a system update to make sure their apps are compatible.
It seems like there’s something new out every single month. And while it’s simple for me to just adopt the next best thing to come through and integrate it into my life, there are many more steps involved when integrating new technology into the business world.
Having a technology strategy is pretty important for your organization. Having this strategy and a few filters for technology will help you pace your nonprofit organization – and your budget – for new technology. Here are a few things to think about:
- Keep up with technology. This article has a great list of technology blogs that can help you anticipate what’s coming and how it might affect your organization.
- Determine what makes sense for your organization…and you. If you aren’t a tech savvy person, it might be a little counterproductive to try and make your organization tech savvy. However, if you’ve got to have the newest devices and the newest software the instant they come out, it’ll be a simple integration and learning curve to introduce it to the organization.
- Figure out what resources you have access to. The Internet is an amazing thing and the world of training and education has improved so much over the last few years. Technology has to be simple for the masses to adopt it, so see what free resources you have available to help train and integrate new technologies into your organization and your staff.
- Determine the time it’ll take to integrate and figure out if it’s worth it. If your team is still using a second generation Blackberry, it might take a little while to migrate them over to the new iPhone – not to mention getting proper software and applications to do business as usual. Don’t forget to use your resources, but also don’t try to speedily integrate new technology.
Who’s going to be the first to get the new iPhone? Tell me how it works – I’m not eligible for an upgrade yet!
Some other great nonprofit technology resources you might want to check out: