iPad the next big thing?

I am sure that many of the "techies" out there spent the last month scrambling, checking out each of the IT sites that claim to provide insight into upcoming technology releases to learn what Apple was going to announce today. Without getting into a longer debate over different technology platforms, one thing is clear - we are watching a race to integrate our household entertainment devices with our mobile entertainment devices and the social communication tools that we have all become accustomed to.

My phone now serves as my primary facebook interface and based upon the tool introduced today, I am not alone. So this raises the question for me, how are those of us in the fundraising profession working to build the communication channels that will allow us to be literally in our donors pocket?

According to http://twitter.com/mgive/status/7911649657 the red cross has raised more than $21 million $10 a text at a time this month. I am sure that number is low already as it is several days old and that tragedy has caught the imagination of the american people. How do those of us in higher education learn from that effort?

I see several opportunities - the red cross got their name and opportunity to help out quickly and in many venues. Each time I log onto any mobile platform that is in front of me and they are not limiting the effort based upon who they think will help, rather opening it up to much larger audiences and letting folks who care about that issue self identify. That is something that we do very poorly in higher ed - we spend so much of our focus and effort on predefined constituent groups (alumni, parents, employees) that we often miss that there are many other folks who value what we do - often to a much greater level than our "defined" populations.

Much as Apple released the iPad with the expectation that folks would see that as the next step in social communication, we need to get out there and try some new things - not everything is the next iPhone - anyone remember appleTV? but if you don't try and risk failing, you are never going to hit it out of the park either.