12 Big Trends in Nonprofit Technology for 2012

New years invite new prognostication. In this post, 12 of our staff experts make predictions about what will gain momentum, inspire, or catch fire in 2012. Have better ideas? Tweet @ForumOne using the hashtag #12in2012.

1) Metrics that Matter

Chris Wolz, CEO:
In 2012, smart executives will get better at aligning online investments with critical programmatic goals and designing meaningful ways to track the ROI of their online efforts. Senior executives in foundations, advocacy groups, and government agencies know that in 2012 they need to find ways to do more with flat or declining organizational budgets. They also know that the key stakeholders for their work will be online even more in 2012 than in 2011 – and with higher expectations for what they want to be able to do online. Therefore, executives need to accomplish more online for their organizations than they did in 2011. This means two things: 1) executives will need to tightly match online efforts with their program’s goals and 2) the success of these efforts must be backed by metrics that make sense.

2) More App Challenges

Jim Cashel, Chairman:
With more data coming online (the internet is really one, go-normous database), the obstacle for public policy organizations is getting people to find and use the data. One good tactic is through the use of “challenges,” providing prize money for most innovative use of data in online applications. A quick tour of Challenge.gov gives an idea of the variety of challenges that exist.

3)  Apps for Government Services

Mike Shoag, Director, Government Services:
Apps for Government will take off like wildfire in 2012. The pioneers in government have already done the hard work of creating the first apps and sponsoring app challenges over the past few years. In 2012 the government will build on that knowledge. Apps that house data, laws or regulations for on-the-go learning and access, will sprout up as federal agencies get used to these new formats.

4) Meet Mobile Web

Nam-ho Park, Director, Mobile Services 
We all know that mobile will overtake PCs in web access within the next couple of years. But what form will mobile web take? Mobile websites are beginning to look more and more like native apps, and even incorporate functions that used to be reserved only for native apps such as touch gestures, animated transitions and GPS. More people are using Facebook’s mobile website than all of Facebook’s various apps combined. Now that mobile web is coming of age, you will be able to support both iPhone and Android users with rich graphics and touch interaction while maintaining a single mobile website.

5) Mobile First

Jason Cranford Teague, Managing Director, User Experience:
As their audiences move more to smaller, mobile, touch-sensitive screens, organizations will be forced to adapt their designs or lose traffic. The best hope for doing this quickly is to begin design with the mobile concept first, and then scale up from there using responsive design best practices. We started to see this in 2011, but in 2012 mobile will go from being a “nice to have” to a necessity for survival.

6) Rise of Social Analytics

Andrew Cohen, Managing Director, Business Development:
2012 is going to be a big year for tracking social analytics. Currently, it's rather difficult to get a single view of your site visitor's interactions using social tools such as "Like" buttons. Now, Google has invited the major social networks — including Facebook and Twitter — to share their activity streams with Google Analytics. This will allow website owners to monitor in a single place exactly how their products or ideas are being perceived and shared across the social web. For time-pressed website managers, this will definitely yield huge insights into their audiences’ social behaviors. 

7) Smarter Education Communities of Practice

Tim Shaw, Managing Director, Strategy Services:
As far as educators collaborating online, the old is new: It’s all about communities of practice and ways to better connect and train educators. Many are already in place, such as assess4ed and access4ed initiatives of the U.S. Department of Education, that work to leverage technology for better learning. 2012 will be the time that educators will  master community management and exploit readily-available community platforms.

8) More Strategic Online Video

Brian Pagels, Manager, Growth and Management:
Online video will continue to grow in 2012, both in terms of creation and consumption. We collectively watched a trillion YouTube videos in 2011. That’s 140 videos for every person on the planet. (Which one do you think was the most watched?) As production costs reach all-time lows and people increasingly stream video on smart phones and televisions, we'll see more organizations shift from an experimental approach to video, and embrace the development and execution of a complete online video strategy. Video will become a much more important and preferred medium for organizational storytelling and the inspiration, recruitment, and mobilization of advocates.

9) Email Still a Killer App for Policy Wonks

Joe Pringle, Managing Director, Project Delivery
The vast majority of public policy professionals, researchers, and other "issue-focused" online audiences will continue to rely on email as a primary means of communicating. In fact, most adults are habitually on email. According to Pew Internet, 61 percent use email on a typical day, but only 8 percent post an online comment. In 2012, online communities serving these audiences will still need a robust email strategy for connecting, engaging, and activating members who live in their email inbox.

10) Data Explosion!

Kurt Voelker, Chief Technology Officer:
The importance of data for public policy organizations has never been bigger. 2012 will be the year that we see dot org websites begin to treat data as a key asset – not just an afterthought of charts and graphs buried deep within a report or PDF. Look for nonprofits and policy organizations to launch rich data mapping and visualizations that tell their policy stories, data APIs, data aggregation platforms, and data catalogues. We'll see Drupal continue to be a key tool for tying these rich new data products into existing website content. Check out my presentation for NTEN on where to start with big data.

11) Increased Localization and a Multilingual Web

Mike Madison, Project Director:
Standards for creating and disseminating multilingual web content will continue to evolve, as organizations and companies see the need to reach people in their native language. Greater broadband access and the increasing social nature of the web will help to fuel this trend, as ever greater numbers of non-native speakers participate actively online.

12) More Online Transparency in International Development

Suzanne Rainey, Project Director:
Transparency was a major theme at the 2011 InterAction Forum. We are on the cusp of adopting transparency as a necessity. Instead of “just talking about it,” we are moving towards mandating that we share international development data and results online. 2012 will be the year we see agencies step up to fund and assume responsibility for transparency initiatives, including releasing data-sharing standards that have been in planning for many years, and web tools that let constituents research and understand development impact.

Do our predictions align with yours? Let us know! Tweet your ideas using the #12in2012 hashtag and follow @ForumOne to keep up with the conversation.