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the problem that uh stemmed our
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conversation with the American Red Cross
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was all about disaster donors so the Red
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Cross as you know you think about him
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two ways first and foremost is is
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responding to disasters and secondly
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they're they're a fundraising
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organization uh they're they're very
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good at maintaining relationship
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relationships with donors uh getting
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people to donate on a regular basis
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trying to engage them in a number of
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different ways but what to do about
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disaster donors what to do about people
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who give perhaps for the first time
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because of say an earthquake in Haiti
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how do you engage those kind of people
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how do you find out how those types of
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donors are different than the regular
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ongoing sustaining donors what kinds of
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messaging do you do what kinds of
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expectations do you have for them so in
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general how are disaster donors
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different than regular donors and how
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should the American Red Cross go about
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building and maintaining relationships
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with
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them so um it turns out that there are
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Business School faculty around the world
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who are really interested in tackling
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these kinds of data oriented problems so
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some of them are statisticians others
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are psychologists um some of them are in
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marketing but across a wide variety of
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fields there are faculty who want to
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understand business problems and want to
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provide solutions to them so what we do
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as an initiative is we actually take the
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data set and the problem context and
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present it to researchers around the
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world um via webinar to show them what
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the problem is and then they react with
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you know couple pages right up if I had
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this data and this problem here's how I
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would approach it we worked together
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with the Red Cross and um picked six
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project teams to actually tackle um
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tackle these problems and they'll be
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working on that over the next couple of
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months and we'll uh come back to here to
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the Wharton School um about a year from
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now and we'll hold a symposium and they
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will present all of their solutions to
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the Red
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Cross the beauty of this approach is
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that it it invites and we encourage a
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wide array of of different kinds of
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approaches so uh so for instance I'm a
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statistical modeler so I want to take
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the behavior data that we have and try
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to build a predictive model of who will
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donate how much money when and how might
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that how they might differ based on on
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people's donation history so again if
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someone gave a a firsttime donation for
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a certain kind of catastrophe versus
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someone who's been giving on an ongoing
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sustaining basis what can we build
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predictively from the the the data that
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we have but that's just one small slice
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of the way that someone can approach a
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problem like this and so the beauty of
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it is there'll be a stati statistical
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methods or just other completely
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different approaches that I have no
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training in at all but other researchers
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around the world are spending all their
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time on on those kinds of approaches so
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the beauty is opening up these proposals
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and finding out what other people are
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are saying they would do with the data
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and the setting so we we've just awarded
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the data to a team of psychologists at
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Balor University and their plan is to
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actually instead of looking at the data
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like Pete would they're actually going
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to open up the letters that were sent to
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donors and try to understand what kinds
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of Psych psychology is at play when
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someone reads a letter from the Red
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Cross asking for a donation um after
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that they're going to actually try to
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develop some new psychological theory
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test that in the lab with student
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subjects and then possibly even take
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some of their ideas and test them in the
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field with the Red Cross which we're
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really excited about um there's other
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teams that just say you know it would be
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easier for business decision makers if
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they could have a way of looking and
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plotting this kind of data and it's hard
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to plot this kind of data it's not like
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just a simple pie chart is going to do
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because we have these people they're
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giving overtime it's not really clear
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how to visualize that and so I'm really
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excited to have um given the data to a
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team at um IBM TJ Watson Labs who's
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actually these are the people who
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invented Watson who played Jeopardy um
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they're actually going to try to develop
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uh better tools for business decision
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makers to actually visualize this data
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and understand what's happening in their
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donor data set this is the most exciting
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part of the whole process I mean
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obviously we want to deliver research
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and we want to see a difference
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happening with the organization but to
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see their reactions when they when when
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this array of ideas is put in front of
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them so again whether it's statistical
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approaches or psychological theories or
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just other Technologies and for them to
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say huh that one resonates this one over
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here not quite as important it helps
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them figure out the kinds of skills that
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they want to develop uh and and that
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that by itself is is just as important
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as saying you know here's a research
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paper go implement it
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we have actually a full docket of these
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kind of what we call research
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opportunity programs for uh 2012 so
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they'll include companies like SiriusXM
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ncsoft which is one of the largest um
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massively multiplayer gaming companies
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in Asia um Mars Incorporated the candy
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company General Motors and the list kind
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of goes on from there so we're excited
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to make this sort of an ongoing program
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of the Wharton School
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