“We are small, but we can do big things.”

   Today’s Tulsa World included a great article about the Global Gardens summer program at Rosa Parks Elementary School.  For those who don’t know Global Gardens uses gardening and hands-on science to empower low-income kids and communities.  Here in Tulsa it has done just that!  The program at Rosa Parks faced the challenge of providing meals to participants after the [...]

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Exciting Opportunity in CAP’s Innovation Lab

As many of our regular readers know, the Innovation Lab acts as CAP’s research and development team.  We develop deep understandings about our clients, research promising new practices and theories, and work with partners to develop new programs and services.  Over the last couple of years, the Innovation Lab has launched several exciting programs to serve [...]

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An Innovation Generation?

Hi, my name is Elizabeth, and I am a Millennial. But, what does being a Millennial mean?  According to the Pew Research Center, it means American teens and twenty-somethings are ”confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living.”  Receptive to new ideas, that is the one that I have been struggling with over the [...]

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Nuestro Barrio…A Financial Education Telenovela

Yes, you read the title correctly, and no, I am not making this up.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have been up to my ears in research on innovative approaches to serving underbanked communities.  One of those innovative approaches is using sources of entertainment such as video games and television shows to deliver [...]

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Inspiration in an unlikely place

This past week I attended the Southwest Regional Leadership Forum hosted by the Sarkey’s Foundation in Norman, OK. I honestly didn’t expect to come back completely re-energized and inspired to take on the world… but I did. One thing I’ve learned recently from the book Made to Stick by the Dan Heath and Chip Heath [...]

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Fablab in KW Neighborhood

So, awhile back we posted about our experience at the Boston Fablab and how we might work to bring one to Tulsa. Well, fast forward and Kendall Whittier Inc is seriously pursuing the idea of putting one in the KW neighborhood. There will be a community presentation on Oct 5 at 7pm at Educare at [...]

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Challenges, Social Connections, and Early Childhood

We here in the Innovation Lab recently launched our second “Innovation Challenge” to CAP employees. These challenges are meant to leverage the creativity of all of our staff so that we can identify problems and solutions that would never have occurred to us in the safety of the group cube. Our last challenge sought ideas [...]

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Moveable Oases for the Food Desert

Some of the innovation gang headed over to a local taco stand for lunch to enjoy the weather and much talked about experience by the local media of late. When we came back, I had an a-ha moment of why doesn’t Tulsa introduce some sort of traveling fruit and vegetable truck in our food deserts? Since [...]

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Innovation in Flyover Territory

Just last week the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Center for Social Innovation hosted a roundtable for the newly-created White House Office on Social Innovation.  Headed by Sonal Shah, formerly of Google, the Office of Social Innovation seeks to develop new funding for social innovation, expand national service, increase civic participation through new media, and develop [...]

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How Work is Like Biking

I am a cyclist.  In cycling, as odd as it sounds, having a good team around you is critically important if you want to perform at your best.  Team members not only encourage you and challenge you to go faster, but they also can ride in front of you, or alongside you, and block you [...]

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