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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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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Getting It Right vs. Getting It Seen

A group out of New Haven, CT called Innovations for Poverty Action is evaluating anti-poverty programs around the globe to determine what works and what doesn’t. In their words: Innovations for Poverty Action applies rigorous research techniques to test and develop solutions to real-world problems faced by the poor in developing countries. Great. The anti-poverty [...]

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Non-profits and the T-Shaped People

No, “T-shaped” people are not anatomically deformed nor extraterrestial beings. I came across the term in the excellent book The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley: At IDEO, we’ve found that some of our most valuable Cross-Pollinators are what we call “T-shaped” individuals. That is, they enjoy a breadth of knowledge in many fields, [...]

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The More the Merrier

In an attempt to keep my head above water, I am simply going to post to this article without further comment: “Unboxed: For Innovators, There is Brainpower in Numbers,” New York Times. December 7, 2008.

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Boston Comment

So, it’s true, it takes exactly the amount of time that you’ve been away to get caught up once you’re back and then some. This brings me to today and I can finally share some experience and reflection on the TI trip to Boston last week. It was probably one of the most memorable and [...]

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Parent Involvement Innovation

I’ve heard of child-care and home school coops before, but not this. A letter to the editor in yesterday’s Washington Post praises D.C.’s cooperative play program: The major reason the children are doing so well is that all of the parents at the program are active participants in the education of their children. Parents at [...]

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Be Your Own Innovator

I’m sure everyone here has a lot to say about our trip to Boston. I’ll be posting my reflections as soon as I get through the inbox. We spend a good amount of time writing and thinking about innovation, but we don’t always get to act on quickly creative ideas. But you can help teachers [...]

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Guest Post: Changing our Will Not to Change

The TI team is en route to Boston today, so our friend and non-resident strategist Jeff Schwartz has written a guest post for your enjoyment. — I am reading a very interesting new book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey called, Seven Languages of Transformation: How The Way We Talk Can Change the Way We [...]

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Philadelphia Field Project

Here’s something. The Philadelphia Field Project is an inter-disciplinary project out of Penn State University that looks for non-economic solutions to poverty. The theory is that there are lots of things that impede one’s ability to escape poverty, including the high costs of urban transportation, inadequate access to healthcare and nutritious food, poor schools, etc. [...]

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