Solutions

Community Innovation

Community Innovation Solutions

The way cities behave in the actions that they take are micro reflections of the direction that our world is going and if we can understand how cities work as systems and what makes a good city great then we can develop the fundamental basis for solving some of the world’s biggest social and economic problems. Through various speaking engagements, workshops and formats learn how Cities, government leaders, and companies can unlock new ways to identify community problems, rethink existing solutions and incubate new ideas for advancing community growth.

The Community Innovation Academy

The Community Innovation Academy is a breakthrough innovation program and experience to help community leaders develop their problem-solving skills and incubate new opportunities to better their communities. Through the continued application of new community innovation tools and approaches to improve community problem-solving efforts, program participants will be empowered to drive catalytic collaborations, innovative ideas, and conversations that support more competitive and resilient communities. Through the program, participants will learn effective techniques to:

• View their community as a system so they can understand how their community is currently set up to solve challenges and respond to change

• Identify key economic development problems within their community’s system

• Apply design thinking principles to identifying where addressing a small problem within the bigger system can produce an outsized positive change to the community

• Actively co-create and learn a problem-solving framework to reproduce in their communities.

• Grow and develop a network of community professionals who have participated in previous innovation programs, and develop breakthrough ideas, collaborations, and programs to share, strengthening the economic reach, impact, and capacity needed to advance the quality of life and economic future of their communities.  

Community Ideas Jam

A Community Ideas Jam is a collaborative brainstorming and peer-to-peer learning event, geared towards generating social and economic development ideas and solutions in a fun and creative environment. The purpose of the day-long design jam is as follows:

1. Collaborative Rapid Idea Generation

2. Participant Empowerment

3. Peer-to-Peer Learning

These interactive events can act as a factory for possibilities, nuggets of inspiration, and perspective on a single issue or a range of issues. It’s a fun, fast, creative session intended to create a range of diverse visions that address an issue(s). The goal of any Ideas Jam is to walk away with concrete ideas that participants can test or a low-effort action item(s) that participants can take to move their organization and community further down the path of innovation. By changing the way we think and interact, we change the way we behave and respond to complex economic development problems all around us. 

Community Innovation Assessments

The Community Innovation Assessment provides an innovation rating for communities around the world based on (70+) variables across 4 conditions which are: Collaboration, Creativity, Community Mindset (Growth Mindset), and Talent Cultivation. These variables and conditions are what Cities of the future will need to help grow and thrive. The assessment will produce a score that provides an aerial view reflecting a community’s capacity to innovate and by extension how innovative the community is. ​​​​​​​The data presented will offer the opportunity to uncover community blind spots and identify problems that can be addressed and solved by putting forth innovative solutions. The Community Innovation Index provides well-researched and reliable assessments, which can help community problem-solving efforts. The assessment focuses on the primary conditions that matter most to create prosperous communities.