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Sep 12

Innovation in Action – Tackling Long-Term Unemployment

In a conference room in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 30 CSW staff and board members – armed with little more than knowledge, coffee, and Mr. Sketch markers – took on the task of solving America’s long-term unemployment crisis.

We came up with some great ideas we’re looking to explore and prototype in the coming months:

  • Encore internships
  • New methods for documenting worker skills
  • Better labor market information interpretation and sharing
  • Spur attitude changes in industry
  • Use cohort-based contingent staffing to create connections to jobs and among workers
  • And more than 50 more!

A sampling of ideas from one of the breakout groups:

Staff Meeting Brainstorm

We also used this session to test out some new ideas about how to facilitate creative processes – the kinds of processes that generate new, innovative solutions to complex problems. (We paid special attention to concepts around design thinking and to ideation.)

While our partners often call on us for help in building creative muscle, we don’t often challenge ourselves to do the same kind of intensive brainstorming. It was a lot of fun! And we were very successful in generating new ideas!

A snapshot of an exercise to build our creativity skills – transform 30 circles in 120 seconds!

Staff Meeting Brainstorm 2