Innovation in tough economic times

Much has been written about this topic - innovation stemming from this time of economic hardship - but I continue to find it all very interesting. Here is an article about how recent grads are turning into social entrepreneurs and coming up with great ideas, partially due to the fact that they have the freedom to think about other options now that their prescribed potential high-power, high-money career options have dried up. My take-aways from this article:

1. the importance of finding work that "feeds your soul";
2. and the potential of my generation to learn lifelong lessons from experiences such as these when we are forced to think of new ways to do things and new paths to carve out

These new adventures don't necessarily involve all of the things we "should" be doing with our education , but I'm pretty sure they're going to have good results for our world overall. My question is how to continue to support and encourage opportunities like this for recent grads when the economy begins to recover and the potential for great wealth from traditional career paths returns?

Building capacity

I need to build some capacity into my schedule so that I have more blogging time, right?!  I think this summer semester might need to subscribe to the philosophy of quality over quantity ... 

Anyway, for those current and former VISTA members out there, the phrase "capacity building" should be ringing a bell!  I'm here to tell you that this phrase exists in real life, in case you ever doubted the validity of your capacity building work to help you in your next steps.  It is potentially one of the most important things an organization can do. 

I am being reminded of the importance of capacity building as I get started on my Team Consulting Project (TCP) with ACCION USA this summer (who, by the way, just announced a cool partnership with Kiva!  Check it out here.).  We're working on reaching more potential borrowers through ACCION's internet loan program, an innovative idea that has room to grow.  We'll be looking at how to build capacity and systems to make this program sustainably grow in a few different ways.  It's potentially going to be one of the coolest projects I work on during my grad school stint, and I'm looking forward to digging in a little bit more. 

As a final note, if you think my grad school program sounds cool, and you're looking for one of your own to get into, check out the upcoming Idealist Grad School Fairs in DC and NYC.  Here are a few quick details, but visit www.idealist.org to find out more!

Wednesday, June 17 5 - 8 pm American University, Katzen Arts Center, Rotunda, 1st Floor 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington 

Thursday, June 18 5 - 8 pmFordham University, Lincoln Center, Pope Auditorium 113 W 60th Street, New York, NY