Filene Fellow Dr. Jeffrey Robinson of Filene’s Center for Innovation & Incubation describes innovation as applied creativity. It’s nice to have ideas but turning them into practices, products or approaches that improve upon something else is what defines innovation—and credit unions will need to focus on innovation within their organizations to remain competitive.
With that, I am excited to share the debut of The Lab at Filene. This is how you get answers to the questions that matter most, so you can implement solutions faster, fuel your organization’s growth, and amplify impact in your community. If this sounds like what you’re looking for to support your strategic goals, let me know and we can talk more, or just tell us you’re interested and we’ll follow up.
Dive Deeper
My colleague Josh Sledge, senior director of innovation, describes The Lab in a unique way. Think Indiana Jones. Most adventures consisted of him navigating a challenging path while trying to avoid triggering any traps or devastating outcomes. Credit unions face a similar challenge as they sort through the avalanche of new ideas and products to find what will help them remain competitive and meet member needs. Step on the wrong square, and the floor may crumble beneath you. Just like Indy, the Lab at Filene wants to take the first steps on the innovation adventure and show credit unions the right path to take to realize greater growth and impact.
The Lab takes the Incubator’s model for testing (Seek, Test, Scale) and turns it into an annual process that provides efficiency, allows us to test more than one idea at a time, and makes space for our credit union partners to influence our testing agenda. This ability to rapidly test and iterate in The Lab each year enables credit unions and key partners to get quick insights to questions while they’re still relevant.
Get Going
Here are the opportunities Filene has for your teams to immediately get innovative:
- Register to join Fellow Jeffrey Robinson at our virtual event on April 5-7 where we’ll dive into the intersection between our Centers for Innovation and Incubation, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and Consumer Financial Lives in Transition.
- Join Josh Sledge and credit union leaders at our info session on April 19 to walk through how to get going with The Lab at Filene right away.
- Build your organization’s innovation competency by bringing an Innovation Workshop in house.
- Stay in the know on the latest research from the Center for Innovation and Incubation and download newly released reports like our latest on overdraft protection programs.
Join Us
I am asking you if you are ready to step up your innovation game, join us in The Lab. By sponsoring The Lab, your organization will strengthen the credit union system’s capacity for innovation and accelerate the adoption of proven solutions that drive growth and impact today and into the future.
