Follow up to today's #FutureChicago event

Today Crain's Chicago News hosted an event in downtown Chicago, where 700 people listened to panels of experts talk about issues important to the future of Chicago.  You can look at the archives and engage by clicking here, You can also look at some of the ideas that were exchanged by searching Twitter for #FutureChicago and then scrolling through the Tweets.  

I was one of those who participated on-line, using Twitter and Facebook.

I created the graphic below in the 1990s, illustrating one role anyone who cares about the future of Chicago, or their own city, can take.  Share this blog, and the Crain's site, with people in your own network, not just today, but at least once a week, and you become part of the solution.

That's what this graphic is showing. From right to left, you see a map showing all of Chicago, with high poverty areas highlighted.  Then you see a big circle, with a birth-to-work timeline running through the middle. Above the line is the public or private school system you attend from pre-school through high school and/or college. Below the line is your family, work, faith group and other networks that you're part of.  The circles below represent discussion groups, where people with something in common, gather to talk about the ideas of #FutureChicago, and ways they can have an impact, using their time, talent or dollars.

Organize a discussion group at your church, business, college, etc, and you become a bigger part of the solution.

This graphic is communicating the same idea, in a different way. It was created by an intern from South Korea who came to my organization a few years ago, via Illinois Institute of Technology.

This is one of dozens of visualizations created by interns since 2005, which you can see here. 

In the chart above there are two boxes (with images of people) to the left of the big circle. The first might represent a student, volunteer or intern, who creates their own version of one of my articles, and then passes it on to people in their own networks.

Each of these people have a network of their own.  

If they pass the article on, they reach and engage even more people.

That's what needs to happen if the ideas shared today in the #FutureChicago event, or shared by many others in past events, are to actually gather enough sustained participation to result in a Chicago that has solved these problems in the future.

While you're looking at follow up ideas, here's one shared by Steve Sewall. I hope you'll take a look.