Blogging4Life - Part 3

At the beginning of March I was encouraged by #clmooc educator friends to write about "Why I Started Blogging", based on a set of questions they had answered on their own blogs.  My first article is here, and my second is here. 

Today I'll answer the final questions. 

How do you write your posts?

I'm firmly committed to the idea that "a picture is worth a thousand words" so I have embedded graphics in most of my posts since late 2006 (and in my printed newsletters going back to 1993). 

The graphic below illustrates the role I take when I write a blog article, and that I encourage others to duplicate. I'm the YOU in this picture. 

I'm pointing people who read my blog to the library of information I've aggregated for decades, which includes maps showing where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located, along with a broad range of research showing why programs are needed and other problems that also need to be solved at the same time.  The goal is that people start conversations, using the library and the maps, which lead to more strategic and on-going support of one, or more, youth-serving programs in different parts of their community. 

Since my blogging is part of an on-going effort to increase visibility for tutor/mentor programs and draw volunteers and donors to them, many of my posts from 2005 to 2015 were created to draw attention to events hosted by my organization. 

The graphic below visualizes how quarterly events, repeated annually, and shared by more people leads to a growing pool of resources helping youth programs grow in many places.

Many of these were the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that we hosted in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. Many were fundraising events of the Cabrini Connections program that I led from November 1992 until mid 2011.

Most followed the school year, so in August/September my articles focused on a Chicago-wide tutor/mentor volunteer recruitment campaign that we launched in 1995. In November while I focused on bringing people together for the conference, I was also focused on motivating donors to seek out programs to fund with year-end giving. In January I focused on National Mentoring Month and in February I focused on helping programs recruit new volunteers to replace those who had dropped out over the year-end holidays. In March and April I started focusing on planning for the coming school year and in May I focused on the year end conference, our year-end dinner, and celebrations of what we accomplished. 

Thus I always had something to write about. 

In between the quarterly events I wrote articles following news stories and current events, publication of new research, or actions leaders were taking that needed to do more to help kids.

A major source of articles was a "Rest of the Story" strategy developed in the 1990s to draw attention to youth tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas following media stories that featured incidents of violence or reports on poorly performing public schools and/or street gangs.  Here's one article that illustrates this. 

You can find many more examples if you view articles tagged "violence" and "media".

I describe the "Rest of the Story" strategy in this PDF essay. 

In the past few years I’ve found inspiration in articles I wrote in earlier years which I often republished with updates. In addition, as I’ve digitized my paper files I’ve posted a few letters and articles from the past on my blog. Much of what I wrote 15 or 20 years ago is as relevant today as it was then. 

This article is an example of that. 

Since launching the blog I’ve liberally embedded links in my articles. This was a great strategy and I still use it, but over time, it has created a deep rabbit hole (as Terry Elliott would call it), that draws people deeper and deeper from one article to another. The result is “too much information”. Another is “too many broken links”.

Here’s an article I wrote in 2012 about “too much information” 

Here’s an article titled “navigation information overload”. 

I continue to write the blog and embed links with the goal that “a few” people will dig deep and they will share the information in byte-size formats with others. That’s my goal of getting students from middle school, high school and college involved as learners, creators and information facilitators.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

For the past decade I’ve tried to write one or two articles a week. I think in earlier years I might have posted more frequently, and with shorter articles. In the past few years I’ve posted less frequently on the MappingforJustice and Intern blogs. There’s no particular time of day.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

Most often I let the article simmer for a few hours, or overnight. Sometimes I publish immediately. In the early years I think I almost always published immediately.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I can’t think of any single post that I’d call my “favorite”. One that I value is this one, where I share links to all of my content. Since I’ve used TinyURL.com to shorten links, I created this originally so I’d be able to repeat the same short link rather than create a new one every time.  

A few years ago my #clmooc friend Terry Elliott introduced me to Wakalet. I’ve used it since then to share some of my favorite blog articles. And I’ve used my blog articles to point to my Wakalet collections. Skim these articles for examples. 

I put tags on my articles to help sort them into categories. An example of that is the Wakelet collection of articles, which you could find among the tags on the left side of my blog. 

There are a few sets of articles I hope people will view. I've positioned these at the top of the list of tags at the left.  These show my goal of having people build “A New Tutor/Mentor Connection” while understanding the history, vision and strategies of the T/MC and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

You can find links to these collections in this article along with a video that we shared at the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, where the Tutor/Mentor Connection was one of 50 'teaching examples'.  

A few other articles that you might look at:

- If I could present ideas to CEOs, what would I share. click here
- Funding Challenges facing youth serving organizations  - click here 
- A new way of attracting philanthropic support. Web evangelism - click here 

What embarrasses you most on your blog? Too many typos.

While I proofread, I still miss “its” and “it’s” and “there” and “their” and words that don’t have the final letter. Often when I’m looking at a past article and using it for a current one, I find these typos. Ugh.

I’m sure it has hurt my credibility.

Any future plans for the blog? Keep on writing.

I'm 78 now and facing health issues that may keep me from reaching 90.  I'll keep writing as long as I can, and continue looking for others to carry my work and ideas into the future.

Since 2005 I've posted 2,298 articles on this blog which have recorded 1,858,447 views.

I keep writing with the belief that everyone gets up in the morning and puts their pants on, one leg at a time. Everyone who has Internet access looks on-line for news, entertainment and information.  That means, someone, some place, is going to take time to read this and other articles and say, "I want to help."  

Now, I want them to say, "I want to share these ideas with more people in more places."  And, "I want to teach what Dan has learned over the past 50 years, and taken time to archive so others can learn from it."

Here’s an article that compares what I'm trying to motivate people to do to what faith groups and formal education have been doing for many years.  Here's another article, with the same idea. 

Who will participate next? 
Has Terry Elliott written a #Blogging4Life post yet? 

Thanks for reading this and other articles that I've posted. Please apply the ideas in your own efforts to create a better world.

I can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and still on Twitter.  See links on this page. 

This isn't Substack or GoFundMe, but I depend on contributions to pay the bills. Visit this page if you can help.