Navigating Yourself Through Information Libraries

Facilitating understanding

I started building the Tutor/Mentor information library in the 1970s long before I knew of the Internet. I had majored in history in college in the 1960s then spent three years in US Army Intelligence.  I was sort of "hard wired" to seek out 'best available information' to use it for innovation and problem solving.

When I became a volunteer tutor in 1973 I started seeking ideas to support my weekly tutoring.  When I became the leader of that program in 1975 I expanded my search for ideas, reaching out to leaders of other programs in Chicago to see what I could learn from them (and what they could learn from me).

I held a full-time retail advertising job at the Montgomery Ward corporation with responsibilities that grew from 1973 to 1990.  When I started leading the tutoring program there were 100 pairs of elementary school kids and workplace volunteers. That number grew to 300 pairs by 1990.  There was no way I could personally train each of them to know all they needed to know, so I began to try to motivate them to be "active learners", digging into the library of information I had started collecting.  

At the tutoring program hosted by Montgomery Ward from 1970s-1999 the library started as four metal file cabinets, then expanded to a wall of shelves. When we moved to the 20th floor of the Montgomery Ward HQ tower in 1993 we had about 400 sq ft of space, just devoted to our library. It was open to our own volunteers and students, and to leaders of other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. 

That physical library now is down to a few books on shelves in my home office. The library is now all on-line, which has been happening since 1998, while the space (and funds) available to operate began to shrink.  There's some sadness there, but to me, this is a blessing. The information is available to far more people now than it ever was in the 1990s.

From 1993 to 2000 I used printed newsletters to tell people about some of this information and encouraged them to visit the library at our Wards location.  Many of the tutor/mentor programs launched in the mid 1990s borrowed ideas from that library.  I hosted conferences every six months in Chicago and these became a place to gather new information and to help people understand the information and ideas within the library.

Home Page T/MC website - 1998

We started moving all this on-line in 1998 when one of the volunteers at the tutor/mentor program I was leading offered to build a website for us. We developed the graphic at the right for this first website to show our goal of connecting people from different backgrounds to the information, to each other, and to the Tutor/Mentor Connection. The page design was used help people navigate the information on the site. You could click on any of the blue circles and go to a section where we hosted lists of information/links to other people's websites.

I used email newsletters and blog articles, like this one, to encourage our own volunteers and donors, as well as people involved in other programs in Chicago, and around the USA, to dig into the library. 

Between 1998 and 2004 I saw a few examples where graphics like on our first website were interactive, meaning if you clicked on one of the blue circles it would move to the center of the wheel, and the spokes would be filled with new circles, showing sub categories of information related to that topic.  The Hub of Creativity and the early version of the Boston Indicators Project (both no longer available) were examples that I hoped to duplicate (but never was able to).

As the library continued to grow between 2000 and today the number of links grew and that made it more and more difficult for people to navigate the library.  In 2011 I worked with Debategraph and created an interactive site that shows the vision and strategy of the Tutor/Mentor Connection / Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

Mentoring Kids to Careers on Debategraph - click here

When you click on any of the spokes it moves to the center of the wheel and new spokes appear. A narration at the right side of the page explains what that particular strategy focuses on.  This was a good example of the type of navigation tool I was envisioning in the late 1990s, but still did not focus on the various sections of the Tutor/Mentor web library.

Since 2005 I've used concept maps, created with cMapTools, to show the library.  

4 sections of web library

These are static, but they have layers of information. You can link from the cMap to sections of the library.  This map shows the four main sections. Thus, if you click on the small box at the bottom of each node, a new map appears.

In the late 2000s two interns from South Korea/IIT in Chicago built an animated version of the map.  This work was actually done by two different teams. One built it in the winter and the second updated links and added a voice narration in the spring of 2009.  You can see it below.

Resource Map - video

This was created in Flash animation which is no longer supported on many platforms. I created a YouTube video a couple of years ago so that it could still be viewed. It was really creative work.

The Debategraph map, cMaps and this animation all were a form of interactive navigation, intended to help people find, understand, and apply the ideas in the library to help kids in all poverty areas move through school and into adult lives.

This week if found a version of what I have been imagining for so long, on the World Economic Forum web site. This is a "strategic intelligence" map.  View this short video to understand its scope.

World Economic Forum - Strategic Intelligence 

Here's how this works.  On the home page of the WEF website are dozens of categories. Click on any one of these and a map like the one above opens. On this the hub of the wheel starts out stating the global issue, in this case "workforce and development". The spokes show a wide range of related issues. Click on any of those, and that becomes the center, with new spokes.  Notice the inner ring of circles. Click on any of these and related spokes on the outer ring will show up in blue.  Every time you refresh the map a list of resources appears in the box on the right side of the page.

I can't imagine what it costs to build and  maintain this.  I'd love to have someone step forward and build a similar platform to point to all the sections of my library.  This might be organized in several ways. For instance, I wrote a "War on Poverty" article several years ago and created the graphic below.

View PDF that describes this. 

The hub of the wheel might be "What are all the things we need to know and do to assure every youth born in a poverty area today is in a job, free of poverty, by his/her mid 20s?"  The spokes would be points 1 to 7 on this graphic, with an 8th being "using maps".

This same hub could be used with a different version, where the outer spokes would be all the sections and sub sections of the Tutor/Mentor library, and the inner spokes would be the four major categories shown in the cMap above.

Why is this important? Below are screenshots from today's Chicago Tribune, talking about the tragic killing of another child, and pointing out that we've been here in the past, and nothing  has changed.

I could have just as reasonably put in an image from the murder of George Floyd, or the Black Lives Matter Movement.  Both are related.

An information map, like the one the World Economic Forum built, should be created, with "How do we assure that all Black Lives Matter"  or "How do we end these killings?"   The outer circle would be created by people much more deeply informed than myself, but needs to be an exhaustive representation of "everything: "we need to know, and do, to reach a future where all Black Lives do Matter, and we have a much better world for every one to live and raise their kids.

I wrote this article earlier today, saying a Black Lives Matter information hub should be built. Maybe it already has been.  Here's another page from the WEF Strategic Intelligence site, focused on Systemic Racism.

Systemic Racism - click here

I'm not yet certain about what information is hosted, here, but I encourage you to take time to look.

I think the sub sections of the Tutor/Mentor library would be a useful resource for these platforms.

Getting "Everyone" involved

I think the 4-part strategy that I started following in 1994 would be useful, too.  The library I've built, that the World Economic Forum built, and that others, like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals organizers have created, all represent "STEP 1", which is the information gathering, organizing, and sharing step.

In the War on Poverty graphic, STEP 7 focuses on "building and sustaining public will".  I feel this is where we have failed, over and over, for the past 30 years.  Too few spend time trying to figure ways to do this and too fee provide the on-going funding needed.

STEP 2 of the 4-part strategy focuses on building public interest and drawing more people to the information in the library, while STEP 3 involves an on-going process of facilitation, or helping people find, understand and learn ways to apply the information.

I'm doing STEP 2 and STEP 3 right now.

STEP 4 involves the use of maps, which are also part of STEP 1.  We must know where people need help and we must build tools that show the distribution of needed programs and resources, to assure that we're reaching ALL of those places.

STEP 4

What makes the Tutor/Mentor strategy unique is that in STEP 1 I've been building a list of Chicago and national Tutor and/or Mentor programs.  The result of more people looking at this information and learning ways to help is that more are looking at maps to determine what organizations in specific areas are doing needed work. Then they are looking in their own personal mirror and deciding how, and how much, to help.

They don't need to wait for a proposal. They have used the information in STEP 1 to know what types of programs work and they look on program websites to determine what these programs do and how to help them.  Then they call or e-Mail to volunteer, or send a check or electronic payment.

Educating more people to take various roles that sustain needed work in thousands of locations is work that must be included in any knowledge map.  To that end, I encourage you to visit Harold Jarche's blog and learn about Personal Knowledge Mastery.  

I've been writing about this since 2005, so there are many related articles that you can find by clicking on the tabs at the left side of this blog.  This article about systems thinking would be a good start.

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and Instagram (find links here).

If you value the ideas I'm sharing, a small contribution to help fund me would be welcome. Visit this page and use PayPal to send your help.

1-23-2025 update - this week I watched Online Landlord  Mapper describe the interactive features built into his new website.  You can view the video here.  These are the type of interactive features that I was trying to build into my websites as early as the late 1990s.  While we made progress, I was never able to maintain consistent funding to keep improving the sites, and now they are off-line, only available as archives. 

Developing New Leadership Pipeline

Yesterday in a Twitter discussion with my #clmooc network I posted this Tweet, in response to something Sherri Edwards had posted:

I wonder if anyone has created an archive, using #cmap or other tools, showing a) every university that trains future teachers, or, b) that provides on-going coaching to current teachers, who point to affinity groups like #clmooc or #ds106 , to encourage learning about this.

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) March 9, 2019

That and following responses got me thinking about an idea I've proposed in various ways for many years, and talk about in this TippingPoints pdf.

"What if colleges were preparing people to lead and support constantly improving tutor/mentor programs, schools and other organizations, by reaching youth as young as middle school and keeping them continually engaged, all the way through college, into work, and for the rest of their lives?"

So, I created a ppt slide to try to visualize this idea. It's shown below:

I immediately recognized that this slide is packed with information and while I understand it, most viewers might take one look, then move on.  So, how do I get a few people to spend some time on the graphic, and perhaps help unpack and share it's meaning.

So, I went to NOWCOMMENT, and posted my graphic, then highlighted different sections with questions.

View this on NOWCOMMENT

While I posted a couple of graphics on NOWCOMMENT a few years ago, I'm a novice at using this platform.  Thus, if anyone is interested in helping unpack the slide, I'd welcome a Skype conversation during which we do some unpacking together, and where I am mentored in using the platform more effectively.

Normally, I'd now go on and create a bunch more graphics and unpack the slide myself in the rest of this article. However, I'm going to wait a week or so, to see if anyone else takes a look first.

In the #clmooc group we're doing a collective reading and discussion of "Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning". We're talking about Affinity Spaces, and what it is that keeps us #clmooc folks connected and learning together.

I saw this Tweet this morning:

Something to think about, from the Affinity Network book being read in #clmooc — no online space can “rest on its laurels” if it hopes to remain viable and active, particularly in a time of “do I have attention?” But that doesn’t mean the interaction has to be shallow, either pic.twitter.com/2KTr2nzdWJ

— CLMOOC (@CLMOOC) March 10, 2019

Since I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993 I've continually been looking for people to spend time, talent and dollars discussing, interpreting and sharing the ideas I launched via print newsletters in the 1990s, and web sites, then blog articles since 1998.

Over time, many have joined in this effort, but few have stayed involved for more than a few years, at most. Thus, I've constantly looked for partners to help share this vision, and the work involved. Universities are an obvious place to look, and my interest in universities is expressed in this series of blog articles.

As I read blog posts from the #clmooc network, I have come to believe that this work could be done at high school, or even middle school level.

Since colleges and universities serve different geographic regions, each could have a Tutor/Mentor Institute team of students, faculty, alumni and community members working to collect and share information in an on-going effort to fill the area around the university with programs that reach youth when young, then support them through school and into careers and adult lives.

One of those careers could be in non-school youth tutor, mentor and learning organizations serving youth in high poverty areas.

What I add to this vision is that such a college based program should attract and engage students who WILL NOT choose careers in non profits, or education, but will become lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs and successful business people.  These students will learn the value of youth tutor/mentor programs and sophisticated education programs and will also learn how long it takes to raise a child, and how difficult it is for each non profit to attract the resources that enable them to become great, then stay great for many years.

These students will learn to become proactive in how they work to support existing organizations where other alumni may be on staff or involved as volunteers. They will learn to use maps to understand where programs are reaching youth, and where more programs are needed. They will learn to start new programs, and improve existing programs, by borrowing ideas from working programs throughout the world, not just from one city.

Darn!  I have already given some of the ideas that are included on that slide.  Please go and look for yourself.

Join me, in my Tutor/Mentor AffinityGroup, on line at Twitter, or Facebook, or on LinkedIN, or in new spaces that you might help create.

Note: one role that any can take is to be a contributor to help me pay the bills and keep doing this work. Click here to learn more.

How to Use this Blog

I've been writing this blog as part of a strategy launched in 1993 to help kids living in high poverty areas have access to well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that operate in the non-school  hours.

The articles are intended for program leaders, volunteers, policy makers, resource providers, business, volunteers and virtually anyone who is concerned about poverty, inequality, workforce development and/or democracy.

search on Google for "tutor mentor" and any of these words.

This graphic shows the tags on the left side of this blog, with the larger size type representing more articles with that tag. This was created in 2016 so there are a few more categories in the tag list now, but if you browse the list you'll find them.  Just open any of the tags, then scroll through the articles.

As a short cut to help you find a few articles that provide a broad overview of what I'm writing about, visit this Tumblr site, where I've archived about a dozen articles pulled from this blog.

I don't expect anyone to read every article in a day, or a year. However, if you follow current articles and browse past articles from time-to-time you'll begin to understand the ideas I'm sharing and hopefully, you'll want to share them via your own blog, meetings, social media, etc.

If you value this work please visit this page and use the PayPal button to send me some financial support.  

21st Century Skills - Are These Modeled In Your Youth Organization?

Below is a graphic from an article on the World Economic Forum web site, titled, "What are 21st Century Skills Every Student Needs? I encourage you to read and share this with others.

Graphic from World Economic Forum article

As I looked through the list, these seem to be skills and habits that apply generically to all of the situations a young person will encounter as he/she travels through life. Anyone working with young people should be looking at these lists and thinking of ways the programs and services they provide reinforce one, or many, or these goals.

However, I'd encourage two other forms of learning.

One is "content".  This concept map includes pie chart graphics, that show different issues and challenges facing Chicago and the world, which need to be understood, and solved. Building understanding, solutions and them developing on-going actions requires the skills and habits suggested in the WEF article. However, learning about problems and solutions, requires on-going learning, drawing from content libraries that focus on specific issues.

The second is "process" or "systems thinking".  What are all the things you need to know to solve a complex problem. That would include habits and skills, and content. However, knowing how to sequence steps to achieve a goal, and how to build the public will and on-going support to stay focused on a problem for many years, and in many places, is also a skill that needs to be learned.

This concept map illustrates steps in the thinking process that need to be included in order for mentor-rich, non-school, tutor, mentor and learning programs to reach k-12 youth in more of the high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and the world, and for more of those programs to have on-going strategies that help kids move through school and into jobs and careers free of poverty.

The also steps apply to other issues.

I point to nearly 200 non-school Chicago area youth serving programs in this list and to many others in Chicago and around the USA in this, this and this sections of the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library.

They all need to have one or more people reading my articles and sharing them and the links I point to with others in their organization, as part of their own on-going learning and process improvement.

Program Design - Supporting Long-Term Mentor-Youth-Org Connections

Kevin Hodgson's blog 2-4-17

I follow Kevin Hodgson's blog because he's constantly sharing ideas that he applies in  his Western Massachusetts middle school classroom, and in his networking and learning with others via the Internet.  He posted the graphic at the left today, showing how students in his classes had been creating a dictionary of words they invented for nearly a decade. He wrote that

"this year's class of word inventors weren't even born when the first class of inventors began making up words in 2005"

This is a practical application of a strategy I feel should be in place in every volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, as well as in K-12 schools and universities.  I used this graphic to describe the strategy in the mid-2000s as I was trying to implement it in the tutor/mentor program that I was leading.

In this concept map I show a goal of building habits of learning, using the organization web site as a place find and share information and ideas, not just while students and volunteers are active, but in the years following their involvement.  You can view the map here and read an article where I described it here.

I don't know if Keven's goal was to build habits that motivated his students to continue to come back to see what's happening in his classroom, or to look for ways to help current students move through school and into jobs, but his site is a stepping stone toward such a goal.

How does this apply to helping kids living in poverty connect with a wider range of adult support? Look at the graphic below which I created in the mid 1990s to describe the program I was leading in Chicago.

Total Quality Mentoring - Mentor-Rich program design

This hub and spoke design could be a model for every child, showing the adult support and learning experiences needed to move safely through school and into adult lives.  It could also be the design of a tutor/mentor program, showing how the program draws volunteers from many career and work fields together as tutors/mentors and leaders. It could also be used to show the types of learning and enrichment the program makes available to its members.  It could be used by city leaders to show the type of programs they are trying to help grow in all poverty areas of a city. It's also the design of a classroom, with the teacher as the hub. It could also be individual students, who are the center of networks of peers.

The "It takes a village to raise a child" statement can be turned into program design, and strategies, aimed at drawing students and volunteers together in long-term relationships.

What Kevin has piloted, and what I'm showing with the concept map above, is an effort to build habits of learning and sharing, using a web site, wiki or some other on-line library and forum, as a place to get and give information, or to get and give help, far into future years when the student becomes an adult and part of the network of adults who are helping each other, and helping younger students rise up the pipeline from birth to work.

I've been applying this strategy in my own efforts for many years. At the right is a graphic showing former Cabrini-Green area students and volunteers who I've worked with since 1973, who I'm still connected with on Facebook (in 2012). Here's a PDF with this and other network analysis graphics.

Kevin has been maintaining his platform for over 10 years and has had to move it to different platforms as technology has changed.  How many volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs have been in business for ten years?  How many have databases of former students and volunteers and/or are using those to share information that helps alumni continue to grow in their lives,  while also engaging alumni in work that supports the school, the program, and the young people coming up?

Kevin has been able to do what he does, and I've been able to do what I do, because we've been consistently involved for many years.  I focus on drawing talent and operating dollars to non-school tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas because if they can't keep a core group of people involved for a decade or longer they can't build this type of learning network.  If you're a champion of mentoring, or concerned with urban poverty, inequality and violence, this should be something you focus on.

I don't know who reads my blog among the many programs I point to on this list of Chicago programs, or this list of programs from beyond Chicago.  I do know that many of those I'm trying to connect with, and help, don't make an equal effort to connect with me.  Just looking at the Twitter list of organizations and people who don't follow me back illustrates this.

However, when I see people in other states, like Terry Elliott, paying attention to what I'm writing, I am encouraged to keep sharing these ideas.  I hope by sharing links to their work others will make an effort to duplicate some of these ideas.