Many Leaders Needed

 Over the weekend I included the two graphics below in two articles.

In the first I show four times a year when leaders can motivate people in their networks, or their companies, to volunteer time, talent and dollars to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in more places.  

In the second I included this strategy map, showing a role leaders from every sector need to take, at least four strategic times each year, and for many years.   

In both articles I included example speeches/sermons that leaders could use, showing their commitment to helping kids in high poverty areas move through school and into adult lives, with the help of organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs.  

In this article I show how Gemini described the strategy map and its goals.  I think it did a pretty good job, which is why I'm sharing it.

I hope you'll take a look at these articles and create an article sharing your own understanding, or showing your support.  While my maps focus on the Chicago region, your maps should focus on high poverty areas of your own city or state, showing all places where kids, families and schools need more help.

Finally, take a look at articles like this where I show how to collect data and share it via visualizations created using social network mapping tools.

Students in local high school and colleges could be doing the data collection needed to produce maps like these.  Without them a city might see a lot of activity but still have too few leaders involved and be reaching too few of the places where on-going support is needed.

Imagine having a map showing all faith groups in the Chicago region, with flags highlighting those who have adopted the T/MC strategy map and have given "mobilization" sermons at least four time a year.  Imagine having similar maps, showing businesses, political leaders, celebrities, etc.

That's the goal. It's been the goal for many years. 

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter, Mastodon, Medium and/or Substack.  See links here.

And, if you're able to help, visit this page and contribute to help me pay the bills.

Planning a conference? Building a network?

Last week I posted an article on Substack.com titled, "Start Planning for Fall 2026 Tutor/Mentor Programs". 

You can view the article here. In it I showed a few slides from a planning calendar that I developed in the late 70s, which helped me grow the tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011.  The annual January celebration of mentoring should boost the planning process so that existing programs improve from year-to-year and new programs form where more are needed.  I'd love to find visual essays from other programs that describe their planning cycle.

I started connecting with leaders of other Chicago youth programs in the mid 1970s and that led to the formation of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  One strategy led to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences which we held in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. These were part of the public awareness strategy we launched and an effort to draw leaders and supporters of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs together to share ideas and build relationships. 

A few years ago I created the concept map shown below, as a guide others could use in organizing their own conferences.

At the far right I've added a section focused on collecting data to help event organizers understand who attended, who they connected with, and "who's missing".  This points to the event mapping resource created in late 2025 by a team of IVMOOC students from Indiana University.  

In a previous article I showed the front page of an "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. click here to open

If you open the "learn" tab at the top of the home page  you'll find some really clear information about how to design forms that collect network data effectively and how to turn this into visualizations on Kumu, Gephi or Tableau.  I show a few of the pages below.  Click on an image to enlarge it. 

Getting Started: What This Tool Does

Scroll down on the Getting Started page and you'll see "The Complete Workflow"

Continue scrolling down to descriptions of "External Visualization Software" such as Kumu and Gephi.  

Continue to scroll down and you'll see brief descriptions of "Key Concepts" and "Why Use Network Graphs?"

Next, open the Form Creation Guide tab - click here

Scroll down and you'll see "Every Network Form Needs These 3 Sections"

Next is a section showing "Form Design by Experience Level --  Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced".

Continue to scroll down to "After You Create Your Form". 

Perhaps before you create your form you want to learn more about "Nodes and Edges".  click here and open the page shown below.

The next section shows how to export your data to Kumu or Gephi. click here

The next sections describes some "Real-World Use Cases". click here

Some examples of Kumu Network Visualizations are shown - click here

Another example is the visualization of Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference participants from 1994 to 2015.  I've shared a few examples of this in previous articles, such as this one.

I've also pointed to many other examples of using Kumu and/or NodeXL.  This concept map points to a few of them.  Follow Kumu on LinkedIn and you'll see examples that they post every week.

I hope you'll agree with me that the work done by the IVMOOC team is excellent, and valuable.

Share this article with anyone who is creating events intended to bring people together on an on-going basis, to stimulate learning, reinforce work already being done, and innovate new solutions where they are needed.  Every city in the world should have a group doing what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been doing since 1993.  This network mapping tool event planning process can become a valuable asset.

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and/or Mastodon (see links here) and share how you're using these ideas, and work you're already doing.  

If you'd like to connect on ZOOM or another platform to learn more about this resource or any of the ideas I share on this blog, just reach out to me.  

Finally, if you value what I'm sharing, please visit this page and make a contribution to help Fund the work. 

Solving problems? Know the Network.

Below is a graphic that I shared in my July newsletter, and in my library.

This article is part of an on-line library hosted by an organization called, "The Commons".  Its title is "Power Mapping to Design a Winning Campaign Strategy".  Read it here. 

In its introduction, the article says, "To win a campaign, you need to correctly identify who has the power to fix the problem you want fixed. Then you need to pressure them to make the right decision. Power mapping is a tool to not only identify who holds that power, but, crucially, who holds influence over that person, and, therefore, who to target with your direct actions and campaign activities."

This is a strategy that I've followed, and shared, for more than 45 years.  The graphic below is a page from a visual essay showing the "operating principles" I followed in leading volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago from 1975 to 2011.

This lists nine skills/abilities needed in planning and leadership teams to operate an effective program.  I used this to try to find volunteers to help me lead a program that grew from 100 pairs of youth/students in 1975 to over 400 pairs by June 1992.   Initially I used an Excel spreadsheet to list all my volunteers, their jobs and where they worked, then used this to sort for skills I was looking for. I could choose from three or four names based on where they worked, and how this might impact that company's support for us if the volunteer took on a leadership role.

In the 1990s I started using a FileMaker Pro database to collect information that I used to support my print and email campaigns, and used to invite people to networking conferences that I held in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. That grew to about 13,000 people by 2003.  That's when we were forced to stop sending print newsletters due to lack of money.

I continued to use the database to recruit volunteers and donors for Cabrini Connections until I left in 2011. And, I used it to invite people to conferences until the last one in May 2015.  However, it did not translate very well to our email campaigns that began in the early 2000s. I estimate that we lost regular contact with more than half of the people we'd been sending print newsletters to. 

It still has contact information for tutor/mentor programs in Chicago that I host on the Tutor/Mentor website.   I still have it if anyone would like to do an analysis of the range of organizations I was sharing information with.

After forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I began to attend a number of meetings focused on reducing violence and improving schools.  I often thought to myself, "Who else should be in this conversation?" and "What other information should they be looking at?"   Those two thoughts have driven my thinking about network analysis for over 30 years.

In the 1990s I created the graphic that I show below.  It shows the design of a mentor-rich program, with volunteers coming from many different backgrounds and kids getting involved at one grade level and staying through high school graduation.  Our goal was that those connections would continue after kids graduated.  Today I saw a note on Facebook from one former student to a volunteer, celebrating the volunteer's birthday.  It shows that what we hoped would happen is really happening, at least for some former students and volunteers.

Another version of that is in this second graphic.  This shows how I share information via a website, blogs, social media, e-Mail newsletters and one-on-one conversations that I hope will be passed on to other people. Each spoke of the wheel represents someone who could be sharing information with his/her network.

Both graphics visualize the wide range of people who need to be involved in helping kids in areas of persistent poverty move through school and into jobs and careers.  In this visual essay, titled "Total Quality Mentoring" I use these graphics and show the role of leaders in mobilizing volunteers to support youth serving programs in every high poverty area of Chicago, not just the most visible areas.

Here's a graphic I created in the late 1990s that shows an application of this thinking.

The people in the first ring of your network may not be able to influence change.  However, if they share posts like mine in their networks, a lager circle of people are exposed to these ideas.  Ultimately, this can reach the "super hero" who has the most power and can be a "tipping point" in an organization's growth and ability to have an impact.  

Understanding who is participating.

By tracking attendance at the Tutor/Mentor Conferences I was able to create maps like the one below, showing who attended.  You can see maps from the 1998 and 2008 conferences on this page.  These show a good representation from tutor/mentor programs, but low participation from key people who need to be strategic in supporting these programs, such as business, philanthropy, government, research and media.

In the mid 2000s I began to learn about social network analysis (SNA). One of the leading thinkers was (and still is) Valdis Krebs.  In 2009 I wrote this article, titled "Nudge the Net: - how do we mobilize personal network to solve problems of inner city violence?"  I followed up with this article.  In both, I featured Krebs' work. 

In 2010 Valdis Krebs donated software to the Tutor/Mentor Connection and presented a "how to" workshop to interns who I recruited to do an analysis of conference participation.  Below is a map from a blog article created by one of those interns, showing participation in the November 2008 and May and November 2009 conferences.

Unfortunately these interns were only able to help me for a short period of time and I've not found anyone to continue this work since then.  Thus, I was not able to map more of the conferences and move to the next stage of understanding "Who is missing?" and "How do we get them involved?"

Around this time I created the concept map shown below, showing "talent needed" in any successful organization.  A parallel map shows "networks needed". 

These maps build upon what I was doing in the 1970s and 80s.  In many articles I've suggested that people use these as planning tools for building their own organization, making sure that someone has each of the talents highlighted.  And I've suggested to researchers that instead of just mapping "who participated", use concept maps like mine to show "Who needs to be involved".  Then compare the participation maps to the "aspirational" maps, to learn "Who's missing?"

In 2012 I created a network analysis map showing my Facebook followers. You can see the analysis in this PDF essay.   

I've written about network building and network analysis often since starting this blog in 2005. Here's a 2009 article that uses the concept map shown above.  And here's an article from 2023.

Are you doing this type of analysis? 

How can we apply ideas in the Power Mapping article to better understand who is part of the ecosystem of people and organizations that need to be working collectively toward building and sustaining programs and policies that address all of the challenges shown on the concept map below?

This map shows many of the issues progressives want to address and that the current administration seems to want to make worse for immigrants, people of color, people living in high poverty areas, and people with special needs. 

Using concept maps like I show above, researchers could build a database showing all the different people and organizations who need to be included in on-going learning and problem solving, for many years.  

I'm still connected to the boy I first tutored in 1973. He attended college and has to sons who have graduated from college.  

As you read the above, one thing you may, or may not, be thinking about is, "How does an individual, or an organization, do all of this network building, mapping and analysis?" How do they keep doing it for 20-30 years? Where do they find the money?"

Read some of my articles about having universities adopt my work, with it funded by wealthy donors.   

Become the "YOU" in the graphics shown above and share this article.  Maybe you, or someone you know, will use the Power Mapping ideas to identify one or more people who will move these ideas forward.

Thanks for reading.  Visit this page to see where you can connect with me on social media.

And, visit this page to make a contribution to help me continue to do this work. 

Mapping ideas, information and networks

Last week I found two visualizations that really excited me. They were created using Kumu.io software.

The first was this presentation, showing the 2023 Women's World Cup teams and players, created by Morgan Wills.  I show one of the views below.

Morgan writes, "This visualization allows for an interactive exploration of players in the FIFA 2023 Women's World Cup. Who were the top ranked? Who was in what position on what squad? What is the distribution of ages? Who were the strongest passers, and can we see that according to position? The buttons on the map of players allow you to explore all these things and more for all players in the 2023 World Cup!"

The second presentation, created by Deniz Cem Önduygu, explores the History of Western Philosophy. He wrote in this explanation, "I concluded that there should be a global and systematic way to see all the agreement (similarity, expansion) and disagreement (contrast, refutation) relationships between philosophers and their ideas."

Deniz had been collecting this information for more than 10 years before he discovered Kumu.io as a way to share it. 

Open both presentations and explore the way information is shared.  These are powerful examples of tools like Kumu.io.

For a long time I've been troubled by one thought. How do I connect the people I know, and have interacted with often over the past 30 years, with each other?

I was introduced to social network analysis tools in the late 2000s through the work of Valdis Krebs. He spoke at our Tutor/Mentor conference in 2009 and then donated his Org.net software. In 2010 he did a workshop for three interns who had volunteered to help me. This Ning group was set up to support their work. This blog was one outcome. It shows participation in the 2009-10 Tutor/Mentor Conferences and is an example of what I hoped would be done on an on-going basis. 

In 2011 I did some network analysis work myself, using tools that looked at my LinkedIn and Facebook groups. This presentation shows maps created in that process, like the one above that shows my Facebook network. Connecting people across these clusters with each other has been my goal for a long time.

So I've had a long commitment to network analysis as a way to help people understand who was in my network and help them connect with each other. But I've never had the money to hire anyone to do this work consistently and I've not had the time to learn and do it myself.

That does not mean I've not used concept maps for a long time to visualize information I've been collecting and sharing.  Below is a map of my library.  It's one of many concept maps that I've created using cMapTools that you can view on this page. 

So how do I motivate some visual scientists to spend time converting my concept maps to interactive formats like Kumu, then recording them on YouTube so more people see and use them?

Maybe this is a possibility.

In February 2024 I wrote this article, after watching the annual National Football League "Honors" show.  

As I looked at the many posts about athletes supporting mentoring, and the NFL Honors videos showing athletes supporting many different efforts in their communities, I wondered if anyone had tried to create a web library, and/or concept map, building lists of athletes/celebrities from every sport, focused on specific issues.

I wrote, "Why collect this? To learn from each other and improve work being done.

This should be a no-brainer for sports professionals. Coaches are constantly learning from each other. They have libraries of film that they study to spur innovation and constant improvement."

7-26-2025 update - I started a list of sports philanthropy websites in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library.  Find it here.  These show that there already is a certain level of aggregation.  They also show the type of websites I'd like to find and add to the list.

In my preparation for writing this article I reviewed many articles that I posted in past years.  I found many great examples of network mapping and use of Kumu, as well as how I had been trying to collect and share information for the past 30 years.  Rather than list all of these in this article, I created the concept map shown below to point to some of those resources.

If you explore this map you'll find many examples of using KUMU to support network building and systems thinking.  You'll also see the influence of others, such as Gene Bellinger, who I met around 2011 in a LinkedIn Systems Thinking group.   If you dig through articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 you'll find many more.

What if someone (s) like Deniz Cem Önduygu or Morgan Wills adopted my library and archives and created visualizations to help people find and use the information they contain?  The History of Western Philosophy project is an example of how information in libraries can be shared.  Other projects, such as the work of Morgan Willis, show how people in networks can be identified. That's the first step in building connections.  Interns from various colleges did this type of work for me between 2005 and 2015, but not as on-going, long-term projects.

9-29-2025 update - Here's an example of using KUMU to map winners of the International Network of Social Network Analysis awards winners.  Imagine seeing a similar map showing causes supported by professional athletes, and/or, winners of professional sports awards over a period of years. 

11-7-2025 update - here's an example of using KUMU to map connections within a university.  https://micelio.uca.edu.sv/home  I'd love to find something like this for every Chicago area university. Chris Warren, our NU Public Service Fellow, created such a map, using CMapTools back in 2009. See it here.

11-17-2025 update - Take a look at the Global Futures Society's Network Map, built using KUMU - https://kumu.io/gfs/gfs-mapping#gfs-map

12-6-2025 update - This Child Care Systems map is another example of using KUMU.  What's unique about this map is that descriptions are built right into the map.  Click here to read the KUMU article on LinkedIn. Explore at this link.

3-13-2026 update - This Kumu article shows how Kumu was used to create visual evidence maps that help reveal patterns across the field of digital health.  click here

What if a major donor put up the money to establish a Tutor/Mentor Connection study program at one or more universities, where students learned to do this type of visualization work and the on-going communication needed to motivate more people to view the information and use it.

That's why I write articles like this.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll share this in your networks and connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and other platforms (see links here).

And, I invite you to visit this page and help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

Mapping Participation - An Example

A few weeks ago I posted an article showing uses of concept maps to visualize complex problems and understand the range of people who were connecting with each other in specific places to solve specific problems. 

I've been interested in mapping participation, as part of building networks, for more than 20 years.  Today I was prompted to review two blog articles created in 2010 by a graduate of DePaul University to understand participation in May and November 2009 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, which I had been hosting in Chicago, every six months since May1994.  

In one of the articles I saw this map.

This SNA map shows conference attendees from different tutor/mentor programs for the May 2009 and November 2009 conferences.  The programs are color-coded on the basis of poverty levels in that zip code.  The map shows that attendees were from a wide spectrum of poverty regions.

I hope you'll read these 2010 articles and see how people organizing events might map participation as part of an on-going planning and network building process.

Sadly, my volunteer was only able to work with us for a short time and I never found another volunteer (or funding) to build on this work.

Around 2014 I was able to create a couple of maps showing participation in 1998 and 2008 conferences.  The graphic below shows the 1998 conference participation.

Visit this page and find an interactive map that you can ZOOM into and learn more about who participated.  

In 2014 a team of graduate students from Indiana University looked at participation lists for every conference from 1994 to 2014. My hope was that they would build SNA maps and stories that built on the work done in 2010.  This article has links to the reports they created. This is another article that talks about their work.

One of the products of the IU team was this map, showing 1994 to 2014 participation from across the USA. 

Open this page and view the map.  Zoom in to see participation from the Chicago area and other places.

Each of these projects did part of what I was hoping to achieve, but not all. None lasted beyond one cycle of student involvement.  Yet, they are examples of what is possible.

Here's another article that shows what I've tried to accomplish. 

This concept map shows organizations in Chicago and beyond who serve as intermediaries, connecting networks of youth serving organizations to information and each other.  

What none of my concept maps show is, "How are they connecting to each other?", or "How frequently do they connect?", or "How many years have they been connecting with each other, and in what types of formats?"

There's also a lot of missing information.  If you look at my conference maps, or the SNA analysis done in 2010, you won't see much, if any, participation from business, political leaders, media, funders, researchers or others who need to be involved in long-term efforts to build and sustain programs that help kids in high poverty areas move from birth-to-work, or in solving any other complex problem.

Here's an article where I apply this thinking to building STEM learning opportunities for youth in all high poverty areas.  It includes the concept map shown below.

This map shows the range of networks and organizations who need to be seriously involved in any long-term problem solving or opportunity development.  If you're missing some of these, it's more difficult to do the work needed, or draw attention and funding to sustain it.

Someone needs to be collecting the data, doing the analysis, and sharing the information, within each problem solving sector, to show who's involved, how are they interacting with each other, and "who's missing" that needs to be recruited.

Maybe they are and I've not yet learned about their work.  If you're aware of such groups, please share in the comments below.  Open this page of the Tutor/Mentor library and see what I have learned is available. 

One more concept map. This visualizes a comprehensive, informed, planning process.

Open the links in the nodes at the bottom of each element on the map to read articles or find more about what this map is communicating.  On the right side it shows a goal of helping kids through school and on the left, it shows the need to influence what resource providers and business do to help.

Step 7 on the concept map focuses on "Building Public Commitment" to fund and sustain the work for many years.   While I was able to do much over the past 30 years, in the end, my inability to find sustained funding, or enough funding, lessened my impact. 

I think this is a problem for many who are trying to draw people together to solve problems.

This week the Democratic National Convention is taking place in Chicago.  I'm watching. I've made a small contribution.

Like you, I'm receiving dozens of appeals daily for more donations, to the national campaign, and to state and local campaigns throughout the country.

Billions of dollars are being raised and spent, just to get people elected.

Imagine if just a fraction of that were spent to support the planning process I describe in my articles, and have piloted in Chicago, and that this led to millions of dollars of consistent, flexible funding going into high poverty areas to support ALL efforts that help youth, families and schools rise from poverty to hope and opportunity (not just high profile efforts, or high visibility areas).

A step toward achieving that goal is building a database of stakeholders, then establishing a communications channel to them, and to each other.  Then inviting people to connect in face-to-face events, and on-line events.  Then doing an on-going analysis of "who's involved" and "how are they connecting" as part of "how can we strengthen the network" and "do better each year at solving the problems we are trying to solve.

Then repeating this for 20 to 30 years. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll share this and that it inspires a few people in different places to want to add my ideas and archives to their own thinking.

I'm on social media. Please follow. Let's connect. - find links on this page.

I'm also running out of money and hope that a few of you will visit this page and help fund the work I'm doing. 

Covid19 draws new attention to Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking see here

This graphic shows a systems thinking planning cycle. You can see it and learn the steps involved, in an article titled, Covid-19 means systems thinking is no longer optional, written by Seth Reynolds, who's part of the team at NPC, a nonprofit consulting firm.

The author writes: 
Coronavirus illustrates the need to bring systems thinking out of the clouds and into the mainstream. We must learn to think, act, and organise systemically, and develop processes, tools and technologies to help us. We don’t claim that it’s simple. But what is clear from recent weeks is that ‘business as usual’ is no longer available and systems approaches are no longer optional.

I  have been writing about systems thinking for many years, as part of an information-based problem solving strategy that I launched in 1993 when creating the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Below is a concept map that includes a graphic from Gene Bellinger, a systems thinking expert. The cycle is the same.

View this map at this link

I wrote a long article in April 2015 where I explained my systems thinking ideas. Below I've posted just the first few paragraphs. Read the entire article at this link.

SunTimes front page
October 15, 1992

---begin 2015 article ----

Next week Chicago will elect a new mayor (or re-elect the incumbent) and will also elect some new aldermen. One of the issues is violence in Chicago. Shootings are up over the past year. They've been up and down for the past 25 years, as this front page from the 1992 Chicago SunTimes illustrates. In July 2014, the front page of both major newspapers featured “Violence in Chicago” stories. It's been an ongoing theme for a few years. In fact, This problem has been in the news off and on for over 20 years.

However, not much has changed. Perhaps if elected officials were leading a “systems thinking” approach to draw stakeholders together, more people might become informed, and involved in solutions. We might find ways to keep people involved for many years.

Business and philanthropic leaders might apply the same process. For instance as The Chicago Community Trust celebrates it's 100th year anniversary, and holds its second annual On The Table event in May, they might have teams facilitating a systems thinking approach to reducing poverty in Chicago areas neighborhoods.

Problem solving is a cyclical process. A group of people get together to solve a problem and the solution leads to new problems that need to be solved, or new learning that leads to year-to-year growth in how the problem is being solved.

Here’s a graphic that I’ve borrowed from a video created by Gene Bellinger, who I met in a Systems Thinking discussion group on Linked-in.

As I view Gene’s videos, my wish is that someone were doing exactly the same presentation, but focused on bringing people together to solve some of the problems we face in Chicago, which are deeply rooted in poverty, income inequality, political power, etc.

I've hacked Gene's video to copy this graphic, then to create views of each element.

I'm using them to communicate an idea that I launched over seven years ago in a blog post focused on comparing the thinking and planning process that General's use to fight wars to what we need to be doing in Chicago to fight poverty and violence by providing stronger, on-going birth-to-work support systems for youth living in high poverty areas. Click on the graphic to enlarge it. Read this article for a full explanation of each step.

--- read the rest of this article at this link -----

Information based

Seth Reynolds is showing that the impact of #covid19 will reach into all sectors and all parts of the world and that it's time for a systems thinking approach that "must now be mainstreamed – individually, organisationally, societally, across public, private and charity sectors."

This process is based on an aggregation of information/data that is used to a) create a shared understanding of the problem; b) and a shared understanding of solutions that are being tried in different places that can inspire innovations in other places.

In the T/MC 4-part strategy
information collection is Step 1

In the 4-part strategy that the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) began using in 1993, Step 1 focuses on collecting "all that is known" about poverty, inequality, and youth serving, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning organizations, including funding streams, so that people everywhere can use this information to build and sustain needed k-12 programs in all places where they are needed.

It requires the same systems thinking approaches as Seth Reynolds outlines for this information to be used the way it was intended.

What I want people to think about is a) the work involved in aggregating knowledge from all over the world, sharing it via some technology platform (more than one), keeping it up-dated, then b) drawing more people to the information, and c)  helping them understand it.

Step 2 is a communications and marketing process that requires talented people and, ideally, a lot of money.  Step 3 is an education and learning support process.  Step 4 uses geographic maps to point people to places where solutions are needed.  Imagine thousands of small groups getting together to read my blog articles, or Seth's article, or information shared  on any of the  2000 links I point to in my web library. In Covid19, imagine people being asked to read a certain article, then meet on ZOOM to share their ideas, then write a blog article sharing their own understanding.

Information is at base of
this pyramid - view article

This work is not clearly itemized in Seth's article, nor in many of  the other systems thinking articles I've read. Yet it is fundamental to the success of any problem solving strategy.

At the left is a graphic that shows information at the base of a problem-solving process where the shared goal is that "more youth stay in school, are safe in non-school hours, graduate and move on to careers".

For this to be a reality in thousands of  high poverty places many need to be involved in the type of systems thinking process Seth has outlined in his article.  And there needs to be a web library, like the one the Tutor/Mentor Connection started building in the late 1990s, to support this process.

Read other Systems Thinking articles from this blog - click here.

Read how students in universities and high schools can take on the same role as I do in the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, LLC.  click here

If this interests you let's connect on one of these social media sites.

5-15-2020 update - Thinking of the future after Covid19. On this website "IFTF offers the public—communities, policymakers, civic and business organizations—a guide to creating new visions of the common future." Apply this thinking along with the systems thinking process.

6-9-2020 update - Here's a Forbes article outlining some characteristics leaders of the future will need. These are "essential traits that enable systems thinking".  Click here to read.

6-22-2020 update - I've followed systems thinking articles by Brian G. Dowling for nearly 10 years. None are short, or easy to read, but if you take the time, you'll better understand the complexity of this work. Below is a Tweet posted this week, pointing to this presentation.

System Awareness through Community Knowledge Pathways @Kumupowered presentation (reconstructed) explores primary and secondary human systems of #RuralCommunityFoodSystems https://t.co/fQoNo9xUdf

— New Community Paradigms (@BrianDRPM) June 2, 2020

8-10-2020 update - SSIR article on "systems leadership" describes type of leadership needed to draw people together to solve complex problems.  click here to read.

6-11-2021 update - Map the System even, June 7-11.  Global conversation.  click here

12-14-2021 update - RSA article titled "What does regenerative thinking mean?"  click here

9-15-2023 update - Gene Bellinger shared three systems thinking models that he finds useful.  1) Kumu Community - https://kumu.io/community; 2) Insight Maker - https://insightmaker.com/explore  ; 3) The System Thinker - https://thesystemsthinker.com/  

9-15-2023 update - "How to Embed Systems Thinking in Education. Here's How".  The authors write "The recommendations from this pilot could help reignite imagination, creativity and innovation in the classroom, making learning more enjoyable and fulfilling for students."  click here

7-7-2024 update - here are two examples of mapping a network, using Kumu.io and  using coggle.it. Both show a "Better Together America Ecosystem".   a) the Kumu version: https://kumu.io/mesasebree/healthy-democracy-hubs-map#hubs/center-for-high-impact-philanthropy ; b) the coggle.it version: https://coggle.it/diagram/Zh7VvlCvDnguaLCL/t/better-together-america-ecosystem

8-13-2024 update - This Visual Guide shows "How to utilize NodeXL importers and further functionalities.  click here

9-30-2024 update - learn more about The Process of Community Network Mapping and its challenges. Interview with Aldo de Moor on the Greater than the Sum website. click here

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