Arts-Tech Learning Center - Why Not in Every Neighborhood?

Last Friday I attended a networking event hosted by Connect Chicago, where Street Level Youth Media and The Little Black Pearl showcased work they were doing with young people. Below is a video shown by Armand Morris, of Little Black Pearl.



As I looked at this I thought of the video club hosted by Cabrini Connections from 1995 to 2011, while I was leading the organization. Students produced videos like this, with the help of volunteers and donated equipment.  I was thrilled to see the type of space Little Black Pearl, located on Chicago's South Side, at 47th Street and Greenwood Avenue,  has for its student learners, made possible by the Best Buy Foundation and several other corporate sponsors.  Street-Level Youth Media is located on Chicago's North side, at 1637 N. Ashland Avenue (although it also provides programs in many public schools), also has generous corporate and foundation support.

In addition, as I listened to these two organizations, I had two other wishes. 1) I'd love to find a map showing locations of non-school organizations with layers of data showing non-school arts/tech and/or STEM focus program sites. 2) I'd also love to see planners and donors reach out to existing tutor/mentor locations in Chicago to offer help in adding an arts/tech/ program at their sites.  I created this Virtual Corporate Office presentation to show how volunteers could help make this happen.

At the right is a map-image from the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, created by my organization in 2008, based on work I'd been doing since 1993. When this site is working properly (lack of funds/volunteers), you can click on a green star and get information about a youth serving organization that includes volunteer-includes tutoring/mentoring as part of its program design. 

The information has been collected via a programs survey started in 1994 and updated annually (until 2011).  You can sort the directory by type of program (pure tutoring, pure mentoring, tutor/mentor (which often includes arts/tech), and you can sort by age group served (elementary, middle, high school).  You can zoom into neighborhoods, and add layers showing indicators of need (poverty, poor schools, etc.) and assets who could help programs in the area grow (business, hospital, universities, etc.).  I recognized several years ago that adding layers of information showing arts/tech would enable users to know where such programs were located, and where more are needed, but I've never found the resources/partners to build this level of understanding.

On the Mapping for Justice blog I've been posting articles pointing to other data portals. I also created a concept map, showing some of the portals I have found.

Using various map platforms, community organizers, including  youth, could create maps, and map-stories that focus attention on existing tutoring, mentoring, arts/tech programs, and focus attention on the need for on-going operating resources to keep these available, or to help new programs grow in other places.  

While I've been giving this message for almost 20 years, too few people are hearing this invitation from me (see media stories), and too few leaders are using maps and visualizations to lead on-going discussions aimed at filling all high poverty neighborhoods with a wide range of age-appropriate learning, mentoring, arts and technology programs.

Which prompts me to share some reflection on an effort held last week and organized by #CLMOOC members Terry Elliott (from Kentucky) and Joe Dillon (from Denver).  

Through this blog article Joe introduced the activity, showing how people could add text to photos, to stimulate thinking, or just to entertain. 

Then, last week Joe and Terry hosted a Google hangout and a Twitter chat, which was archived in this Storify post.  

Finally, on Sunday, Joe wrote this post to offer a reflection on the week's efforts. 

Joe wrote, "Going into this experiment, I was curious to see how a pop-up make cycle might impact the #clmooc hypothes.is/stream, the #clmooc Twitter feed, orthe G+ community. For a MOOC, the impact was pretty small. Maybe that's an indication that teachers are busy (surprise, surprise), or that political memes aren't a topic of sufficient interest in our community to generate a lot of activity on little or no notice. Mostly, I think the jury is still out. I'm often interested in the interactions that take place in the channels of #clmooc when the MOOC isn't taking place. Going forward, if political memes and social annotation become more of a mainstay in those channels, then perhaps that will indicate some type of impact."

I spend time in this type of learning and networking because I've always gained a few new ideas that I could apply in the tutor/mentor programs I've led, or in my work with Tutor/Mentor Institute,LLC.

However, I've found it very difficult to engage consistently with leaders, volunteers and supporters of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook. Probably, because they are "too busy" with the work of connecting youth and volunteers, and collecting information to convince donors to continue supporting them.
I've also found very few leaders from any city using maps to talk about ways to reach kids in all poverty neighborhoods, or  using concept maps/visualizations like the one below, to show the wide range of learning supports that are needed in many neighborhoods.

I met Joe, Terry and others by participating in a few cMOOCs over the past few years.  I keep posting articles like this and attending networking sessions such as the Connect Chicago event, with the goal of building on-line conversations, including strategically timed cMOOCs, that draw stakeholders together and talk about how we help existing tutor/mentor, arts/tech programs to thrive, while providing information that helps new programs grow in other places.

During last week's chat I shared some of my map-stories, showing that this is a form of annotation that anyone could be doing, then suggested to Joe, that he and his students in Denver might duplicate my work in that city.  I've suggested the same to others who I network with because major cities throughout the US and the world have pockets of isolated poverty and thus could apply a Tutor/Mentor Connection type strategy in their own cities.  Rather than reinvent the wheel, my hope is that some will reach out to offer help for what I've been building since 1993, with the goal of borrowing what we build to use in their own cities.

I wrote an article last May, titled "After the Riots, Do the Planning", and included this annotated 1993 Chicago SunTimes article.  At this link you can see map stories I've created since 1994. These could be duplicated, over and over, by students and volunteers from many places.

This needs to happen.

It will take the constant effort of many people, in many cities, to build the type of awareness and financial support needed just to engage more leaders in on-going, and on-line, discussions focused on strategy, program design, revenue generation, etc.  It will take an even greater effort to build a flow of talent, dollars and ideas needed to duplicate programs like Little Black Pearl and Street-Level Youth Media in hundreds of locations.

I hope you'll share this story through your own networks and that we'll connect in coming weeks on one of the different social media platforms where I'm active.   

Mapping a Master Plan

In 1995 John McCarron of the Chicago Tribune, wrote this article, about the work I had started in 1993. In the years since then everything I've done has attempted to expand this strategy and communicate it in ways others would understand and adopt it.

In 2005 I started using concept maps to visualize commitments, strategy and the library of resources that I was making available to others.  In late 2015 I started a series of articles on the Mapping for Justice blog, to share some of these maps. Below I'm going to show some of the maps, and provide links to the articles.  Click on the headline to go to the on-line article.

Using Concept Maps to Communicate Strategy

This strategy map visualizes a commitment that any leader can make to help kids born in poverty move through school and into jobs and careers.  Read about it here.

What does "mentoring to career" pipeline look like?

 

How does a city get from "here" to "there"?

 

Tutor/Mentor Web Library Aims to Support Innovation in Youth Support World

 

Using Information as part of Problem Solving Process

 

R&D for Business Support of Tutor/Mentor Programs

 Talent and Leadership Needed to Achieve Goals

 

Intermediaries focused on youth in Chicago

 

Mapping Network Growth in Youth Development Field

These articles represent only a few of more than 1000 that I've posted since 2005.  However, they are a starting point for people who want to see broad-based strategies that reach kids in more places and help them move through school and into adult jobs and careers free of poverty.

I encourage you to form a learning group in your school, club, business, family, fraternity and/or faith group, and read an article a week, or a month, then discuss them and create your interpretation, just has interns working with me have done since 2005.

What is Information-Based Problem Solving?

While many of the articles I've written since 2005 use maps and visualizations they are all intend to influence what people do to help make well-organized, non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available in the lives of K-12 youth living in high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities.


At the right is a graphic that I'll refer to below. Read on..

If you do a Google search for many leading advocates for mentoring, then look at the images page, you'll see photos of youth and adults, which provide an emotional appeal for people to become involved as tutors and mentors.

If you search for the words "tutor mentor" my web sites will be on the first page. If you look at the images page, you'll see maps and graphics like the one shown at the right. which represent strategies that make great programs available in more places, and help you define what "great" means. You can find this graphic explained in this article

It shows that if we want kids in high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago to connect with adult mentors and experiences not common in their own neighborhoods, we need to help well-organized programs operate in these neighborhoods. If we want well organized programs we need to help build strong leadership teams that stay in place for multiple years and are constantly trying to improve their organization, based on what they learn from their own performance, and what they learn from others doing similar work.

For this to happen we need to influence what resource providers do, so talent, dollars and ideas flow more consistently to every program, in every neighborhood.

For that to happen we need more people looking beyond the images and logos and at other information, with maps and visualizations.

We're in a presidential campaign right now. How many voters are visiting campaign web sites to read position papers? How many of these web sites include maps and graphics like you see on this blog?  Yet, just about every hour of every day someone is doing something that encourages us to pay attention to the campaign based on what candidates are doing or saying and what others are writing.

How much of this is drawing people together to learn ways they can support needed k-12 learning and mentoring programs in one or more high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities?

How many millions of dollars in advertising, public relations and media attention are being devoted to these campaigns? How much of this actually translates to manpower at well organized tutor/mentor programs helping kids in poverty areas move through school and into jobs?

I've been writing these articles in one format or another for over 20 years. In every article I include hyperlinks, pointing to other articles that I've created or to articles hosted in the Tutor/Mentor web library, with over 2000 links to ideas of other people and organizations.

I don't have dollars to advertise so I depend on other people to give the articles attention and to forward them to people in their own network. If more people look at these ideas daily, more people will eventually do what's needed to provide operating resources to youth programs in more places.

At least, that's the goal.

So the article, or the idea, represents a "carrot". The presentation below illustrates how good ideas can be given attention in ways that they influence what others do to copy those ideas and apply them in other places.

Using Ideas to Stimulate Competition and Process Improvement - Concept Paper by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

I started building my web library almost 40 years ago, as ideas I was using to support my own involvement as a tutor/mentor working with a 4th grade boy in Chicago's Cabrini-Green neighborhood. When I was tapped to be the leader of that program in 1975, I used the library as a source of ideas to help me sustain and grow the program.

By 1990 I was beginning to share this information with others, to help other tutor/mentor programs grow in Chicago. Ultimately that's what led to the formation of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, then the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011.

 Over the years since 1993 I've come to understand my role as an "information intermediary". The ideas I collect and share can be used by anyone else in Chicago or other cities to locate individual tutor/mentor programs (see list of Chicago programs) which they can support with time, talent and/or dollars. The can also be used to build new programs in areas where none now exists, or where specific age groups are not being served with existing programs. (Read more about knowledge management.)

Since 1993 others have entered this space, doing similar work. In many cases that has resulted in fewer resources to help me in my own efforts. I created the map below so others could find other intermediaries in Chicago and learn what they are doing. In many ways this is intended to help the intermediaries connect with each other, and with my own efforts.

In 2010 a team of Net Impact volunteers did a short survey, comparing what the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago was offering, to what mentoring partnerships in other cities were offering. They created this report after 3 months of work, recognizing that this report was only a beginning, or an on-going effort that should be updated every year.

I've not had the resources to do that, but I don't know of anyone who is trying to create this type of information, intended to help intermediaries compare what they do with what others are doing, so that all of them could constantly improve.

In the years since this report was completed, some of the mentoring partnerships, such as the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota, have added many new mapping, public awareness and training features to their web sites. You can find a list of Mentoring partners here. If someone is looking at the various sites and creating a comparison report, similar to that started in 2010, please share this information.

One of the things to look for when you look at these organizations, or the intermediaries in Chicago, is how they point to each other from their web sites, and whether or not they point to an in-depth web library like the one I host. Do they show an on-going calendar of events, intended to draw attention and resources to the individual organizations in their network?

Look at the Donate page on most of these web sites, and it says donate to them, without any feature that encourages donors to support all the members of their networks.

A second thing to look at is what strategies are in place to motivate a growing number of people to look at this information, so that more people are providing time, talent and dollars to help well-organized programs grow in more places.

As we head toward the end of this school year, we all need to be looking forward to the start of the next school year in August/September and to what we'll do to help kids and volunteers connect for the following nine months.

We can learn from each other. We need to find ways to motivate more people to dig into this information and to form study groups so others are also using the ideas to help great, constantly improving youth programs, grow in more places.

Over the past six years I've had very limited resources, yet I've continued to share ideas that could be used by individual organizations, and by intermediaries. While anyone can borrow these ideas, I keep hoping a few will find ways to help me develop them and apply them in more places.

This concept map shows what I've been building, what I'm trying to maintain, and what needs to be built to support the growth of tutor/mentor programs in cities like Chicago.

Here's a page where you can make a contribution to support my own efforts. If you'd like a tour of the web library I've created, or talk about this concept map, just introduce yourself via Twitter, Facebook, or Linked in or the comment section of this blog.

The Ultimate Sacrifice in Service to Others

Jesus dying on the Cross represents the ultimate example of full sacrifice in trying to solve "hard to solve problems". Are you ready? Are you willing?

I've written blog articles around the Easter holiday almost every year since  launching this blog in 2005. I hope you'll read some of the past articles and borrow some of the ideas to support your own service to others in the coming year.

Then take a look at this pdf and these articles and share them with others who are part of your own family and faith community. Maybe you could start a study group, and read one article a week, and then discuss it with your group. Over the course of a year or two your knowledge of these ideas would be as good, and probably better, than mine.

New Report about GetInChicago Anti Violence effort Requires Deeper Learning

In my email yesterday I received notice of a new report by The Chapin Hall Center at the University of Chicago, which looks at the start up stages of the first round of Get In Chicago grant recipients. It's titled "Get In Chicago Capacity Assessment".

The report digs into some areas of planning and program design that I'm really interested in, particularly the topic of organizational learning. However, it uses a lot of jargon from the research and evaluation field that I'm not certain people involved in developing, leading and funding youth programs are fluent with.

On Monday I included the graphic below in this article, showing how people from different countries, meeting on Facebook, were digging into complex ideas. 

I think that unless you were a student enrolled in an advanced degree program on evaluation and uses of evidence to support program fidelity you'd not have the time to read all the information available to you, nor to be involved in daily face-to-face discussions that might help you understand what you are reading.

If you're the leader of a small to medium sized youth serving program,  you'd be constantly challenged with staff turnover, meaning information retention is not happening withing the organization, and you'd be challenged with finding 100% of the operating dollars you need to be a strong organization able to do the work the grant maker hopes to accomplish.

For the most part, programs are fighting this battle on their own, or in small groups. They need to be connected, in many ways.

Thus, my passion for the internet comes from the fact that you can read this information from any place in the world, at any time of the day, and you can engage in many ways with others to build your understanding and to innovate ways to overcome the challenges of building and sustaining mentor-rich programs that reach k-20 youth in high poverty neighborhoods and help them move through school and into adult jobs out of poverty and beyond the daily reach of violence.

This won't happen if the different stakeholders are not making an effort to connect in on-line learning, and if some donors, including  universities, don't make an on-going effort to host on-line spaces where deeper learning, refection and idea-sharing are taking place.

I'd like to see dozens of people digging into reports like this and creating annotated visualizations like the one I did on Monday. This could even be a learning-project for youth in these programs.

If this interests you, let's connect.

Net-Casting. Complex Problems. Connecting Ideas.

I share ideas on my blogs and web sites intended to be used by many from Chicago and around the world to develop systems of support that help kids living in high poverty areas of big cities move more safely through school and into adult jobs and careers. Reaching people with these ideas and drawing them into conversation, and agreement is a huge challenge.

Last week on a Facebook conversation I found some people who understood this complexity and were sharing their own visualized understanding.  In this blog I'm recreating some of that idea-sharing. When I saw the graphic above, I started following the conversation.

During my Making Learning Connected networking over the past year I've been encouraged to annotate visualizations with my own thinking.  So the graphic below shows my first response to the Facebook conversation. To this I've highlighted the thoughts going through my mind as I was adding my comment, using Power Point to add call-outs..

 
Further on in the Facebook conversation, Neil Davidson, from Australia started to post some ideas.  His first visualization and his comment is shown below.

I read this and saw some thinking that resonated with my own work. Neil responded with additional graphics to which I responded with additional visualizations. This went on for a while.  Below I'll show a couple of Neil's graphics and comments, with my own annotated responses.  Below you'll see what was going through my mind when I read this first visualization shared by Neil.

Later in the conversation Neil posted this graphic, with the explanation shown.

To this I added my own ideas which you can see below.

Neil responded with this graphic and another explanation.

In his comments, Neil wrote, “Finding alternative pathways is as easy (or hard) as identifying who is NOT already there, inviting them in,” which I highlighted on the annotated version below.  I emphasized the use of data visualization to better understand 1) What's the talent needed? 2) Who is participating? 3) What geographic region(s) is represented?  Just by looking at a crowd you don't automatically know this, nor can you share your understanding very easily with others.

Neil then posted another visualization. In my annotated version, shown below, I highlighted that he wrote "One of the big challenges (and it comes back to the original diagram) is that most people are so ingrained in the current paradigm--that largely is NOT working--that they cannot, or choose not, to see/hear what is being said at a deeper/more complex level of thinking."

 

I think this is one of the huge challenges we face. Large number of US businesses and citizens are already deeply involved with youth serving organizations, in many ways.

We chatted for a while outside of the original Facebook group and talked about how our daily interactions on social media, such as this blog, are a form of "net-casting", in which we're not only sharing ideas, but are looking for others who might support our own efforts to help create a brighter future.  Rather than post all of the graphics in this blog, I created this PDF, and posted it in the Scribd.com presentation shown below.

Net Casting - Connecting Ideas on Social Media Highway by Daniel F. Bassill

What does this have to do with urban youth and volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs?

For 20 years I've been leading an effort to increase the number of people who build a deeper understanding of where and why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are most needed, and of actions business, faith groups, colleges, politicians and others can take to pro-actively support the on-going operations and constant improvement of programs in different zip codes of Chicago and other cities. 

My conversation with Neil re-enforces how difficult it is to motivate people to look beyond what they are already doing, to what they could also be doing, or should be doing if the end result is that kids born or living in high poverty neighborhoods today are starting jobs and building careers beyond poverty when they are in their mid 20s.

Furthermore, there are many others in Chicago who have created their own networks focused on the well-being of young people. This concept map identifies many, and points to their web sites.  Look at these web sites. Do a Google search for each, then look at the images feature. This shows how they communicate ideas via their own web sites. Few are doing so with maps and visualizations they way I do, but most have much larger networks of support than I currently have. 

I'm not looking to dominate, or replace any of these Chicago networks. I'm trying to be part of their conversation, in a way that does not simply give away all of the ideas I've generated over the past 40 years, but that generates some revenue that enables me to continue to create and share articles like this.

At the same time I'm trying to be part of conversations with people in other cities of the US and the world, who face the same challenges of concentrated poverty and where the ideas and strategies I share, and the people I connect to each other, might be "new ideas" that they'd want to embrace. 

My conversation with Neil reinforced that there are so few people thinking and visualizing ideas like I do in any city, that we need to cast our net to other cities, and other countries, to find others who do similar work and focus on the same issues. 

Anyone can join the on-line discussions I'm part of, or start their own and invite myself and others to participate. Anyone can create their own visual understanding of issues and ideas and share them, just as I am, on their own blog or web site.

Through our network maps, like this, we should be able to show that  a growing number of people in many cities are connecting and sharing ideas, partly as a result of my own "net casting" and "idea sharing" and participation in MOOCs and on-line communities where others share similar thinking. 

As more do that, I believe will create a broader distribution of birth-to-work programs in all of the neighborhoods where the data shows they are most needed.

To all Losers from recent Elections

All across America there have been winners and losers in primary elections that seek to determine who provide political leadership at the city, county, state and national level for the next 2 to 4 years.  We all hope the winners bring the country together and provide governance that reduces inequality and increases opportunity and prosperity for all.

However, this message is for the losers.



This video was created by an inter from South Korea, to guide people through the information library that I host at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

Throughout the web site you'll see examples of maps and visualizations intended to point people to places where youth and families need extra help and to ideas  people can use to draw resources and talent to those places, so that in two or four or 10 years, the stories will be different.

My invitation is for you to dig into this information. Create  your own blogs articles, maps and visualizations and share them in an on-going effort to make the district you wanted to represent one that offers hope and opportunity for everyone in the district.

Perhaps if you do this consistently over the coming years you'll build the trust and following that enables you to be the winner in a future election cycle.

If you'd like my help to coach you through this process, I'm available.

BTW... if you are one of the winners, I can help you, too!

Hoping for a big of luck

 I created this four leaf clover image a year ago and have had it posted on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site since then. The four leaves point to the 4-part strategy that I've been following since developing it in 1993-1995 as a way to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities. 

I added my own photo to the graphic a few weeks ago and posted it to my Facebook page.  

In both cases I pointed to this page, with a PayPal button that people could use to send me small contributions. 

So far a lot of people tell me how much impact I've had on their lives or how much they like what I'm doing, but too few are providing the financial support needed.  Part of this is because I'm no longer operating under a non profit structure (since 2011).

That's not by choice.  Since splitting from the non-profit organization that gave birth to the T/MC in 1993, I've not found a team of people who would fill the talent slots in the graphic below, with an  understanding and commitment to the work and goals of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

Without a small group of leaders, with some civic reach and the ability to raise money, forming a non-profit structure is not possible.

Thus, I continue to do this work, but with limited resources, but with daily hope that my good fortune and the work I do will bring people to me who share the goals and will help do the work.

In many blog articles, like this one, I include maps and articles, that illustrate that the work I've piloted in Chicago needs to be happening in every major city in the US, and in similar cities around the world.

Thus, the talent that supports this work, and the leaders who create a new non profit structure, could come from any city in the US. Or from around the world. Such people would be visionaries who understand the strategy, and don't want to start from scratch, or reinvent the wheel, but want to help build a process and tools that they could apply locally, at a fraction of the cost it would take to develop locally.

I've also written articles, like this one, showing that universities or teaching hospitals, in different cities could adopt the Tutor/Mentor Institute, and lead it as their own on-going strategy. 

Through social media I connect with hundreds of people every day. If anyone in the world does a Google search for the words "tutor mentor" they will find my sites on the first page.  Do the search. Look at the images. See how I communicate these ideas.

I created this graphic many years ago as a network-building worksheet. Each of us is surrounded by friends, family, coworkers and others who are interested in our work. We only need to tell them about it and some will offer support.  However, each of these people also has a network. If they tell of the work you do, that reached people you don't know. 

Ultimately, this reaches someone who has the power, influence, talent and/or wealth to make a huge difference in what you are doing.

It's not luck when these people find you. It's a result of the work that is done every day to nudge the network and to provide ideas that others can spread in their own networks.

If you've read this far, I hope you'll take the next step and share it with your network. 

ESL/EFL resources from Webheads network

I've been following a group of ESL (English as Second Language) educators from around the world for over 10 years. The group is called Webheads and it's open to any who want to follow and/or engage.

Last week one member asked if others could offer a list of recommended resources and the list below was submitted.  I'm sharing it since many of these resources could be useful to tutors, mentors and educators working with other learners.

General

http://www.linguahouse.com/
http://breakingnewsenglish.com/
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/
http://esl.about.com/
http://www.scoop.it/t/great-esl-sites-for-teachers
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-adults
EAP Materials:- http://www.uefap.com/materials/matfram.htm 

Pronunciation

http://hancockmcdonald.com/materials/67
http://www.adrianunderhill.com/#

Materials to Use in Class
http://www.handoutsonline.com/index.php

Games
http://eslgamesworld.com/

Video 

http://www.eslvideo.com/
Real English: http://www.real-english.com/

EdPuzzle - http://edpuzzle.com

Portal
http://eflclassroom.com/

The primary facilitator of this group is Vance Stevens, located in Abu Dhabi. This image is from a 2012 session where I shared some of the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies with the group.

http://learning2gether.net
http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com
http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com

I'll add additional links to this as they are suggested and will add this web page to my web library, rather than adding each of the individual links. 

Data Visualization and Youth Tutor/Mentor. How Are they Related?

My friend Terry Elliott, a professor at Western Kentucky University, uses this graphic in this recent blog article. For the past year or so we've been using our blogs to expand the thinking of each other, and a few others who are part of our on-line networks.

I'm a big fan of visualization. I point to nearly 200 Chicago area youth serving programs on this list, and use maps to show where they are located. Very few of the organizations I'm pointing to use visualizations to diagram the supports they offer youth in their programs, or to show how long they stay connected to youth and volunteers. 

If you browse articles I've written since 2005 very few have a photo of a youth and volunteer meeting with each other. Many use maps, diagrams and other visualizations to show ideas and strategy for making mentor-rich programs available to young people in more places.

Many times I feel that the people I've connected with via the Tutor/Mentor Conferences I've hosted since 1994 don't really spend much time focusing on strategies, infrastructure, networking and learning. They are too busy meeting the daily needs of the kids and volunteers coming through their doors. Thus, what I'm writing about may not be reaching many of the people it's intended to help. 

So I re-purposed Terry's graphic, as you can see from the graphic below.

 

In this graphic, the new buds at the end of each stem represent multiple tutor/mentor programs operating in the same city.  They may or may not have much connection with each other. The conferences I've hosted have brought staff from many of the programs in Chicago #1) on the chart) together consistently for 20 years.  Other intermediaries are also drawing programs together throughout the year.

However, there are many other clusters of buds, on different stems of the tree. If you look at the list on the right, these represent 2) similar youth serving organizations in different cities; 3) other youth serving organizations in the same city, or different cities, who focus on arts, STEM, music, sports, etc.; 4) public and private k-12 schools in a city; 5) colleges and universities in a city, and 6) in other cities.   They also represent 7) the vast amounts of research available to show what is working, and what elements would indicate an effective program, as well as 8) research showing where and why career-focused tutor/mentor programs are most needed.  In addition 9) they represent other anchor organizations, such as faith groups, hospitals and government agencies that are in a city and often have their own networks and activities focused on the well-being of young people.

In addition other bud-clusters represent 10) volunteer talent from many sources who seek involvement in youth serving organizations; and 11) resource providers (business, foundations, government, etc) within the same city, and 12) in other cities.  One cluster (13) represents media, celebrities and others who have the power to draw attention to the youth development sector, and to one, or all, of the tutor/mentor programs in a city.

I've placed some lines on the graphic above illustrating how some organizations from within each cluster are connecting to people from other within their cluster, or in other clusters, via  conferences, on-line networking, face-to-face meetings, etc. The graphic at the right is a different representation.  If there were a lot of interaction there would be many lines going back and forth.  So far I don't know anyone who is collecting such information within my sector.

 

The branches, or stems on this tree represent 14) intermediaries who are connecting groups within a cluster with each other, or who are connecting groups with each other via 15) online social media, MOOCs, traditional conferences, etc.  A good network analysis map would show how well the intermediaries are connecting with each other. 

My maps and networking graphics are crude compared to work I'm seeing being done by data scientists in Chicago and in other cities.  

On Monday I listened in to a webinar hosted by the White House, that focused on open data and data science and introduced The Opportunity Project.  

I have used the Mapping for Justice blog to highlight some of the visualization platforms I'm finding as I wander the Internet every day, in addition to showing how maps and visualizations can be used to communicate strategy and focus resources on all the neighborhoods where they are most needed.  I'm using concept maps, like the one above, to share this information with others. If you browse The Opportunity Project web site, you'll see even more data visualization projects that might inspire duplication in Chicago and other cities, or provide resources you can use in your own advocacy efforts.

I think that every youth serving program (and school) in Chicago or other cities could have a program teaching young people to search the internet for information and ideas and to teach them skills that enable them to share what they are seeing visually, or by learning to use the data that is being made available by the Census Bureau and city governments.

I created this graphic, and wrote about it here, to illustrate the process of learning from what other people are doing in different places, and applying that to needs in your own organization or community.  Having great, or constantly improving, youth development programs filling the non-school hours of every neighborhood in Chicago requires constant learning from what others are already doing along with an on-going effort to engage the talents, time and dollars of other people to help you put good ideas in place, and keep them in place for many years.

I don't think the graphics I've created are as good as they could be. I'm not sure they communicate the ideas I'm trying to communicate. That's why I've engaged interns for many years, to view what I've created then create their own interpretations. You can see some of their work here.

If you think you can communicate these ideas better, please try. If you think you can apply these ideas to communicate your own strategies, please try.  Just share a link to the work you're doing so I can share it with others, and apply your ideas to my own efforts. 

That's how all of this is related.