Chicago 2011 and beyond. Are you Involved?

Rahm Emanuel takes office in Chicago tomorrow. In preparation he issued a 72 page Transition Plan.

I've skimmed through the report and agreed with the preamble that says "Chicago can only succeed as a city if every part of Chicago succeeds. Chicago won't move forward unless we all work to move forward together."

However, I see many opportunities to improve the plan and I'll share my thoughts on this blog, and in other on-line spaces over the next few weeks, months and years. I hope we can connect.

Putting the lofty words of the Chicago 2011 Transition Plan into action starts with creating spaces where people from the city and the suburbs can add their own ideas. Furthermore, it requires planners and decision makers to move beyond their own circles of information to the places where others are aggregating information and thinking about these problems.



The Tutor/Mentor Connection represents one source of information that the Mayor and his planning team and citizens of the Chicago region could draw from. The links in the T/MC Library, and the articles we write on blogs and in the Tutor/Mentor Institute can be used to expand the range of ideas anyone brings to this process.

To engage millions of people in on-going learning and civic problem solving will require a comprehensive network of places where learning, discussion, innovation and action-planning is taking place. Trying to get everyone on one central site and provide meaningful interaction is still impossible.

Thus, while we host information on our web sites, we also hosts conferences, such as the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference on May 19 and 20, where people can come together to build relationships, share ideas, and work collectively to be part of this complex solution. There's still time to register and attend this conference.

However, we also host a discussion board and an online forum where people can connect and share ideas even if they are not from Chicago.

If you know someone on the Mayor's team I encourage you to connect them with this information resource. If you're hosting a discussion of the Chicago 2011 plan, please share the links to your forum so we and others can join in your space.

If you're an investor help us offer this platform so it is available to this and future Mayors of Chicago, and to Mayors of every other city in the country.