Tapping cognitive surplus

This photo was posted this morning at Learning2Gether:The Podcast. In the article Vance Stephens (shown in photo with me) describes the session we co-moderated yesterday in the Learning2Gether portal.

Vance says of the session: "Dan talked about how he conceives channeling knowledge into action through a 4-part strategy he articulated through mindmaps and other visuals. His work has a lot in common with that of Webheads, MOOCs, and EVO (which I have argued possibly IS a MOOC) in that he taps cognitive surplus to leverage volunteer effort while trying to scale and sustain through getting the attention of (i.e. the information out to) the business community to show them how their interests coincide with those of the Tutor/Mentor Institute."

The recording of the session can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2012apr15bassill

I hope that some of you will take time to listen to this, or to browse the articles I've posted at http://www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/3299390 and in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library.

These articles show the role intermediaries can take to support entire networks of organizations working to help kids in poverty connect with extra adults and learning opportunities that help them move through school and into jobs and careers.

I hope these ideas will be adopted by leaders in many places, and that some will step forward to help me build the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC capacity to further develop the social innovation platform needed to support this work.