Tuesday, August 27, 2024

What are issues facing next President?

I hope the next President of the USA is Kamala Harris, with Tim Walz as her VP.  That won't happen unless there's a massive voter turnout.

Let's assume she is elected.  What are the issues she needs to address?  

I created the concept map shown below just before Joe Biden took office, showing issues he needed to address. I updated it this week. Much of the same issues are still there.  


You can view this map at this link.

I've been using cMapTools to create my concept maps since 2005.  However, I've seen other mapping tools emerge, that might do the job as well, or better.  Since I have so much time invested in keeping my concept maps on-line, and updated (as much as possible), I've not tried to recreate any of my maps on another platform.

However, I've encouraged others to do that.  In a July 2024 article I showed some examples of visualizations made using KUMU.io.  In other articles, like this one, I've showed use of NodeXL.  

In this article, and several others, I shared a video by Gene Bellinger, who is a systems thinking expert who I've followed for over a dozen years, mostly via LinkedIn.  What's special about Gene is that he is narrating some of the maps he has created, to help others build a better understanding.  

In many of these articles I've added additional links, as updates, after the original article was written. 

In this December 2022 article I used the graphic below, and a collection of concept maps, to show strategies I hoped the White House STEMM task force would adopt to create and share a strategy that might achieve their goals by 2050.


Below is one of many examples of how I've encouraged leaders to use my blog and website as a resource to develop their own strategies.
So today I was thrilled when my KUMU contact on Twitter shared a presentation from Senator Elizabeth Warren's 2016 presidential campaign, using KUMU to show her strategy for "Empowering American Workers and Raising Wages".   


That graphic looks really crowded. Even more so than some of the concept maps I make.  However, that's the final slide in her presentation.  View the presentation at this link.

You'll see that she breaks this information into small bits, using the features of KUMU to enable you to zoom in to specific information. It starts with data quantifying the problem she's trying to fix, with traditional text, bar charts, and links to external pages. 

This is the first slide, after the pages showing the problem.  You can click on any of the elements and information will be shown in the left hand side, and right on the map.  


Here's another slide that illustrates how information can be presented.



The strategy is presented in a text narrative at this link.  It does not take long to skim through the slides and see the potential of using concept maps this way.  Of course, if you're really interested in the topic,  you'll want to dig deeper and follow the links to even more information.  

Now take another look at my concept map showing issues facing our next President.  Note that my headline says, "Can anyone visualize all of the issues that POTUS47 needs to address? 

Each cluster on the map represents one major issue, with several sub-issues.  Each could be communicated using KUMU in much the same way as the Senator Warren presentation.  

For instance, today I read a Hechinger Report article titled "What education could look like under Harris and Walz".  It's pretty comprehensive.  What if it had a KUMU version, too.

Here's the fun thing.  All of this work doesn't need to be done by one person, or one organization.  Imagine teams of volunteers from industry, education, etc. coming together in on-line spaces to create maps for each sub category, then adding them to a master map, with just a link.

Concept maps that link to external sites, or other maps, can provide a constantly-expanded field of ideas and information. 

Here's an example. At the center of my concept map you see the information shown below.


The node on the left opens an external website. Often, a page in my library, where I aggregate links to websites that focus on specific topics. 


The node on the right opens another concept map.  Thus, anyone can create a map that aggregates links to maps created by other people.  Many people could do that!  

If you look at my collection of concept maps, you'll see links like this in almost all of them.   

I think there are thousands of experts who have greater knowledge of these subjects than I do, who may already be communicating their ideas this way.  If my maps can help stimulate your thinking, use them.


Please connect with me on social media and share your own maps and ideas.  This page has links to where you can find me.

If you share links to your maps with me, maybe I'll add them to my blog articles and/or library!


And, if you're able, please make a contribution to help me pay the bills and keep doing this work.   Visit this page

No comments: