Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website down for repair

I'm sorry to report that my main website, at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net, is not working today.  I'm in the middle of updating to a new cPanel and am stuck because I'm still using the original Joomla from 2007-8 when the website was rebuilt.  The original was built in 1999.

This means all the links in this blog, that point to my library, and lists of programs will not work.  

Links to my concept maps, like the one below, do work, although links within the concept maps, to my website, will not work.

Links to PDF visual essays, such as you see in these articles, will still work.   

Sadly, I'm not a web developer and have always depended on others for website work. Right now I don't have money to hire anyone for major work, but will be looking at a site like Fiver, for a project-based tech support. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Using Research in Planning, Problem-Solving

Last week A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025". I wrote about it in this article. 

I’ve been collecting similar information for over 30 years, showing where people need extra help, why, and what type of help could be offered to youth via organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

And, I’ve been pointing to that research in articles on this blog. I’m sharing a few below. I hope you’ll open the links and take a look, then share the ideas through your own blogs, videos, etc.

Here’s an article where I use maps to show where people need extra help.

It’s one of dozens where I show the four-part, information-based problem-solving strategy that I’ve piloted since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. It’s one where I point to a section of my library with hundreds of links to articles and research about poverty, racism, inequality and social justice. And, it’s one where I encourage others to share this information in their network, so more people find it and use it.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection the goal was to help every existing tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the operating resources, volunteers and ideas each program needs to grow. Here’s one of many articles that focus on the challenges of finding on-going funding for mentor-based programs.

My leadership of a single volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 1992 and a second program starting in 1993, along with my career in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward corporation, provided the foundation ideas for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

These experiences led me to understand that organized volunteer-based programs were a way to connect kids in high poverty areas to people, experiences and opportunities that were not readily available in their own family/neighborhoods, due to extreme poverty. Over time, I began to understand this as a form of ‘bridging social capital’ and visualized it in graphics like the one shown below.

Here’s one of many articles where I write about mentoring as a form of social capital.

In my work at Montgomery Ward’s corporate headquarters, from 1973 to 1990, I learned how my department, and other functional teams, supported more than 400 retail stores spread in 40 states. We helped each store be good at attracting customers, selling merchandise and earning a profit. (at least we tried)

Thus, when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection plan in 1993 our initial strategy was to learn what programs existed in Chicago, then to build a public awareness strategy that would attract more attention, volunteers and donors to each program, and to every high poverty neighborhood.

This article shows how we began publishing a Directory of programs in 1994 and how this information was used to support programs.

In this article I describe an on-going information-based planning process, that uses information like I’ve been collecting.

This could be led from institutions who have deep roots in geographic areas, like hospitals, universities, businesses, etc.

To do this research, someone needs to host a library like mine, with lists and directories of youth serving programs, then use that information in an on-going planning, program development and public education and resource generation strategy.

This is a missing step in most of the research I’ve seen for over 25 years. Researchers get the money to do the research and produce a report, with a big event that shares it with the public, but then don't have the money to continue to share that research and draw people together to use it over the following years.  What I do is aggregate links to that research and try to motivate people to use it to support youth tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

Over the past 30 years I've piloted actions that I share on my website and that anyone can borrow and apply in their own geographic area.

While I do find a few who host lists of youth serving programs, and even plot the list on interactive maps, I don’t find any with multi-year public awareness efforts aimed at drawing volunteers and donors to every youth-serving program within their city.  If you know of any who do this, please share the link and I'll add them to my library.

Furthermore, I don’t find any doing the deeper research asking “what youth programs exist in your area”.

Doing such research and maintaining a list of programs is a big job, especially in cities as large as Chicago. That’s why, for many years, I’ve tried to motivate universities to build a Tutor/Mentor Connection-based strategy on their campus. This is one of several articles where I share this invitation. 

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

Here’s an article where I show 30 years of effort to build strategic alliances with universities. You can see a wide range of interactions with many universities, but no long-term initiative led by, and funded by, any university.

Why wasn’t I successful? Money. Reputation. Clout.

I never had much of any of these so when I met with someone at a university, I’d receive polite nods, with a “I’m already over extended. Find a younger professor.”

 The answer: ultra wealthy donors

Here's one of several articles where I show the potential of strategic investment by one or more wealthy donors.  Here's another. 

How might we find such donors? 

They are all around us. Do you watch NFL football games? How often do you hear players praised for their philanthropic work? I posted this on Twitter in 2024 sharing the idea from this post.

What if a university aggregated this information and then used it to recruit a group of athletes who support the same cause, to support a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy at the university that was building the database of athlete involvement?

What if? What if? What if?

What if you share this article in your networks? Maybe someone will read it and adopt the idea and actually take the next steps.

That’s why I write these articles.

If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Thanks for reading.  There's a lot here, so bookmark the page and return often.  Then, look me up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and let's connect.  If you're writing similar articles, which I hope you will, please share them.

Finally, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

State of Chicago Youth - 2025 - Poverty Persists

This week A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025".  I show the cover page and a summary page below.

The report shows that "Too many youth -- especially in communities on the South and West sides of the city -- experience high rates of poverty, violence, unemployment, and homelessness. These long-standing inequities are reflected in every aspect of achievement and well-being including kindergarten readiness, grade-level proficiency in reading and math, high school graduation, college enrollment, and, ultimately, career success."

The report provides a lot of data and statistics, but it's not too long. Spend an hour reading it. Find the PDF on this page.

The report shows that "Of the 2.7 million people who live in Chicago, roughly 793,000 - 29% of the total population -- are under the age of 25, which is how "youth" is defined for purpose of this report.  Of this, 19.8% are under 18, and 5.6% are under the age of five."

Furthermore, "One in four Chicago youth (age 0-18) live in poverty and for Chicago's  youngest residents (age 0-5), that figure is as high as 90% in some neighborhoods."

The report uses a lot of percentages, but by my math that means about 187,900 kids, age -18 live in poverty areas of Chicago.

Compare that to the front page of this 1994 Chicago Tribune.

This shows the same areas of the West and South sides of Chicago as places with "240,000 kids in poverty's grip".  I don't think the lower number in 2025 reflects improvement as much as it reflects migration from the city to the suburbs and other places.  

In the summary page above the left panel shows that "Chicago is among the major cities that continues to experience uneven investment and development across neighborhoods, resulting in inadequate access to essential services, and disparities in economic, education and health outcomes. The data in this report reveals how these historic patterns continue to have a disproportionate negative impact on communities of color.  Understanding these persistent challenges is crucial for developing solutions that create equitable opportunities for all Chicagoans."

Understanding these persistent challenges has been the goal of the Tutor/Mentor Connection since it was created in 1993, and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, since it was created in 2011.

And, motivating people to use that understanding to innovate strategies that build needed youth tutor, mentor and learning programs that help kids in high poverty areas move from birth to work.

Articles on this blog, and in the Tutor/Mentor library, are intended to help in this process. 

For instance, here's a graphic that I included in an April 2015 article that I titled, "After the March, do the planning".  (see more on that at the bottom of this article). 

The article includes this August 1993 Chicago SunTimes story, which leads off with a statement saying,  "Chicago neighborhoods that were poor 20 years ago are even more entrenched in poverty today because the city lacks a comprehensive battle plan".

This article concludes "While Chicago has “had all these sincere people making good efforts, one group working on poverty, one on education reform, one on community policing, these problems are too interwoven and too immense. The city needs all anti-poverty efforts “at the same table”.

"So many years. So few changes."  That was the title of this 2024 article.  It included the concept map shown below.

I'd love to find maps like this on the website of A Better Chicago and the dozens of other leadership organizations and foundations who focus on poverty and inequality, or workforce development and education, with explanations like I provide in my articles.

In fact, if you read to the bottom of many of my articles I'm encouraging people to create their own versions, using my history to stimulate their own thinking and actions.  There are more than 2000 articles on this blog to draw from and much more on the http://www.tutormentorexchange.net website.

I posted a note on LinkedIn telling A Better Chicago that I was sharing their report and that I hoped many others would do the same.  

Why? Because building and sustaining public will has always been the missing piece in this strategy. That's what I've focused on.  And, it needs the involvement of many leaders sharing this message, in many ways, for many years. My 30 years of articles should be mirrored by thousands of similar articles.

This article describes the public awareness/education strategy that we launched in 1993 as part of the Tutor/Mentor Connection's strategy.  It includes the graphics shown below.

In the research section of the Tutor/Mentor Library, and in other sections, are countless reports similar to the one released this week by A Better Chicago.  While many were released to wide audiences with much media coverage, few have had an on-going public education campaign intended to influence actions of people who need to be strategically involved in providing the time, talent and resources needed to create greater hope and opportunity for people in every high poverty area of Chicago and other places with persistent poverty.

So how do we change this.  Not easy.  But, I've another graphic for you to consider. 

This article describes a role that universities, even middle schools and high schools, need to take. 

At the top of this graphic is the question. What can universities do differently, that might be a tipping point in terms of making well organized programs available in more places, for more years, reaching more youth, and helping them through school?

I answer by saying "build a pipeline of leaders, who work in these programs, and who work to provide the talent and resources needed by each program on an on-going basis".

I've been reading stories of billionaires giving vast sums of money to support charitable causes.  Why can't one provide the money for a few universities to invest in this "tipping point" strategy?  

At the left is a photo of me giving a speech, with the Chicago Tribune map in the background.  This is from the mid 1990s!

Obviously, too few people have heard this message, or we'd find websites in every major city wish maps and graphics and blog articles similar to what I've been sharing, with the same long-term purpose.

This week's report on the "State of Chicago  Youth 2025" from A Better Chicago is a new reminder of the work that needs to be done.  I hope you'll read the report, then dive into my articles and website.  

Maybe in 10 or 20 years a similar result will show more positive news.

While I write this, I realize there is an even bigger issue to address. People all over the country are taking part in protest marches today to try to stop "Trump and Musk's illegal billionaire power grab".  If that does not happen any progress toward the goals I've outlined above will be severely limited. 

Here's a site where you can learn more about getting involved.  Here's a section in the Tutor/Mentor library with political action resource links. Use the library to support your planning!

Thanks for reading. I look forward to seeing your posts and photos if you're protesting today, and your blog articles if you're sharing what I'm writing and the research by A Better Chicago.

How to use this blog

I've been writing this blog as part of a strategy launched in 1993 to help kids living in high poverty areas have access to well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that operate in the non-school  hours.

I have hosted a list of Chicago and national volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs on my website since 1993, with the goal that each program will learn ways to constantly improve by learning from others, and donors, policy-makers, businesses and others will use the website to help programs grow in all areas where they are needed.

The graphic below is a question I've tried to ask myself, and others, with my blog articles.  "How can we do this better?"

The articles are intended for program leaders, volunteers, policy makers, resource providers, business, volunteers and virtually anyone who is concerned about poverty, inequality, workforce development and/or democracy.

search on Google for "tutor mentor" and any of these words.

This graphic shows the tags on the left side of the blog, with the larger size type representing more articles with that tag. This was created in 2016 so there are a few more categories in the tag list now, but if you browse the list you'll find them.  Just open any of the tags, then scroll through the articles.

As a short cut to help you find a few articles that provide a broad overview of what I'm writing about, visit this Tumblr site, where I've archived about 20 articles pulled from this blog.

I don't expect anyone to read every article in a day, or a year. However, if you follow current articles and browse past articles from time-to-time you'll begin to understand the ideas I'm sharing and hopefully, you'll want to share them via your own blog, meetings, social media, etc.

Thanks for reading.  As we move further through 2025 the challenges of building and sustaining volunteer-based tutor/mentor and learning programs reaching k-12 youth in high poverty areas will grow as the competition for funding gets more severe, due to cuts in Federal funding. 

Finding ideas that work for some people in some places which can be applied by other people in many places is a potentially winning strategy.

I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, etc. (see links here). Share your own resource libraries and blog links. Help guide more people through this information. 

If you value this work please visit this page and use the PayPal button to send me some financial support to help fund this work.  

April 1st. No joke this year.

I often look at articles I wrote in the past for inspiration. Today I looked at an article I wrote on March 31, 2019.  I'm posting the full article below.  It's still relevant.

However, some things have changed since then.

First, the day after I wrote my 2019 article I was hit by a car and suffered a fractured leg and shoulder. I was in a wheel chair for the next 4 months. 

Covid-19 had not yet hit. That came a year later. In April 2020 after the lock-downs began, I wrote this article.  We're still suffering from Covid and now face new epidemics with a Federal government that is cutting research and has an anti-vaccine stance. 

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did not win the November 2024 election so this article that I wrote about Governor Walz's interest in mapping probably does not apply to anyone in the new administration. 

In 2023 I wrote this article about information-based problem solving. I don't expect anyone in the current administration to apply this thinking but those looking to save our democracy, and our planet, sure could use these ideas.  

So, here's what I wrote on March 31, 2019:

Monday is April 1, which for many, means it's a day of practical jokes.  For me, it's a new week, of a new month, and new opportunities.

Here's the goal:

While the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago was done 1993 it was launched in January 1994 with a survey to identify every non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago.  Using maps we began to plot their location, in an effort to determine what neighborhoods were well served, and which needed more programs.

We published the list of programs in a printed directory in the 1990s and on the internet since 2004, along with a growing library of links to web sites that provided information about where and why these programs were needed, and how to build great non profits, to support great youth programs.

For the past 25 years every week has started with efforts to draw attention to this information, and motivate leaders in every sector, to take roles in building and sustaining constantly improving programs, which work to help kids succeed in school, stay safe in non-school hours, and move toward high school graduation, post high school education, then jobs and careers.

The graphic at the top of this page was used in this article.  It's one of more than 1,000 posted on this blog since 2005.

I want you to read them all, and use the ideas to do more to help kids living in poverty.

That's no April Fools joke.

Of course, I don't expect anyone to do this in a day, but it could be done over a year, or two.  Maybe not by many people, but hopefully by a few who will adopt the strategy and intermediary role I've piloted for the past 25 years so that more people try to make this happen.

Tipping Point-role of universities

Actually, I doubt that many will make an effort to read even a few of my past articles, let alone all of them. That's why I've tried to enlist teachers in high schools and colleges, to make this part of a learning curriculum, that youth start looking at when they are in middle school, and are still looking at as they finish college. I posted this article with that goal last week.

Do you think that's a joke?  Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives. Why can't we enlist people in reading material that helps them create a better life for people who are alive now, rather than in an afterlife?

If the type of learning I've described were happening some would be well prepared to be leaders of mentor-rich youth programs while many others would be prepared to take on the critically important role of building the resource flow and supply chains, that enable programs to grow from good, to great, and then to stay great for many years.

I've been trying to make this vision come true for over 20 years, but so far no one has embraced it. Maybe people think I'm just joking.  Like every day is April 1st.

SunTimes, Oct 15, 1998

Except, it's not a joke. Every week we read about some kids being shot in Chicago. At the right is the front page of the Chicago SunTimes, from October 15, 1992.  This was when I was in the process of forming Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The headline of "7-Year Old's Death in Cabrini Requires Action" has been a constant reminder of the commitment I made then and continue to try to keep in 2019.

It's a commitment that many need to make, and keep.

I hope you'll think about this as you enjoy your week.

--- end 2019 article ---

Much has changed since 2019 and some problems seem much more urgent now than building systems of support for kids living in high poverty areas. 

I included this graphic in a 2022 article with the headline "Kids not living in high poverty need mentors, too."  

If we don't build systems that help all kids become learners, creative-problem solvers and active leaders, we're doomed to giving our country, and our future, to a small group of ultra wealthy who want to take us back to the dark ages when monarchs ruled by decree and most people had few rights. 

In my 2019 article I wrote, "Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives."  Sadly, this is one reason we have something called PROJECT 2025 and why millions of America have joined a cult that elected the current President and resulted in his selling of America to the highest bidder. 

Information-based problem solving is intended to provide ideas to support your efforts to solve problems like this. Finding the time and motivation to dig into this is just one more problem. 

Thanks for reading.  The problems we face are no April Fools Day joke.

If you appreciate what I'm writing, please visit this page and make a contribution. 

Blogging4Life - Part 3

At the beginning of March I was encouraged by #clmooc educator friends to write about "Why I Started Blogging", based on a set of questions they had answered on their own blogs.  My first article is here, and my second is here. 

Today I'll answer the final questions. 

How do you write your posts?

I'm firmly committed to the idea that "a picture is worth a thousand words" so I have embedded graphics in most of my posts since late 2006 (and in my printed newsletters going back to 1993). 

The graphic below illustrates the role I take when I write a blog article, and that I encourage others to duplicate. I'm the YOU in this picture. 

I'm pointing people who read my blog to the library of information I've aggregated for decades, which includes maps showing where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located, along with a broad range of research showing why programs are needed and other problems that also need to be solved at the same time.  The goal is that people start conversations, using the library and the maps, which lead to more strategic and on-going support of one, or more, youth-serving programs in different parts of their community. 

Since my blogging is part of an on-going effort to increase visibility for tutor/mentor programs and draw volunteers and donors to them, many of my posts from 2005 to 2015 were created to draw attention to events hosted by my organization. 

The graphic below visualizes how quarterly events, repeated annually, and shared by more people leads to a growing pool of resources helping youth programs grow in many places.

Many of these were the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that we hosted in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. Many were fundraising events of the Cabrini Connections program that I led from November 1992 until mid 2011.

Most followed the school year, so in August/September my articles focused on a Chicago-wide tutor/mentor volunteer recruitment campaign that we launched in 1995. In November while I focused on bringing people together for the conference, I was also focused on motivating donors to seek out programs to fund with year-end giving. In January I focused on National Mentoring Month and in February I focused on helping programs recruit new volunteers to replace those who had dropped out over the year-end holidays. In March and April I started focusing on planning for the coming school year and in May I focused on the year end conference, our year-end dinner, and celebrations of what we accomplished. 

Thus I always had something to write about. 

In between the quarterly events I wrote articles following news stories and current events, publication of new research, or actions leaders were taking that needed to do more to help kids.

A major source of articles was a "Rest of the Story" strategy developed in the 1990s to draw attention to youth tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas following media stories that featured incidents of violence or reports on poorly performing public schools and/or street gangs.  Here's one article that illustrates this. 

You can find many more examples if you view articles tagged "violence" and "media".

I describe the "Rest of the Story" strategy in this PDF essay. 

In the past few years I’ve found inspiration in articles I wrote in earlier years which I often republished with updates. In addition, as I’ve digitized my paper files I’ve posted a few letters and articles from the past on my blog. Much of what I wrote 15 or 20 years ago is as relevant today as it was then. 

This article is an example of that. 

Since launching the blog I’ve liberally embedded links in my articles. This was a great strategy and I still use it, but over time, it has created a deep rabbit hole (as Terry Elliott would call it), that draws people deeper and deeper from one article to another. The result is “too much information”. Another is “too many broken links”.

Here’s an article I wrote in 2012 about “too much information” 

Here’s an article titled “navigation information overload”. 

I continue to write the blog and embed links with the goal that “a few” people will dig deep and they will share the information in byte-size formats with others. That’s my goal of getting students from middle school, high school and college involved as learners, creators and information facilitators.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

For the past decade I’ve tried to write one or two articles a week. I think in earlier years I might have posted more frequently, and with shorter articles. In the past few years I’ve posted less frequently on the MappingforJustice and Intern blogs. There’s no particular time of day.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

Most often I let the article simmer for a few hours, or overnight. Sometimes I publish immediately. In the early years I think I almost always published immediately.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I can’t think of any single post that I’d call my “favorite”. One that I value is this one, where I share links to all of my content. Since I’ve used TinyURL.com to shorten links, I created this originally so I’d be able to repeat the same short link rather than create a new one every time.  

A few years ago my #clmooc friend Terry Elliott introduced me to Wakalet. I’ve used it since then to share some of my favorite blog articles. And I’ve used my blog articles to point to my Wakalet collections. Skim these articles for examples. 

I put tags on my articles to help sort them into categories. An example of that is the Wakelet collection of articles, which you could find among the tags on the left side of my blog. 

There are a few sets of articles I hope people will view. I've positioned these at the top of the list of tags at the left.  These show my goal of having people build “A New Tutor/Mentor Connection” while understanding the history, vision and strategies of the T/MC and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

You can find links to these collections in this article along with a video that we shared at the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, where the Tutor/Mentor Connection was one of 50 'teaching examples'.  

A few other articles that you might look at:

- If I could present ideas to CEOs, what would I share. click here
- Funding Challenges facing youth serving organizations  - click here 
- A new way of attracting philanthropic support. Web evangelism - click here 

What embarrasses you most on your blog? Too many typos.

While I proofread, I still miss “its” and “it’s” and “there” and “their” and words that don’t have the final letter. Often when I’m looking at a past article and using it for a current one, I find these typos. Ugh.

I’m sure it has hurt my credibility.

Any future plans for the blog? Keep on writing.

I'm 78 now and facing health issues that may keep me from reaching 90.  I'll keep writing as long as I can, and continue looking for others to carry my work and ideas into the future.

Since 2005 I've posted 2,298 articles on this blog which have recorded 1,858,447 views.

I keep writing with the belief that everyone gets up in the morning and puts their pants on, one leg at a time. Everyone who has Internet access looks on-line for news, entertainment and information.  That means, someone, some place, is going to take time to read this and other articles and say, "I want to help."  

Now, I want them to say, "I want to share these ideas with more people in more places."  And, "I want to teach what Dan has learned over the past 50 years, and taken time to archive so others can learn from it."

Here’s an article that compares what I'm trying to motivate people to do to what faith groups and formal education have been doing for many years.  Here's another article, with the same idea. 

Who will participate next? 
Has Terry Elliott written a #Blogging4Life post yet? 

Thanks for reading this and other articles that I've posted. Please apply the ideas in your own efforts to create a better world.

I can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and still on Twitter.  See links on this page. 

This isn't Substack or GoFundMe, but I depend on contributions to pay the bills. Visit this page if you can help. 

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."

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.

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. 

Blogging4Life - Part 2

Last week I posted this article, showing "Why I Started Blogging" which was inspired by educator friends whom I've met over the past 12 years.

Today I'll answer two additional questions.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why do you use it?

I started my blog on Blogger.com in 2005 and continue to use it today. It is easy for me to use and because it has an archive of images, I’m able to write new articles using images I added in the past.  

I'm also able to find all of my past articles using the Internet Archive.  That means in the future, others will still be able to find what I've written, even if Blogger.com shuts down.  Of course, I suspect most of the links I point to will no longer work. 

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yes. Many. 

I started networking on the Ning.com platform in 2007 when it was free and did a great job of connecting networks.  One of the first groups I joined was Classroom2.0, a place for educators to share ideas.  Here's the first article I posted there, in 2007.

Then, in 2007 I created a TutorMentorConnection.ning.com site.  Each member has a blog and I've used it since then, even though it changed its format and is less valuable from a networking perspective than originally.  This link points to blogs posted on the site, by myself and others. 

I launched a Tutor/Mentor Exchange blog on Wordpress in 2016. My original goal was to focus more on the broader information-based problem solving strategies that are at the heart of the strategies I share. However, I’ve not used it often in the past few years. 

I have a Tutor/Mentor Connection blog on Tumblr that pulls from my Wordpress blog -  I also have a Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC page on Tumblr.com where I share articles from my main blog.

I have also posted a few times on Medium 

In addition, I've posted guest articles in several places. In 2015 I poste five articles on the I-Open blog, serving Cleveland, Ohio. These are all archives now. Here's one. 

I've asked interns and staff who worked for me to write blogs showing what they were doing and what they were learning.  The graphic below is part of a network analysis project done in 2012 by two interns from South Korea, via IIT in Chicago, showing the growth of the Ning network since 2007.  This article on the T/MC Intern blog shows that work. 

From 2007 to 2011 we employed Northwestern University graduates through their Public Interest Program. I asked each to blog their experiences and you can find those on this site. 

The Intern blog, also hosted on Blogger.com, was created in 2007 by Michael Tam, an intern from Hong Kong. Here's a post of his from August 2006 that shows what he was learning.  If you read posts by other interns you'll see similar experiences. 

While we started creating map stories using donated ESRI software in 1994 I never had the money to hire anyone to build maps consistently until late 2007 when an anonymous donor gave $50,000 to rebuild the mapping capacity.  We hired Mike Trakan and he began the MappingforJustice blog (also on Blogger.com) in January 2008. Here is his first post. 

If you read Mike's 2008 to 2010 articles you can see many maps created using ESRI software. You can also see how he guided the efforts of a team from India who built an interactive, map-based, Tutor/Mentor Program Locator for us in 2008-9. This article is an example. 

Mike created so many map stories that I asked him to build a site that served as a "map gallery".  The image at the right shows what he built. It's now an archive, but can be seen here.

Since 2011 I've been writing article on the mapping blog. Some were stories created using the Program Locator, such as this one.  Most have showed how others are using maps to tell stories, such as this article. 

When we  created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 we also were launching a new site-based tutor/mentor program to help 7th and 8th graders move through high school. We called it Cabrini Connections and I led it until mid 2011.

I encouraged staff, students and volunteers at Cabrini Connections and the T/MC to also write blogs. Thus, if you visit cabriniblog.blogspot.com you can read blog articles posted by myself and our tutor/mentor program staff leaders between 2006 and 2011, as well as by students and leaders of our technology, arts, writing and video clubs. 

Here's an article from the Tech Club, showing how students and volunteers entered a team in the Cabrini Madness fund raising event. The Tech Club was led by Mike Trakan, our GIS mapping expert.  

The Cabrini Blog and our student and intern blogs were also hosted on Blogger.com.  

That's it for today.  What I've shown in the first two Blogging4Life posts is a long-term commitment to using blogs to share information and influence the actions of others. I keep urging others to do the same and offer my articles as inspiration for what they might write. 

I'll post one final article next week in this Blogging4Life series.  

I hope you are inspired to create your own blog and use it to influence change and well-being in the world. It's a medium you can control.  

Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon or other social media platforms. See links here.

Furthermore, if you're able and willing, please help me pay the bills. Visit this page and help fund my work.