Planning a conference? Building a network?

Last week I posted an article on Substack.com titled, "Start Planning for Fall 2026 Tutor/Mentor Programs". 

You can view the article here. In it I showed a few slides from a planning calendar that I developed in the late 70s, which helped me grow the tutor/mentor programs I led from 1975 to 2011.  The annual January celebration of mentoring should boost the planning process so that existing programs improve from year-to-year and new programs form where more are needed.  I'd love to find visual essays from other programs that describe their planning cycle.

I started connecting with leaders of other Chicago youth programs in the mid 1970s and that led to the formation of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  One strategy led to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences which we held in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. These were part of the public awareness strategy we launched and an effort to draw leaders and supporters of Chicago area volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs together to share ideas and build relationships. 

A few years ago I created the concept map shown below, as a guide others could use in organizing their own conferences.

At the far right I've added a section focused on collecting data to help event organizers understand who attended, who they connected with, and "who's missing".  This points to the event mapping resource created in late 2025 by a team of IVMOOC students from Indiana University.  

In a previous article I showed the front page of an "Open Source Network Mapping" app created by the team. click here to open

If you open the "learn" tab at the top of the home page  you'll find some really clear information about how to design forms that collect network data effectively and how to turn this into visualizations on Kumu, Gephi or Tableau.  I show a few of the pages below.  Click on an image to enlarge it. 

Getting Started: What This Tool Does

Scroll down on the Getting Started page and you'll see "The Complete Workflow"

Continue scrolling down to descriptions of "External Visualization Software" such as Kumu and Gephi.  

Continue to scroll down and you'll see brief descriptions of "Key Concepts" and "Why Use Network Graphs?"

Next, open the Form Creation Guide tab - click here

Scroll down and you'll see "Every Network Form Needs These 3 Sections"

Next is a section showing "Form Design by Experience Level --  Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced".

Continue to scroll down to "After You Create Your Form". 

Perhaps before you create your form you want to learn more about "Nodes and Edges".  click here and open the page shown below.

The next section shows how to export your data to Kumu or Gephi. click here

The next sections describes some "Real-World Use Cases". click here

Some examples of Kumu Network Visualizations are shown - click here

Another example is the visualization of Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference participants from 1994 to 2015.  I've shared a few examples of this in previous articles, such as this one.

I've also pointed to many other examples of using Kumu and/or NodeXL.  This concept map points to a few of them.  Follow Kumu on LinkedIn and you'll see examples that they post every week.

I hope you'll agree with me that the work done by the IVMOOC team is excellent, and valuable.

Share this article with anyone who is creating events intended to bring people together on an on-going basis, to stimulate learning, reinforce work already being done, and innovate new solutions where they are needed.  Every city in the world should have a group doing what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been doing since 1993.  This network mapping tool event planning process can become a valuable asset.

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and/or Mastodon (see links here) and share how you're using these ideas, and work you're already doing.  

If you'd like to connect on ZOOM or another platform to learn more about this resource or any of the ideas I share on this blog, just reach out to me.  

Finally, if you value what I'm sharing, please visit this page and make a contribution to help Fund the work.