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. 

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. 

 

Blogging4Life: Why I Started Blogging

A few of my #clmooc friends have created posts showing why they blog and invited me to add my own history.  I invite you to read posts by Kevin, Sarah and Sheri to see where I'm getting my inspiration. 

Like Kevin, I'm going to break this into a few posts, with the first one probably the longest.

Why did you start blogging in the first place? 

Creating and writing this blog, starting in April 2005, was an extension of the public awareness strategy which I’d launched in 1993 when I and six other volunteers created a new tutor/mentor program in Chicago, to serve teens in one neighborhood, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to help similar programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago. 

Sample graphic from Tutor/Mentor blog articles

The goal of every article is visualized with the graphic shown above.  "How can we do this better?"  How do we get more people involved in helping kids in high poverty areas move safely through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty, and from the scourge of systemic racism.

The habit of blogging has deeper roots, extending to my 17 years working in retail advertising for the Montgomery Ward retail store corporation from 1973 to 1990. Every ad we wrote was a ‘mini blog’ providing information to millions of potential customers. 

When I started leading a tutor/mentor program in 1975, as a volunteer, I created weekly newsletters to provide volunteers with ideas and tips and news about upcoming events that they were to share with their students. Each of these is an early version of what I have been trying to do with my blog articles. This link points to the April 1986 issue shown at the right.  

From 1993 to 2002 my primary communication to the world was through printed newsletters that I sent three to four times each year. In 1993 the mailing list was around 400. It grew each year and was close to 14,000 by 2003 when we stopped sending these due to rising costs and lack of funding. 

We created two versions of this. One focused on our own tutor/mentor program, as well as the T/MC. The other focused on the T/MC and other programs in Chicago and around the country, with just a small mention of our own program.

In each printed newsletter I included a “President’s Message”. That was an early form of blogging for me. At the left is the editorial from my Jan-Feb 1997 newsletter.  On this page you can find links to many of my past printed newsletters. 

We switched to weekly email newsletters in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the people in our print mail database transferred over to the email list. Unless they have searched the Internet for "tutor mentor" and found my website and blogs, we've lost contact. 

As with the print newsletters, each email newsletter ended with a “President’s Message”.  You can read many of these in this section of my archive.    

By 1995 I was beginning to share ideas on Internet forums, such as the VOC-Net (Vocational Education Discussion List), Digital Divide, After School Network, SAC-List at University of Illinois, and MOTT School-Age list. I also connected on a list hosted by the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation.

Then around 2000 I started hosting planning conversations on Yahoo Groups.  My rational was that using the Internet I could reach hundreds of people every day, whereas in face-to-face meeting I might only meet with one or two people a day, at the most. 

The goal was to get more and more people involved, helping the program I was leading, and helping every other program operating in the Chicago region. My library now points to youth serving programs in all parts of the USA and many parts of the world. They all need help.

We recruited a professional public relations firm, Public Communications, Inc.,  in 1993 to help us develop the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy and implement the public awareness part of it. This led to me hosting tutor/mentor conferences every six months from May 1994 to May 2015, publishing a printed Directory of tutor/mentor programs, and organizing Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaigns each August/Sept from 1995 to 2003. 

Our PR partner fed information to the media each time we hosted an event, which resulted in numerous print, radio and TV stories. You can see many on this page.  

We launched a “Rest of the Story” strategy in 1994 to follow negative news with map-stories showing where the incident took place and any tutor/mentor programs operating in the area. Many of the articles in the Tutor/Mentor blog are part of the “Rest of the Story” strategy. Here’s an example. 

Along with this I began to write “letters to the Editor” which were often published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times and other media. I shared some of these in this article.

However, more often than not, my letters were not published. 

Volunteers from my Chicago tutor/mentor program built my first Tutor/Mentor Connection websites, in 1996, then again in 1998, which demonstrates how workplace volunteers who first begin as one-on-one tutors and mentors often go beyond, and help the program, and the students, in other ways. 

I posted my maps and information and lists of programs on those sites. I pointed to them in my on-line listserv conversations.

As I learned about blogging I saw a way to by-pass media gatekeepers who only chose to print my letters occasionally.

I felt that with a blog I could share my ideas and draw attention to the tutor/mentor program I led, and to events I was organizing, more consistently than through traditional media.

So, I launched this blog.

In my first article, published in April 2005, I wrote:

I've been taking a look at the blogging community in the past week and feel that this is a great format for creating on-going dialog about volunteering, community service, civic engagement and tutoring/mentoring. Most blogs only connect to other bloggers. I'm looking to create a blogging space that links to the T/MC web sites, so that as people talk about tutoring/mentoring, we can use maps, charts and other web links to show them where, why and how they can be involved. If we can create a space for this on a T/MC web site we can be a hub for bloggers throughout the world to connect, link, and increase awareness of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the work we do.

In a couple of months it will be the 20 year anniversary of this blog.  Over the next two weeks I'll address some of the other questions shown on Sarah, Kevin and Sherri's blogs. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit some of my past articles and use them as starting points for your own. In particular, look at the #clmooc articles to see how I've connected with this group since 2013.  They have been a tremendous source of inspiration and support.  

Thanks for reading.  I hope this encourages you to write your own blog, and use it to focus on drawing people to ideas they can use to help solve problems that need the efforts of many people, over many years.

My second Blogging4Life article is here. My third is here. Read them all and follow the links!

I'm on BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I hope you'll connect and boost my posts.  

I also hope a few readers will visit this page and make contributions to help me continue to do this work.