Mapping Complex Systems - The Epstein Network

I've posted many articles with examples of mapping networks.  Here's another example.  This should be of interest to many.

I'm reading an article titled, "The "Epstein Files" and the anatomy of hidden social networks: How secrecy reshapes structure and why its analysis is conditional on data."   It includes this graphic, which is a map of 25,232 documents downloaded from the Epstein Files.

I won't even try to summarize what this interactive map is showing and how it's featured in this "Complexity Thoughts" article.  I strongly encourage you to read it for yourself,  then open the map and explore it.  

What this demonstrates is the wide range of data that can be organized and communicated via tools like Kumu, Gephi, NodeXL and others.

What's more, without "sense making", as demonstrated by this article, the size of the database will actually work against creating shared understanding or commitment to agreed-upon paths to solutions.

I'll look forward to learning more.

Knowledge Based Problem Solving in Era of Government Chaos

Since I started leading a tutor/mentor program in 1975 I've searched for ideas that I could learn from to constantly improve my own efforts. I began to build a library of program reports, newsletters and research, that I shared with volunteers, to help them expand their own efforts. In 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I dramatically expanded this library, and in 1998 when I launched my first website, I expanded it even more. I still add new links every week.

I've learned that while our focus is on connecting kids and volunteers, there are a massive web of other issues that affect each student's future, and our own.  Below are two graphics that illustrate this.

Birth to Work Challenges concept map - click here to open

 

This shows that while a tutor/mentor program must overcome an on-going series of challenges to keep a student participating as they move from first grade through 12th grade (which could be in more than one program) the student, family and school face many more challenges caused by poverty and systemic racism in the United States.   If you open the concept map and look at the far right, you'll see that one of these challenges is "poor elected leaders".  

Below is a different graphic, created to show many of the challenges we face. I included it in this "Can't drain the swamp" article. 

Note at the far left I've highlighted "Democracy under Attack".  This was the third version of the climate change graphic created since 2019.  It was created in 2021 following the January 6th attack on Congress. 

Now that Trump and Project 2025 are now back in the White House, and many states are in the control of ultra conservative forces, the magnitude of this problem is much, much greater. Even our courts have been compromised. 

I created the graphic below many years ago to visualize the need for daily, on-going outreach to attract visitors to my library, my list of tutor/mentor programs, and to the programs themselves. 

I think a similar graphic could be created to show the on-going effort needed to draw attention and resources to each of the issues I show on the top two graphics.  

My challenge now, in mid 2025, is how do I keep this attention focused, knowing that without continuous help kids fall behind in school, and in life, so that volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs find the support they need to stay available to kids.

Yet, how do I also call attention to the terrible things being done to vulnerable people in this country. How do I help keep the United States from becoming a new Nazi Germany?  

When I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 the mission was to "gather and organize all that was known about successful non-school tutor/mentor programs and to apply that knowledge to expand the availability and effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region". Read it here.

I've often tried to explain the purpose of the information I collect, by using the analogy of a "hospital operating room" where the operation is performed in an amphitheater where hundreds of others are watching. I found this graphic in a Wall Street Journal ad, and it communicates the idea visually.

I hope you'll follow this progression of thinking, because it applies to helping cities like Chicago solve complex problems.  It also may help solve the problems facing democracy and our planet, too.

1) At the start of the "operation" two people are bent over a patient (a problem like violence?). As long as the expertise they both have is enough to do the operation, they continue. (This photo is from an improvisation workshop in spring 1993, during the first year operations of the Cabrini Connections program I founded and led until 2011.)

2) However, as usually is the case, something occurs where the two doctors on the floor, don't know the answer. They say to the audience, "Do any of you know how to solve this problem?" Someone says "I do" and they join the two on the floor. As this continues to happen, new ideas are brought to the operation and the group on the floor grows.

3) At some point, no one in the amphitheater knows the answer. However, someone says, "I know someone who does know the answer. I'll find them and invite them to join the group." Once that happens, the operation continues.

4) Eventually, a problem will arise that no one knows the answer, or knows anyone else who has ever dealt with that particular problem. Someone high in the gallery says, "I'm starting a PhD course at the local university. I'll look into this and when I find an answer I'll bring it to the group." Several people, in universities, or in business, could be doing research on that problem.

I've been looking for people with experiences and information that could help people in Chicago build systems of support that help youth in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs since I launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. I'd been doing this informally since I started leading a tutor/mentor program at the Montgomery Ward Headquarters in Chicago back in 1975. 

My library and social media network now represents thousand of organizations and tens of thousands of people.  

Those people, IF connected physically and virtually, represent the wide range of people who need to be in the "operating room" looking for solutions to the problems we face.  

Below is a map of the information in my "knowledge" library.

This information has been growing for 30 years. It's been available to leaders in Chicago and other cities for that long. It went on the Internet in 1998. Yet, too few seem to value the role information has to support innovation and problem solving. That means when I go to events where people are gathering to "solve the problem" of education, violence, workforce development, health disparities, etc, few are even aware that my library exists.

The process does not effectively capture the knowledge of everyone in the room, or of others who may be in other cities and countries. Yet anyone could be building a web library, with links to ideas and resources they find valuable, and with links to other web libraries. This concept is outlined in the PDF showing the goal of a "Tutor/Mentor Learning Network" which I've been trying to build since 1993.

The critical idea in this PDF is that since few of us have advertising dollars, we need to take daily actions that draw attention to everyone in the network of information and ideas, not just to our own organization, no matter how powerful we are. As speakers have emphasized over, and over, "No one can solve this problem by themselves."

I've devoted one entire section of the library to collaboration, knowledge management, visualization, innovation, etc. You can enter it via this map. This section could be curriculum for school, or non-school, youth programs, where volunteers from business and universities help youth learn these skills, and learn to apply them in their own efforts.  It can also be a training resource for organizers working on other issues.

I've devoted another concept map to social justice, race, poverty and inequality issues.  

That concept map points to maps like this, and, another section that focuses on political issues, and reforms, asking what is causing people to accept what Trump and Project 2025 are doing?,  and what strategies might reverse this? 

One set of blog articles that I point to focuses on "online learning, cMOOCs, etc." The ideas in these sections can help enhance the information-sharing process any group is using to solve local-global problems, regardless of if they connect with me or not.

Below is another visualization that I've created to illustrate the role knowledge, or work done by others, can take in supporting the constant improvement of work everyone is doing to help youth born in poverty move through school and into jobs and careers.

Using Ideas to Stimulate Competition and Process Improvement - Concept Paper by Daniel F. Bassill

I think my role is to aggregate information that others can learn from, and to use my social media and email newsletter to draw attention to the library while trying to motivate others to share it.

And to motivate volunteers and donors to visit program websites and be proactive in offering support, without waiting for an "ask" or a "grant proposal".

In some posts I'll be calling attention to Chicago tutor/mentor programs and in others I'll be boosting posts by others who focus on broader issues, including stopping the movement toward fascism, and, not just rebuilding democratic structures, but making them do more to improve the quality of life for every person in the USA and the world.  

I'll do this every day. 

You can help.  And, I hope I'm helping you.

Connect with me on social media (find links on this page) and share my posts with your own network. 

Find time to browse my library and get familiar with what it includes. Use the ideas to expand your own efforts, to help kids and tutor/mentor programs, and to help fix our broken government. 

Thanks for reading.  If you're able, visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills.

Stay focused. Do what you can every day.

We've all heard the story of the "tortoise and the hare". The rabbit gets off to a fast start then runs out of gas. The tortoise just keeps plodding along, passing the rabbit as it keeps on its own journey."

Each one of us can be the tortoise, by what we do every day.

However, the "hare" in this case is the on-going challenges we and other social-benefit organizations face from events we cannot control without working with many others. Maybe not even then.

I've been posting articles on man-made and natural disasters almost since I began this blog in 2005. One section of the Tutor/Mentor library focuses on the man-made disaster of racial inequality and class divisions in America, which has brought us to the tsunami that occupies the White House and is taking over functions of the US Government. 

In September, 2005 I wrote an article titled "Disaster Challenges us All". What I said then is as true today as it was then.

We need to educate the world to create three pools of generosity and compassion, as represented by the chart below.

One part of this budget focuses on responses to disasters (the hare in my story). Another part focuses on personal/family disasters, such as a child with cancer. The final third, focuses on the on-going funding needed to solve complex problems that I describe in my articles.  

In March 2011 I wrote this article, using the tortoise/hare graphic, under the headline "Another War. Another Tsunami. Another Day".

In November 2015 I wrote this article with the headline "Keeping Focus Amid a World on Fire".

In November 2016 I wrote this article with the headline "Stay Focused. Do What You Can Every Day".  I used the Tortoise/Hare graphic in that article, too.

In August 2019 I wrote this article, with several versions of the graphic shown below. 

Then, last November I wrote this article, with the introduction shown below.

In each of these I showed complex problems facing each of us and shared strategies for learning and connecting with others, with the encouragement to do what you can every day to keep helping kids. 

But to focus on other problems, too. 

This graphic illustrates that while I focus on helping kids living in urban poverty have support systems of mentors, tutors and extra learning that helps them move from birth-to-work, I realize there are other issues that also require day-to-day attention. Focus on these systemic challenges is also disrupted with every natural and man-made disaster.

My heart bleeds and I shed tears every time I read about local, national and corporate corruption and greed that causes these problems or lets them exist.  Now with a felon President and an out-of-control immigrant billionaire dismantling the Federal government, and Project 2025 taking us back to the 19th century or earlier, the world no longer can count on the USA for leadership in time of crisis. The poor and marginalized in America not only can't count on help, they fear for their safety.

The "do what you can" message is more important than ever.   So is the 'tortoise/hare' message.  And the "connect with others" message. At some point those now in power are going to run out of steam. The people of America and the world need to be waiting with new solutions that undo the damage and build a brighter future for the entire planet.

I've used the Internet to connect with others since the 1990s. I've used a variety of social media platforms.  Due to the quality of interaction on some of these, I am finding it more and more difficult to find people who are sharing ideas, resources and solutions to the issues I focus on.  

I've started using BlueSky and Mastodon more than Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I still use these, and LinkedIn, too.  (see links on this page).  Due to my health I've not been to many face-to-face gatherings in the past few years. That makes my dependence on the Internet even more of a concern to me.

But, I keep trying. I hope you will too.    If you've found an active on-line community where people are discussing some of the ideas I've been sharing in this blog and on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website, please share links to those groups with me. 

Thank you.  

How would you visualize this problem solving cycle?

I started my tutor/mentor learning journey in 1973 when I began meeting each Tuesday evening after work with a 4th grade boy who lived in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago.  Each week I asked "What will we do tonight?"

That was a simple problem that just took a little research for me to find activity ideas.

Then in 1975 I became the volunteer leader of that Tutor/Mentor program, which grew from 100 pairs of elementary school children and workplace volunteers in 1975 to 440 kids and 550 volunteers by June 1992.  That required a much higher level of creativity and problem solving.

Then, in 1993 as we formed a new program to help 7th graders through high school, I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) to  help similar programs reach K-12 kids in every high poverty area of Chicago. This was the result of networking with Chicago program leaders since 1975 to find and share ideas for leading the one program I was responsible for.   

That local-global strategy is visualized below and has required a much broader level of thinking than just being a mentor, or leading a single program.

If you read my past blog articles, and newsletters in my archives, you'll see a constant learning and brainstorming process, centered on "How can I do this better?"

I've created a variety of concept maps and visualizations over the past 20 years to illustrate how the on-going cycle of solving a problem leads to more and more complexity as many related problems are discovered.

I'm showing some below:

While my goal in 1973 was to provide some extra tutoring support to the boy I was working with, I was not thinking of what it would take for him to move from 4th grade, through high school, then college, and a career. (By the way, we're still connected. He has two boys who have graduated from college!).

That thinking grew over the 1973 to 1993 period and was visualized in the 1990s with the "Mentoring Kids to Careers" graphic shown below.  However, my constant learning, has led me to understand that there are many barriers that kids and families living in areas of high poverty face, especially if they are people-of-color, or have ancestors who were slaves for many generations.

The right side of this visual shows some of these problems. I created this using cMapTools.  However, below I point to some systems thinking articles from this blog, which show other tools and a collaborative process of creating visualizations like mine.  

Open map at this link  View in this article

If we want to help kids move from school to careers is the title of this concept map. It shows a progression of thinking, which begins when an event calls attention to a problem that needs to be solved.   I show the "logic model" that guides my work and how trying to help one youth, or one program, leads to other problems that need to be solved.

This graphic includes the concept map shown above, and illustrates how thinking about a single program, and a city full of great programs, leads to thinking about many other problems facing Chicago and the world. (click to enlarge)

I majored in History in college, then served for three years in the US Army, learning to use maps and best available information to support decisions.  I've applied that thinking, and GIS maps, since 1993. 

This concept map shows a planning process, focused on filling geographic areas with needed, on-going support, that should be in place in every part of the country.  Links on the concept maps go to articles that explain the various elements shown on the map. 

What are all the things
that we need to do?

For the past 30 years I've spent time almost every day calling attention to the challenges kids living in high poverty face and the roles that organized volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can play in helping them overcome those challenges as they move through school and into adult lives.

I point to a list of Chicago programs where people can volunteer time, talent and dollars and to a web library where anyone can learn more about the issues and ways to get involved.

Chicago Sun Times 1996

I have done this while there has been a constant flow of stories like the one at the left, showing the agony of violence in Chicago, and asking "When will this end?"  The story at the right was from the 1990s, so we still have not found an answer to that question.

I don't believe any single, short-term, action of a tutor/mentor program can make street violence stop, or make poverty suddenly disappear.  However, I do believe that the continuous on-going support of volunteers and staff in well organized programs can help kids who are part of those programs move more safely through school and into lives beyond the immediate grasps of violence that primarily affects high poverty neighborhoods.

They can also create a much larger network of adults willing to give time, talent, dollars and votes to building needed systems in every city and state.  

That's why many leaders need to be duplicating what I've been doing. 

Thanks for reading this article. I know it's a lot to think about, and the links take you deeper and deeper into my library.  Because of the time involved I keep searching for universities who will add my library and archives into an on-going learning program, that reaches below the university level, to K-12 schools, then extends beyond college, to life-long learning.

If that were happening some day you'd find web pages on university websites that share versions of my graphics, maps and concept maps, updated and improved, by student learners.   

There are literally hundreds of other articles you could read to expand your thinking on this topic.  However,  you'll want to read articles like these that show other tools for visualizing complex problems. Or like this, that focus on habits of deeper learning. 

Take this role.  Be the YOU in this graphic. Read this article about "Poverty in America" and view the learning steps that I've shared since the late 2000s.

Read and share. Do it over, and over. Create your own interpretations. Share them in your own blog or videos.

7-10-2026  update - This article titled "Symptoms to Systems" describes the challenges we face in solving some of the problems I've described in this blog post. 

If you find sites where people are doing a good job of visualizing the problems we face along with solution paths, please share the links in the comment section or on LinkedIn, BlueSky, or other social media platforms where you can find me @tutormentorteam.  Visit this page to find links.

I've been ending my articles with a request for financial support of Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Click here if you'd like to help.

How will you feel on Nov. 6, 2024?

I'm not sure you've noticed, but there's a huge election coming in a few weeks.  I'm hopeful the winner will be Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and scared to death that it won't happen.  Or, that she'll win, but not have a majority in the Senate and the House, meaning gridlock over the next four years.

I already voted. I urge you to make a plan and vote. Don't sit this one out.

But, what comes next?  What issues does a Harris/Walz team need to address.  The photo above is from the official Kamala Harris for President website. Visit this page to look at the issues she is focused on. 

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article with this concept map.

I think many of the topics on my map are issues she plans to address.  I hope someone in her team will take a look and see if they are missing anything.  I feel that without creating maps like this, showing all issues that need to be addressed, and showing places where resources are needed, we end up doing the right thing at the wrong time, or for not long enough, or in too few places.  

That's the reason engineers and construction workers use blueprints. They show ALL of the work that needs to be done, in the sequence it should happen.

Without applying this thinking to solving complex problems, progress is slow, if at all.  

I'm going to try something new with this article.  I've posted some paragraphs from past blog articles that I hope someone from Harris/Walz will take time to read.  These are ideas I've been sharing since the 1990s.  Too few have ever seen them. Too few have adopted them. 

You can click the image to enlarge and read the graphic. Then I hope you'll use the link provided at go to the article. Read it. Think about it. Share it.

open link

open link

open link

open link

open link

I've only highlighted five articles.  I've written more than 1200 since 2005. Many have the same ideas and the same focus.  

In many of my articles I emphasize a use of maps to show where people need help, and to assure an even distribution of resources to EVERY area where help is needed, not just to the most visible or the most well connected.   Here's one example. 

open link

While I've addressed this article to the people who I hope will be our next President and Vice President, these ideas are for leaders in every city and state, both in the private and the public sector.  

Building interconnected web libraries that make "all that is known" available and easier to understand and apply, then an on-going public education campaign that teaches people to visit this information and use it to innovate solutions to complex problems, is a path forward. 

The big challenge is that too few have the resources, or motivation, to build such libraries and keep them updated for 20-30 years like I have.  This is an ideal project for universities to be doing, using a constant flow of student talent to collect and share the resources, then to use them during their alumni years.  

Most universities do some of this work already. But most don't connect to libraries in other places, and other universities, in an interconnected web of knowledge.  That's what I feel should be happening. 

If you know of examples where this is being done, please share the link in the comment section. 

Thanks for reading, and sharing my article.  Please reach out and connect with me on social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon, BlueSky, Instagram, etc.  Find links on this page.

Finally, please consider a contribution to help me continue this work. Visit this page.

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.

I saw an @Esri blog article about @GovTimWalz using GIS #maps and shared it in this article on my blog. https://t.co/HnYpzoMgev

I show my own love of GIS since 1993 & how I've tried to use it to draw resources to high poverty areas. pic.twitter.com/x8AlnoLCMt

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) August 10, 2024

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. 

Local-Global Thinking - Competing for Attention

In my last article I included a link to a January 2005 newsletter's President's Message, shown below.

In that article I wrote, "I feel that if we can create a portal that tells why it's important to help kids, with doors leading to each continent, each nation, each city, and each neighborhood where kids need help, this portal can serve as a funnel for dollars, volunteers and similar resources to go to individual programs in each neighborhood. While there are some on-line charity portals, like http://www.networkforgood.org, these promote all forms of charity, and thus don't have the passion and appeal that could be generated by having portals that focus on specific channels of service, like tutoring/mentoring."

Without addressing the funding issue, we'll never reach the levels of learning and shared effort needed.

In 2019 I wrote an article using the "Can't drain the swamp" graphic that I'd created in 2012.  I'm sharing it below.

----- begin 2019 article ---- 

Can't drain swamp?

A few years ago I wrote this article talking about "I can't drain the swamp because I'm up to my neck in alligators".  I was talking about how leaders of other tutor/mentor programs were not able to join me in trying to solve problems we all face, such as consistent funding, when we were struggling to solve each of those problems in our own programs every day.

Today I saw a graphic on Facebook that made me think of this.  I've posted that graphic below, with some additions that expand on the original.

Climate change and nuclear war represent threats and challenges above all others.

In the original graphic issues like healthcare, immigration, guns, justice, etc. were shown as concerns of people living in different places. While these are important, they are overwhelmed by the looming threat of climate change disasters.   In the blue call-outs I've added some other issues, and at the top right I've inserted a graphic showing the threat of nuclear war, or nuclear terrorism.

What are all the things
that we need to do?

For the past 25 years I've spent time almost every day calling attention to the challenges kids living in high poverty face and the roles that organized volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can play in helping them overcome those challenges as they move through school and into adult lives.

I point to a list of Chicago programs where people can volunteer time, talent and dollars and to a web library where anyone can learn more about the issues and ways to get involved.

Chicago Sun Times 1996

I have done this while there has been a constant flow of stories like the one at the left, showing the agony of violence in Chicago, and asking "When will this end?"  The story at the right was from the 1990s, so we still have not found an answer to that question.

I don't believe any single, short-term, action of a tutor/mentor program can make street violence stop, or make poverty suddenly disappear.  However, I do believe that the continuous on-going support of volunteers and staff in well organized programs can help kids who are part of those programs move more safely through school and into lives beyond the immediate grasps of violence that primarily affects high poverty neighborhoods.

12-20 years of support

I've used graphics like the one at the right to emphasize the need for providing long-term, birth-to-work support to kids in every high poverty neighborhood.  While this is not easy it's work that needs to be done.

However, it's not the only work that needs to be done.

Below are two concept maps from my collection showing this same graphic, but also showing the many different issues kids and families living in high poverty areas face every day. Some of these are the same as those shown in the Facebook graphic at the top of this article.

Many are problems people who don't live in poverty also are facing. 

Here's one version

Reasons to engage - local global - click here

Here's another version

Open map at this link  View in this article

Each of these issues are important and need passionate people focusing on them every day. Yet we need to budget our time to also focus on the bigger threats of climate change and nuclear war/terrorism which by themselves can cause extinction of the human race and make all of the other issues irrelevant.

George C. Marshall

What I've been describing is a wicked, complex problem.  We need leaders who can visualize the entire problem and mobilize people and resources to work on the individual pieces, in step with everyone else, and for many years.

One of my heroes is George C. Marshall, who led US forces in World War II.  Without the power of today's computers he created a multi-year strategy that fought opponents in almost every part of the world.

Today I see some of this comprehensive thinking among those leading the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. 

Follow the links in this article and you'll see some ways they are drawing attention to all of the work that needs to be done to achieve the SDG goals.

follow links - cmap

So how do you get involved?

I've created a "civic engagement" cmap with links to parts of my web library with information readers can use to dig deeper into all of these issues.  In addition, at the top of the map I have links to web sites aggregating information about 2020 Presidential candidates (this has been updated for 2024 elections).  I encourage you to look through their web sites to see if you can find any who think like George C Marshall and who visualize their thinking in ways the rest of us can understand.

Then, pick a cause, and get more informed and personally involved.

8-11-2020 update - since I wrote this post the world has become an even more dangerous place. We now face a world wide pandemic, with a much greater level of illness in the United States. We are reeling from an epidemic of police violence.  The climate crisis continues to grow. We also face a growing threat of how "big data" in the wrong hands can further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.   I've updated my graphic to reflect this. 

12-22/2021 update - since I last updated this graphic Covid19 has continued to spread and the January 6th attack on the US Capital, and lack of prosecution of instigators, causes even greater concern for the future. I updated my graphic to add new fears about the future of democracy in the United States.

---- end 2019 article ---

Since creating the last update of this graphic in 2021 new challenges have emerged, ranging from the war in the Ukraine to the tragic conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza and the Middle East.  Compounding this is the use of disinformation to spread chaos and destabilize the US and other democracies.  The emergence of Artificial Intelligence makes these even more complex.

I posted the map of the world's ongoing conflicts in this 2023 article on the Mapping for Justice blog.   

You can see that there are plenty of places competing for our attention and our dollars.

How did I grow from spending two hours a week as a volunteer tutor/mentor in 1973, to leading a single tutor/mentor program, to trying to help similar programs grow in all high poverty areas of cities like Chicago? 

Take a look at two more graphics.

This shows that while I was creating a new tutor/mentor program in late 1992 I also began creating a strategy to help similar  programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago.  This was the result of networking with Chicago program leaders since 1975 when I first starting leading the program at Montgomery Ward's corporate headquarters. 

If you read my past blog articles, and newsletters in my archives, you'll see a constant learning and brainstorming process, centered on "How can I do this better?"

This graphic illustrates how thinking about a single program, and a city full of great programs, leads to thinking about many other problems facing Chicago and the world.

My January 2005 newsletter talked about connecting leaders from many places. This concept map visualized that idea.

Thanks for reading this article. I know it's a lot to think about, and the links take you deeper and deeper into my library.  Because of the time involved I keep searching for universities who will add my library and archives into an on-going learning program, that reaches below the university level, to K-12 schools, then extends beyond college, to life-long learning.

If that were happening some day you'd find web pages on university websites that share versions of my graphics, maps and concept maps, updated and improved, by student learners.  Maybe you'd even find portals like I described in my 2005 newsletter.

If you find sites where people are doing a good job of visualizing the problems we face along with solution paths, please share the links in the comment section or on Twitter where you can find me @tutormentorteam.  You can find me on other social media sites, too. Visit this page to find links.

I've been ending my articles with a request for financial support of Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. Click here if you'd like to help.