Follow me on Substack.com

I've not used Substack.com much in the past, but was prompted to post a new article this week after Paul Mondesire, a long-term friend who lives in New York City, followed the account I set up a couple of years ago. 

You can read the article at this link. 

I just posted this today and already I've had another long-term Chicago associate "subscribe".  I hope you'll do that, too.

The format is a bit different than you see here on my Blogger site.  Based on that, I've decided to post a few additional articles in the next few weeks, showing components of some of my concept maps and other graphics.  

I hope it helps more people find them and discover the ideas, then create their own versions to build support for youth serving programs in more places.

I've used printed and email newsletters, websites, blogs and face-to-face networking for the past 50 years to share reasons to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs and strategies to help programs constantly improve how they impact the lives of student and volunteers who get involved.  

Posting on Substack.com will add one more tool to this on-going effort.

Thanks for reading.  Follow me on Substack, and on other social media platforms (see links here). 

And, if you're able, visit this page and chip in to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

What's your personal learning network (PLN) look like in 2024?

Over the past 15 years I've written many articles about personal learning networks (PLN) and about social network analysis, or mapping networks. Below is a graphic from one of those articles.

In that article I wrote, "We all have networks. Most of us don't spend time segmenting our network into family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. then look for ways to tell them "I'm involved", yet if more people did that on a regular basis, more people would be giving time, talent and dollars to support youth tutor, mentor and learning programs and that might reduce the number who get involved with gangs and end up on the wrong end of a gun."

In another article I used the concept map shown below.

I created this concept in the mid 2000s to visualize my goal of helping students and volunteers, at the tutor/mentor program I led in Chicago,  build personal learning habits, drawing information from the Internet, and the wealth of people you can meet there if you spend time looking. 

I started connecting with others using the Internet and e-Mail list serves in the 1990s.  Below is part of a message I posted in 2000 on a Digital Divide list. 

You can read this in my archives - at this link.  It was exciting back then to be connecting and sharing ideas with people throughout the USA and the world.  It's motivated my on-line efforts for the past 25 years.  

I began using Twitter (now X) in the late 2000s and my use has grown since then.  Thus, the change in ownership and policies over the past couple of years has really been discouraging.  

Last week I read an article written by some of my CLMOOC education friends who I first met on Twitter in 2013, titled "Lines of Flight: The Digital Fragmentating of Educational Networks".   For some of you who have been connecting with myself and others on Twitter, this article will be valuable.  

For many others, who have never posted anything on Twitter, or who may have stopped using it more than three years ago, this may not matter to you.

For me, the Internet has been an essential tool to share ideas and try to motivate leaders to take on strategic roles that make volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs available to more K-12 youth in more high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with persistent poverty. 

I created the graphic shown above in 2011. It's intended to show how an idea spreads as your network expands.  The longer you work at this, the farther your reach will be.  I'm still just a speck in the ocean of ideas, which is why I keep asking readers to share my blog articles.

If you're interested in network building and network analysis, dig into the articles on this page. 

Why is this important?  A couple of weeks ago I posted an article using the graphic shown below.

Our world faces a tsunami of challenges.

Many of the issues on this graphic are directly related to what we do to help youth in high poverty areas via organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  Other issues are challenges the kids we mentor, our volunteers, and everyone else in the world, are facing now, and will continue to face for the next century.

I've built a web library over the past 30 years to aggregate information people can use to better understand problems, to see how people in other places might be solving those problems, and to find ways to work together to develop local and global solutions.

This concept map shows the role of information in an on-going planning process. 

While much of this work needs to be done at the one-on-one and small group level, the problems are too big and in too many places, for small groups to have much of an impact.

You, we, ME, all need to be connected in one or more on-line platforms and constantly learning from libraries like mine, and each other.  

I've moved from AOL Digital Divide, to Mott Afterschool Lists to  Yahoo Groups, G+, Ning.com, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other platforms over the past 30 years.  If you open the PDF that I referred to at the top of this article you can see some examples of early efforts to map my network and show who I was connected to.   You can read more about network analysis in this series of articles. 

I don't know what's going to happen with Twitter. I still use it, and encourage others to connect and share ideas there, and in other spaces.  I don't find many who are mapping their networks.  It's something that youth in tutor/mentor programs might learn to do, with help from volunteers. 

If you know of people who are doing this, share that with me in the comment box, or, on social media!

I received a call last week from Leo Hall, who was in 4th grade in 1973 when we first met.  He's celebrating his 60th birthday this year and wanted me to send a video, since he knows that I am not traveling any longer.  I wrote this article in 2014 after attending his 50th birthday.  This article includes a message Leo sent me in 2006.

Also last week, I received a wonderful message on Facebook from a student from the 1990s who ended her message saying, "the rides you gave me, the scholarship to high school, the trips to different places may have been small gestures to you but they meant so much more to me."  

She was living on the West side of Chicago, after moving from the Cabrini-Green area. Our program was located at the Montgomery Ward Corporate office in the Near North part of Chicago.  So, for two to three years I gave her and her siblings a ride home after weekly tutoring sessions, as I headed to my home in Park Ridge.  We had many interesting conversations.  

My own experiences and feedback from former students keep motivating me to reach out and connect with others because I can't do all the work that needs to be done, or have the impact that's needed, for the country to do all it needs to do to help  kids in high poverty areas move through school and into jobs and lives free of poverty, and racism, and bigotry, and all the other problems we, and they, will be facing.

I hope you'll connect with me on social media, or take time to visit articles on my blog and website and then share them with people in your own network.  Small daily actions can make a big difference.

Thanks for reading.  

If you're able to help me pay the bills, please visit this page. 

7-7-2024 update - Mapping changes in network over time - Kumu.io blog article - https://blog.kumu.io/mapping-changes-over-time-in-kumu-14c015554dbf

Who's scouting social media for new ideas?

Today on my Twitter (x) feed (yes, I still  use it), I saw two posts that I'm sharing below.

Millions Girls Moonshot - click here

This post asks, "Have you explored our #Moonshot Toolkit?  Check out our collection of resources.

The second post was from Henry Mintzberg, author of  21 books about management and strategy.  He pointed to the article shown below. 

In the article he talks about a "grassroots model of strategy formation".  In point #2 he writes "These strategies can take root in all kinds of strange places, virtually wherever people have the capacity to learn and the resources to support that capacity".   

In my 50 years of involvement with volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs I've applied an on-going process of "information gathering", learning from others strategies that I might apply in my own efforts. 

In 1993 when we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection we formalized the learning into an on-going process which I've continued for the past 30 years. As I've found new information I've added some of it to the Tutor/Mentor web library, so it becomes immediately available to anyone else who is looking for similar information.

I have spent time almost daily on the Internet since the late 1990s, learning from others, sharing what I've learned, and encouraging people to connect in efforts that draw needed resources to all of the youth serving organization in Chicago, not just the most visible.  

In the past decade Twitter has been one of my primary resources.  Thus, I was able to see the posts from the Million Girls Moonshot and from Henry Mintzberg today.

Having led a tutor/mentor program with limited resources I realize how little time staff members have to spend in on-line learning.  Yet, I find this so valuable that I've made time for it myself and encourage others to do the same.

If you don't have the time, perhaps a volunteer, student or other member of your organization can serve as your "scout". They can monitor feeds from myself and others on different platforms, then share what they see with others in your organization.

Make the time. Or recruit others.  It's one of the basic strategies you can apply for constantly improving the work  you do to help others.

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms. See links on this page. 

 

Spreading the Good News

When I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 the goal was to draw more consistent attention, and resources, to all of the volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs in Chicago, including the one I and six other volunteers had started in January 1993.

Here is one of several articles on this blog where I've described the public awareness strategies that I've led for the past 30 years. 

I've never had consistent funding, nor adequate funding, to do this as well as needed, so I've innovated ways to use events and the Internet, and for the past 15 years, social media.

Below I'm giving you an example of my social media posts from the past week.  You can find links to my Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Bluesky platforms on this page.

This was posted on LinkedIn

This was posted on Twitter (now X)

This was posted on Facebook

This was posted on Mastodon.Social

I'm posting on three Mastodon accounts. So this was posted on Mastodon.Cloud

I posted this on Bluesky

I posted this on Instagram

I'm working on my year-end fund-raising letter and while I appeal for small contributions (click here) to support my birthday appeal or my Fund T/MI appeal (click here), I'm also asking people to share my posts, create their own blog articles and versions of my strategies, and help build needed public awareness and involvement.

For the past 10 years Twitter has seemed to generate the most engagement and drawn the most support for my efforts.  Yet since the site was sold to its current owner, people have reduced their use of the platform and even abandoned it completely.

Yet, if you look at my message on the Bluesky post shown above, I'm not finding many talking about the issues I focus on on that platform, or on my Mastodon accounts.  That means it is more important than ever that you make an effort to help share the strategies I post on this blog and on the www.tutormentorexchange.net site.

Thank you for reading this article and others that I've posted over the past year, and past decade.

I wish you a safe, healthy, happy and hope-filled Holiday.

Network Building - A Process

I've been building the Tutor/Mentor library since 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection. 

The mission of the Tutor/Mentor Institute (T/MI) is to gather and organize all that is known about successful non-school tutoring/mentoring programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region.

My daily journey through the Internet uncovers many resources that I add to the library. I draw attention to these by my e-mail newsletter, my blogs, my posts on social media, and my website.

Last Friday, and again today, I participated in a ZOOM call hosted by the Strategic Doing community, which I've followed on LinkedIn for many years. Below is a screenshot from last week's presentation, which you can view at this link.

If you view the mission statement of the Tutor/Mentor Connection you'll see that I've been trying to build a knowledge network, or ecosystem, of people, organizations and ideas that anyone can use to help kids from birth-to-work.

In today's ZOOM call the topic was "how universities solve complex problems".  Below is one of  many visualizations I've created to show long-term support kids need to move from birth-to-work.

I think universities could play a much greater role in helping kids in high poverty areas move through school, and college, into jobs, and then spend a lifetime helping others and working to solve complex social, economic and global problems.  

The challenge has always been to find someone in the university who would devote their career to building such a support system, involving others from the university, as well as alumni, business and community assets.

The graphic above is from this page on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website, showing eLearning goals that I first began to share back in the early 2000s.   

I organized Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 to bring parts of this ecosystem together.  The eLearning goals were developed as IUPUI helped us host our first (and only) on-line conference in 2004. My work on social media is a continuation of this effort.

The graphic below was created by students from Indiana University, and shows participation of organizations from throughout the USA in these conferences.

You can view the map in this article, and see universities that hosted conferences in this article.  

Below is a graphic showing work interns from different universities did between 2005 and 2015 to help me communicate ideas and strategies. 

These show what's possible from university engagement, but also share my frustration for never have been able to find a long-term partner at any of these universities who would apply their own time, talent and dollars to the strategies I've shared in many articles on this blog.

This has been made even more difficult as platforms where I connected with people have constantly changed over the past 20 years.  Even the www.tutormentorconnection.org site that was my primary resource from 1998 to 2018 is no longer available.

Since 2013 Twitter has been a growing source of network building and idea sharing. But recent changes in ownership are making that site much less reliable. So I've launched myself on new platforms.

Mastodon is one place where I can now be found.  It is a decentralized network of meeting places.  I've actually set up accounts on three, and am not yet close to the number of followers I have on Twitter.

BlueSky is another where I've recently began to build a network.  As with Mastodon, I'm not yet close to the following I have on Twitter. 

I have a page on the Tutor/Mentor website with links to these platforms and others where I'm trying to connect.  That's where you can also find my monthly newsletter. 

I've a section in the Tutor/Mentor library focused on collaboration and community building.  It has more than 50 links, including one to the Strategic Doing website.

One of the many challenges we face in solving complex problems is "drawing people to engage with each other,  on OUR platform.  I've spent 30 years building a body of knowledge on MY platform and on some of my social media networks.  Going into a platform hosted by someone else, and building a network is a huge challenge. It takes time. That's time I (and others) need to be spending drawing people to our platforms, and maintaining the quality of their content.

This is one reason there are so many silos, of people and organizations not connecting strategically with each other.  

In today's ZOOM call I asked the speaker if he had done any network analysis to know who was participating in his planning groups, and who was missing.  I had in mind the network analysis maps done by an intern working for me in 2010, which you can see in this blog article.  And, in this series of blog articles. 

One way I try to connect people is by putting them in my library and sharing their links via concept maps like the one below.  

This shows intermediaries in Chicago who focus on the well-being of youth.

If you look at the map you'll see a yellow text box in the lower right corner with the heading "Help Update This".  It asks "are there other Chicago area intermediary groups that can be added to this map? And it says "I need research help to know what businesses,  universities, philanthropy orgs, etc. support volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago."

If someone is hosting that information on their website I can add them to my library and my maps and help them connect those organizations to each other.  

This is work students at any high school or university could be doing....to help me update my Chicago area information, and to build similar maps and libraries for other communities.

One of the comments on today's Strategic Doing call came from someone in the business community who talked of how there is a need to achieve results through short term involvement. That's one of the problems.  Look at the graphic below, which you can view in this article.

This visualizes a goal of pulling youth through school and into adult lives, with support starting as early as preschool and lasting each year for 20-30 year....for each youth! Just building a network of stakeholders who understand and support this goal would take several years. Building such a network at many universities would take even longer.  Getting agreement on goals and setting up programs that engage students, faculty, alumni and community would take even longer. Then comes the year-to-year work, evaluation and constant improvement that improves what the university community does, and fills high poverty areas surrounding a university with a pipeline of birth-to-college-to-work programs.

Note that the far right part of this graphic focuses on helping some students graduate and take life-time careers in direct service programs while others graduate who make life-long commitments to support these alumni with time, talent and dollars.

Show me a university with a visualization that communicates this goal.  Or that is connecting the ecosystem of the university in efforts to achieve the goal.

There's no way I can communicate this with an introduction on a new platform, or a social media post, or a comment during a ZOOM call.  I need to motivate people to read my blog articles and study the information on my website, then share what they are learning via their own blogs and videos, just as interns did between 2005 and 2015.

However, this needs to be a multi-year learning process, perhaps part of a Masters or PhD program, not a short term internship.

Who can help make that happen?  

Thanks for reading. And thank you to those who visit this page and send contributions to help me do this work.  

Recruiting Volunteers Continues

We launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago with a program survey in January 1994.  Using this we created our first list of tutor/mentor programs, hosted a first Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in May 1994 and published our first printed Directory, also in May 1994.

In August/September 1995 we used our list and Directory to organize a Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaign, intending to draw volunteers to all of the programs in our lists.  Below is a T/MC Report newsletter from 1996, reporting on that year's recruitment campaign. 

I'm still trying to help Chicago area youth tutor, mentor and learning programs attract volunteers and I invite others to help me.  Below are a few programs who are sharing their stories on social media.

This is Tutoring Chicago on Instagram. Visit their website. 

This is Polished Pebbles on Twitter. Visit their website.

This is Chicago Youth Programs on Instagram. Visit their website. 

This is Link Unlimited on Facebook. Visit their website.

This is Big Brothers Big Sisters of America on Twitter. Visit the BBBS Chicago website

This is Mercy Home on Twitter. Visit their website.

These are not the only youth programs sharing their stories on social media. Some of the programs shown above post on multiple platforms.  Too many programs don't post much on social media at all. 

I've created lists showing programs on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  You can browse these lists, and follow any of the programs that interest you (or follow all of them).  I don't yet have a list for programs posting information on LinkedIn, but many do. So far I've not found any programs using Mastodon. 

Below is my map showing volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs in the Chicago area.

Find the map and my complete list of programs on this page.  All you need to do is visit some of the websites, then create a JPG image from a page on one or two sites, then post that with a website link on any of your social media sites.

As more people take that role we'll all be helping K-12 kids in Chicago and other cities get the extra help they need to succeed in school and move on to adult live, jobs and careers.

Please help me keep my lists updated. If you find broken links, or know of programs that are no longer operating, or that should be on my lists, send the information to me.  

Please connect with me on any of the social media platforms that I point to at this link.

And, if you can help with a contribution to Fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, please visit this page. 

Focus on program design. Drawing attention.

Since 2005 I've posted more than 1200 articles on this blog. That means there's a lot to read. That's a problem.   So I use my Tweets to try to draw attention to specific sets of articles.  I posted these today.

I created this graphic nearly 20 years ago to show the need for long-term #tutor #mentor programs to help kids in high poverty areas move through school. Here's one article where I used it. https://t.co/G0wXdPRM5W pic.twitter.com/XLay7GODuC

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 23, 2023

 

Since 1993 I've used #maps of #Chicago to focus attention on ALL areas where well-organized, non-school, K-12 #tutor #mentor & learning programs are needed. I focus on program #design in this article. https://t.co/o23tQexT70 pic.twitter.com/YmDPWgjJt6

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 23, 2023

In '70s & '80s when new volunteers joined the leadership committee of #tutor #mentor program I led, the first thing they learned was how much work was involved. That's the focus of this article. https://t.co/OnGXfSGchi pic.twitter.com/AMapaXFxBr

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 23, 2023

 

This morning I've been sharing articles from #tutor #mentor blog that focus on program #design. This graphic is included, which focuses on all the people who need to be involved & roles each can take. Skim articles at https://t.co/CyyLOjJ4Fk

Use in any city. pic.twitter.com/dD5yKSJr5H

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 23, 2023

These can be viewed in this collection of articles.  I realize that most people won't take the time to read many of these articles, which is why I've continued to encourage high schools and  universities to create a Tutor/Mentor Connection type study group on their campus, building this into on-going learning and leadership courses.  I shared that invitation in this Tweet.

With so many articles on the #tutor #mentor blog and more than 2000 links in my library there's too much for most people to digest. That's why I keep sharing this post, encouraging universities & high schools to build this into a course of study. https://t.co/N1gjdVcXeb pic.twitter.com/JxiKbVVH4g

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 23, 2023

Thanks for taking time to read this article.  If you go a step further and share it on social media and with your own personal network, you're taking an active role in helping kids in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places get the on-going extra support most need to move safely through school and into adult lives.

This is a photo from 1993 with myself surrounded by kids and volunteers in the new tutor/mentor program that I and six other volunteers created in November 1992. 

As you read my articles imagine such connections being established in thousands of safe places.  

I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Instagram and a few other platforms (see links here).  Please connect with me.

If you can help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC with a small contribution, visit this page and use the PayPal.  Thank you. 

Building Public Awareness in a Cluttered Media Landscape

"We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 because we recognized the problem charities have of consistently attracting donors. While a few programs are great at getting funds, not every program is as good, thus there is a poor distribution of good programs in all places where they are needed."

Step 2 of our four-part strategy focused on building public awareness and drawing volunteers and donors directly to various youth tutor and/or mentor programs in the Chicago region.  

Getting media attention for youth tutor/mentor programs in a world where the latest negative news can put your story on the back page, or out of the news all-together, is a problem I've dealt with for many years.

Above is a photo from the 1999 Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaign kick-off press conference, held at the James Thompson Center in Chicago. We had media from every major news station. Yet, our story did not make it into the news because on the same day the Mayor was attending an event hosted by a major corporation. On a different year, it was news about President Bill Clinton that knocked our event out of the electronic news.

This illustrates how difficult it is to draw attention to important issues.  If we'd had the Internet in the 1990s we could been creating and sharing our own stories. 

Yet, this would not have guaranteed public awareness.  With all of the people on social media looking at news about the indictment of our former President, how many will take time to look at my posts? 

Below is a letter to the editor that I wrote, published in Crain's Chicago Business in 2013.  

This week a Chicago business coalition announced that it was making a multi-million dollar commitment to fight violence in Chicago. I posted the Tweet below, encouraging them to look at the ideas I've been sharing and apply them in their own leadership.

I invite CEOs in #Chicago Civic Committee to review this "Role of Leaders" PDF & create versions of this concept map, with their name/company logos in the blue box at the top. https://t.co/zsQk4cG8ZD pic.twitter.com/25yE5LG6yE

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 1, 2023

For several years I have used this graphic in an article, to illustrate how volunteers from different work backgrounds could help build learning activities in different programs that would help build youth aspirations and skills for careers not modeled consistently by family or community in high poverty neighborhoods.  Imagine what might happen if Chicago business leaders adopted this commitment. 

When I write about "business teams" my vision is that teams from media, arts, video, banking, engineering, etc. might work as a "virtual corporate office", with goals of identifying existing examples where youth already are exposed to different types of learning, then recruit and support volunteers from their industry who would help embed these types of learning activities in other programs throughout the Chicago region (or in other cities).

I've already created a section of my web library with links to Chicago tutor/mentor programs, and with links to organizations that include health, STEM or arts as part of their activities. Existing programs can learn from what other programs are already doing. They can bring these ideas into their own programs if volunteers and business partners will help make that happen. 

How do we make mentor-rich programs available to K-16 youth in all place where they are needed? This can only become a reality if businesses, and business volunteers, help make that happen.

How do we get attention for this message within the ocean of other news?  

Anyone reading this can share it on social media, in their own newsletters, or in one-on-one conversations with others.  If those people do the same we create a chain reaction that reaches people throughout the world.

 I created this graphic more than 15 years ago to visualize how an idea shared by one person, and shared by a few followers, can reach throughout the world. 

This Tutor/Mentor blog provides 18 years of templates that others could use to create their own articles, focused on helping youth in different cities, or in different parts of the Chicago region.  If others were writing such stories, and linking to each other, and amplifying each other's articles, more would be seeing these.  

I do this all the time. Here's an example, where I reTweeted a Mentoring New York post with a link to their blog. 

For this month's blog, @MENTORNewYork's own Joie Golomb, the Associate Director of Partnership Development & Engagement, shares the three C's that lead to a Powerful Professional Network and the benefits! Read more: https://t.co/tzoNRDQ1Pp #MentoringAmplifies

— MENTOR New York (@MENTORNewYork) August 16, 2021

Here's another Tweet that I posted, while listening to a webinar hosted by the Brookings Institute. You can find my posts an more at #BrookingsRacialEquity. 

@CamilleBusette talking about business leaders setting example. The could create versions of this #conceptmap w their name/logo in blue box at top. https://t.co/lHeYxjMPiZ#BrookingsRacialEquity pic.twitter.com/IF7jwzVaAX

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) June 8, 2023

You can do this, too.  

If you're writing a blog share it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and/or Facebook.  If I see it, I'll try to amplify it to my own network. 

Thanks for reading.  All of the issues the media point to are important and need attention.  However, kids need constant attention too.  Without millions of dollars for advertising we need to be creative and consistent in telling our stories. 

If you're able to make a small contribution to help fund the work I'm doing, please visit this page and use the PayPal to send your help.