Intermediaries focused on youth in Chicago

Since October 2014 I've been posting articles showing uses of concept maps. They are a different form of information visualization than the geographic maps posted since 2008.

The map at the left shows intermediary organizations who focus on the well-being of youth in the Chicago region. Some of the nodes are empty, such as ones focused on "business, universities, philanthropy and faith networks". What this means is that someone needs to build a similar concept map, showing what organizations within these categories are doing to support programs helping youth in different parts of the Chicago region.

Most of the nodes on the concept map have links to the organizational web site. I encourage readers to look at each web site to see what they are doing, and to offer your support if possible. As you do, look for visualizations that show a commitment to helping youth move through school and into jobs and careers, such as mine at the right. If a growing percent of all of the intermediaries focusing on youth shared the same broad goal, each could then define their own focus area, such as making STEM programs available in non-school hours, or arts programs available during school day hours.

I'd also look to see if each intermediary has a resource section where they include maps like this, and where they point to others who are working to help youth in the region. At minimum they should point to a list of organizations within their own sphere of influence, like the Chicago tutor/mentor program list that I host.

I created this graphic (see article) to illustrate a need to not only influence what service providers do to help youth, but to illustrate what resource providers need to do to assure that every service provider, and intermediary, has the talent, tools, dollars, etc. to do the work that needs to be done, and to keep doing it, and getting better, for many years.

I feel this should be a shared goal, and responsibility, of every intermediary, and every service provider. If we're going to reach youth in every high poverty neighborhood with programs that help them move from first grade to adult roles, responsibilities and jobs and careers, we need to influence the distribution of resources and the growth of needed programs in all high poverty areas of the city and suburbs.

I've hosted a Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months since May 1994. I've invited leaders and staff of these intermediaries to attend, and to use the conference as a meeting place for their own networks, while also using the conference to help build visibility and draw needed resources to themselves, and to all of the organizations they support. If you look at names and organizations shown on conference attendee lists that I've used since 2007, or the conference maps that I've begun to create, you can see that there still is a great deal of work to be done to bring these groups together consistently.

I recognize that it's possible that someone else is having more success bringing these groups together and has been doing so for the past 20 years. If so, I would hope they would have some maps and attendee lists that show who is attending their events. I'd also hope to receive an invitation, and have my web sites serve as a resource for all of them.

Talent and Leadership Needed to Achieve Goals

While this blog focuses on ways maps and visualizations can be used to communicate holistic strategies that reach more youth, in more places, with comprehensive, long-term support, the Tutor/Mentor Blog has a wide range of articles focused on recruiting talent and leaders to make such programs available in Chicago and other cities.

I've been showing a variety of concept maps since last October, which illustrate goals, strategy and information I collect and share. Below is a "talent map", showing the different talents needed to help me do this work.

I think this map could be used as a team building tool by any organization, or intermediary. The center of the graphic, or hub, is the organization and its mission. The spokes in yellow, numbered from 1 to 7, represent key talents that are essential to organizational strength and mission success. In small organizations the leader may have many of these talents, but usually not all. As the organization grows, finding people who share the mission goals and passion, but fill specific talent roles, is one of the greatest challenges.

Each of the talent areas highlighted in yellow, may have several sub-talents. For instance I feel technology talent is critical to the work I do. However, while some people might be able to build a web site, they may not have the skills to build data visualizations, concept maps, or geographic maps, which are key tools to use to communicate holistic strategies. In the Public Awareness spoke there may be some who are good working with traditional media, some who are good at writing stories, some good in creating video stories, and others good in using social media to expand the reach of your message. However, few people have all these skills and most non profits have few people with the time to do this work consistently, or the talent. Thus recruiting talent to fill these roles is another huge challenge for social purpose organization leaders....including myself.

Another version of the Talent Map focuses on the network, or organizational background, talent comes from. The graphic at the right illustrates how people who share the mission, vision, need to help recruit talent and financial support for the organization. Recruiting people who have connections and civic reach within key industry, media, political sectors makes it more likely they have relationships that can draw the on-going support an organization needs.

While I've been creating these visualizations and writing blog articles to share them, I've had help from interns from different universities. Visit this page and this page to see visualizations done by interns. Consider doing some of this work yourself to support organizations you're involved with.

Or offer your talent to fill these roles with the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

R&D for Business Support of Tutor/Mentor Programs

Many companies spend billions of dollars on research and development (R&D) so they stay competitive in their markets or capitalize on new opportunities. How many spend even a few thousand dollars a year researching reasons for being strategically involved in youth tutoring/mentoring programs? Think about that as you read the rest of this article.

This is National Mentoring Month, and the final event will be the National Mentoring Summit being held in Washington, DC. I've attended in the past and there are great speakers and many valuable workshops. However, I've felt that the ROI (return on investment) has not been as great as it could be. No matter how many people attend a conference, each person can only meet a few. No matter how many workshops are offered, each person can only attend one in each time slot. Unless the conference is building public awareness that draws support (dollars, volunteers, etc.) to my own organization in Chicago or another city, the money I spend for room, travel and conference fee may not be worth the investment.

Does this mean don't go? No. Does this mean I'm no longer hosting Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago. No.

What it means is that I feel we need to find ways to bring people to on-line spaces where each person can spend time digging into the information a conference might offer, or that each participant brings, based on their own experience. That means each person needs to be sharing their ideas more completely in on-line space. I hope my example serves as a model.

During October-Dec 2014 I posted a series of concept maps outlining the vision and strategy of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, now led by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. In order for me to host this information, or be more effective communicating my ideas, I require consistent funding and talent. So do leaders of any tutor/mentor program operating in Chicago or any other city. Since government and philanthropic support are inconsistent, and don't reach all programs consistently, I've always focused on business as the prime supporter of youth tutor/mentor programs.

Why? Because it benefits their own workers while developing a future work force. This article focus on the untapped potential of business investment.

Following are some concept maps that I've created to illustrate this point.

This map shows reasons a business might support the growth of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in cities where it does business, for strategic and workforce development reasons.

This map focuses on ways volunteer involvement in organized tutor/mentor programs might support workforce development within companies that encourage employee involvement and provide infrastructure support to places where employees do get involved.

This final map is a guide to "recommended reading" that company leaders might browse to build support for their own strategic, long-term involvement with volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in communities where they have facilities or do business.

Browse other articles on this blog to see how companies might use maps to support a growth of their involvement, or to serve as hubs for involvement of multiple businesses within the same geographic part of a city. Browse these leadership and workforce development articles on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC blog, and this section on the T/MI web site, for more resources to support business investment in volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

I hope these ideas are being discussed at the Mentoring Conference in DC, but I also hope we can attract R&D people from thousands of companies in Chicago and other cities to on-line conversations where we dig deeper into the ideas represented by these maps. Perhaps we can even find a few companies to sponsor and lead this discussion.

Using Information as part of Problem Solving Process

Since October 25th I've been posting a series of articles that use concept maps as a tool for communicating strategy for helping kids in poverty move from birth to work, while also pointing to resources available to support leaders who adopt this commitment.

In the Tutor/Mentor Institute blog you can see more articles where I've embedded concept maps and ideas on systems thinking.

Today I'd like to introduce another map, showing the process I've been developing over the past 20 years.

On the left, I show the inputs, or information I've been aggregating since I formally created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. Across the middle I show various ways I've tried to expose this information to a growing number of people. Since I've never had advertising dollars, nor support from high profile business, political or celebrity spokespersons, the number of people I've reached has been limited, but still over a million visits to my web sites alone since 1998.

On the right, I show how formal and informal learning can help people innovate new ways to draw resources to all tutor/mentor programs in a geographic region as large as Chicago, and to help leaders of these programs use these resources, and what they can learn from each other, to constantly improve the work they do to connect youth and volunteers and help kids succeed in school, and move to jobs and careers not limited by poverty.

I've been sharing ideas like this on blogs since 2005 and email newsletters since 2001. I published printed newsletters between 1993 and 2001. Everything I've done can be done much better by others who may have more talent and resources than I have.

I've been looking for leaders in business, universities, philanthropy, etc who embrace the strategies and the way I share this information, and who want to adopt my efforts and support them with their own leadership and resources into future years.

If you're interested, here's a link to social media places where you can connect with me.

Tutor/Mentor Web Library Aims to Support Innovation in Youth Support World

On October 25 I started a series of articles showing Concept Maps I've created. The first was a "Strategy Map" that could be adopted by any one in business, philanthropy, politics, as a unifying image that engages the entire village of people in a city in on-going efforts intended to help youth move more successfully from "birth to work" with the help of a wide range of "extra adults" beyond family and traditional educators. Then I showed a 4-part strategy that would lead to achieving this vision, if adopted by everyone who commits to the first map.

This next map shows the information available in the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library.

The library divides into four sections. 1) Research - why and where are volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs needed? What do they look like? How do they differ?; 2) What do I need to know about the "business" of building and sustaining a non profit tutor/mentor program that needs to grow from a start up to becoming a great organization, and then needs to stay great over a decade or longer? How to raise money? How to recruit and train volunteers? How to draw attention to your organization?; 3) If I'm a parent, volunteer, donor, reporter, etc., how do I find individual non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago? How might I find volunteer involvements in other forms of service?; and 4) Where can I find ideas about collaboration, innovation, knowledge management, visualization and mapping that I can use to stimulate innovation and constant improvement in my organization?

While the map above shows these four information categories in detail, the map at the left shows the four sections. Click this link to go to the map. At the bottom of each node, you can click into additional maps that offer greater detail on each section, or into web sites with information related to each node.

There is a lot of information in this library, just as there's a lot of information that you will need to learn to get a degree from Harvard, Stanford, Oxford or any other university. You don't need to learn it in a day. Keep coming back to it as you build your program, or you build a corporate support strategy, and look for ideas that you can use to constantly improve the impact and scale of your effort.

I've been following MOOCs, such as the Deeper Learning MOOC, for the past couple of years. I feel the structure of these offers a form of organized learning that could attract a growing number of people who need to be involved in building and sustaining a citywide, or nationwide, network of high quality non-school tutoring, mentoring and learning programs. Such MOOCs could lead people through the various sections of my library, and of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web site, so people build their own understanding of the ideas and resources that are available, and learn to apply the information in their own efforts, and to add new information to the library based on what they are doing in their own programs, and what they learn through their own efforts.

I just need to find partners in universities, business and philanthropy to organize these, as well as manpower and talent to maintain the library, the concept maps, and share them daily with others throughout the world.

How does a city get from "here" to "there"?

There's plenty of information showing a need to provide extra learning support and mentoring for youth in high poverty areas, but few examples of sustained, decades-long, efforts by cities to build and sustain a network of programs reaching a growing number of youth in all of the high poverty areas of a city. I've used maps and graphics to illustrate the need for planning, leadership and resource development strategies that would take a city from its current level of youth serving organizations to a future level reaching more youth with higher impact organizations.

Last Saturday I posted a "strategy map" illustrating a shared commitment that needs to be adopted by leaders in every sector of business, philanthropy, government, education, non profit, etc. so more are innovating and leading actions that support the growth of strong programs.

Then on Tuesday, I posted a concept map illustrating the different supports youth in high poverty areas need to move from first grade to first job, over a 20 year period of continuous support, available in multiple neighborhoods.

So what might a city need to do to mobilize and support this level of sustained effort? Since 1994 I've been piloting a four step strategy aimed at helping tutor/mentor programs grow in all of Chicago's high poverty neighborhoods.

Step 1 includes building a library of information, including information on existing non-school youth serving organizations, and information people can use to borrow ideas from others and innovate actions that lead to constantly improving programs. These actions include new ways to generate flexible operating dollars throughout the program and intermediary network in any city.

Step 2 focuses on the marketing, social media and leadership needed to build public awareness and draw more people to the information in step 1. One of the challenges that must be overcome is the lack of advertising dollars available to create a reach and frequency of message delivery that gets more people involved, and keeps them involved.

Step 3 focuses on ways to help more people understand the information in the library, how it relates to them, and actions they can take to support the growth of one, or many, tutor/mentor programs in the city where they live, or in other parts of the country. There is so much information available that I've written many articles focused on "learning" cultures, where youth and adults are motivated to spend time on a regular basis reading and reflecting on this information.

Step 4 focuses on actions repeated throughout each year, for many years, which generate a greater flow of needed dollars, talent, technology and ideas to every one of the tutor/mentor programs operating in a city, and to every neighborhood where such programs are most needed.

This animation was created to help you understand the four part strategy and strategy map. This PDF also shows the four part strategy. This blog article does the same.

The heart of this strategy is the information collected and shared via step one. Articles I've read about innovation show that if you're exposed to ideas of how other people are already solving the same, or similar programs, you are stimulated in more ways to innovate ways to solve the same problem where you are. I've devoted an entire section of the tutor/mentor library to creativity and innovation ideas.

I've spent the past 40 years thinking of ways to influence youth and volunteers and of ways to build and sustain mentor rich non school programs that focus on the relationships between youth and adult volunteers and the long-term impact these programs can have on youth and volunteers. This, my understanding of how all of these ideas relate to each other is probably more intuitive than most other people in the country.

Yet, because I share my thinking, and my library, others can build learning organizations in high schools, colleges, business and communities and support a process that shares what I've learned with thousands of others, who then add their own ideas and talent to improve what they do to help youth in their communities move through school and into productive, adult lives and careers. Spend time looking at this information, then look for people who may already be leading this strategy in your own community. If you can't find such a group, start it yourselfe, as I did back in 1993.

As you look at this information I hope to connect with you in on-line communities as well as in conferences I host every six months in Chicago or that others are hosting at different times each year.

What does "mentoring to career" pipeline look like?

Last Saturday I posted an article with a strategy map, showing commitments many leaders need to take to help youth living in high poverty neighborhoods move from birth to work. Below is another map I hope you'll spend some time looking at. The link is here.

Most of us take for granted the support system we have that helps shape who we are, and how we grow up. This PDF is includes some graphics that show that the network surrounding kids living in high poverty is much different than that of most kids living beyond high poverty areas.

The concept map is intended to show supports that should be available in the lives of youth as they move from first grade to a job and career. This is a "hub and spoke" design, with the spokes leading to nodes indicating a type of support. In a couple of the nodes, such as the homework help section, you can see how I link to a web library with links to quite a few sites that learners could draw ideas from.

This graphic shows the concept map in a different way, yet it intends to communicate the same idea.

I've been seeking volunteers from engineering, design and architecture firms who would help me create an animated version of this graphic. I'm also looking for writers and data visualization people who will help fill each node on this map with links to information people can use to build and sustain age-appropriate non-school learning programs. If someone is working with a youth in 3rd grade, you should be able to click into that section of the graphic, and find information related to mentoring, tutoring and providing social/emotional support for youth at that age level. If you're working with high school kids, you should be able to click into nodes that show things you can do to support high school youth.

You should also be able to find discussion forums where people are sharing ideas, and where funders, policy makers, researchers and business leaders are also participating. Without their involvement in the process, the commitment of resources will be too narrowly focused, and to short a time frame.

The goal of these graphics is to show that youth need a wide range of support at each age level, and they need this support to continue through high school and post high school years. That means the way programs are supported needs to change, to be more consistent.

The maps on this blog intend to show that this "birth to work" support system needs to be available in every high poverty neighborhood, not just a few neighborhoods.

What is the role of volunteer mentors and tutors? They not only can draw from this information to innovate better ways to support the youth they work with. They can use this to help youth in different neighborhoods have access to more of the supports the youth need.

Visit my Tutor/Mentor blog to read more about these ideas.

Using Concept Maps to Communicate Strategy

If you browse through articles posted on this blog since 2008 you'll see how geographic maps have been used to show where volunteer-based, non-school, learning, mentoring and tutoring programs are most needed in Chicago, based on indicators such as poverty, poor schools, violence, health disparities, etc. In the next few blog articles I'm going to post concept maps that show commitments and strategies that need to be adopted by leaders from business, government, philanthropy, entertainment, sports, and the non profit sector, if the map is to be filled with high quality programs.

I've been using CMaps, a free concept mapping tool, since 2005. This was introduced to me by Ariane Lee, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who worked for me for one year. Once she introduced CMaps to me, I began to create a variety of maps. In these maps you can follow a train of thought, from one node to another. In this strategy map, the blue box at the top can be filled by any leader who makes this commitment. As you follow the train of thought, you'll see small boxes at the bottom of each map. The box on the left leads to other web sites with related information. The box on the right, leads to additional concept maps, that provide deeper thinking related to that specific node.

In this particular map you can see a box to the left, indicating that there is an animated version of this map. It was created by interns from IIT, during six week internships in Jan-Feb and May-June, 2009. The voice over was provided by a Northwestern University graduate, who was serving a one-year fellowship. I encourage you to listen to it. The information it provides will help you navigate the map. Some of the links are broken and this needs to be updated, but the information is still useful.

This strategy can be adopted and applied to Chicago, or to any other city in the world. It can be adopted by a University or a Hospital and focus on the area around that specific university or hospital. If you'd like my help in thinking through your strategy introduce yourself to me on Twitter, LinkedIN or Facebook or email tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net.

NOTE: since posting this article in October 2014 I've posted several related articles. View them all-click here.

Include this strategy in your efforts to help youth in poverty

Since 2005 interns working with Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago have been creating graphics and visualizations to communicate our strategies in new ways, and to new audiences. Below is a presentation created from this pdf, by Byeonghui Kim, an intern from South Korea. Past presentations can be seen here and here. View this page to see how interns learn what the strategies are as they go from first day on the job and through their internship period. Students in high school and college, as well as volunteers in different industries, could be creating similar presentations and using them to mobilize resources to support birth-to-work mentoring strategies in every city in the world. If you'd like to be part of this project, introduce yourself on the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum.

Concept Maps Connect information and people

One type of maps that we've been piloting shows the geographic areas of the Chicago region where well-organized tutor/mentor programs are most needed. Leaders can use maps like this to organize actions that support existing programs with volunteers, dollars, technology and ideas, while helping new programs start where too few exist.

Another type of map can help organize information or show the connection of people and ideas who all share the same goals, but who may not yet be connected to each other. This concept map shows high school drop out prevention resources, ideas and people that I've connected with over the past decade.

While I've been creating these maps I keep looking for teams in high schools, colleges, businesses and/or faith groups who will share this work with me, not only mapping resources to help Chicago, but mapping resources to help kids in any part of the world! Introduce yourself on Twitter or Facebook. Let's connect!

Potential of Mapping and Visualization

In this video Manuel Lima, senior UX design lead at Microsoft Bing, explores the power of network visualization to help navigate our complex modern world.



As you watch this I encourage you to look at the concept maps I've created to map knowledge and networks. If we can create a visualization that works like a "blueprint" to show steps needed to help kids from birth to work, and the network of supports needed at each age level, our networking with people throughout the world can fill each node in our map/library with people, organizations and ideas related to that specific node.

Thus we can provide more ideas for each group of people working on this same long-term goal of helping kids in more places get the support they need to move from a birth in poverty to a life out of poverty.

How can we connect with people at Microsoft, Google or other information innovation organizations who will add us to their team and/or provide us with the talent, dollars and technology to build out this project?

This week I'm part of JELLY WEEK 2012, where I'm connecting with people from all over the world who are thinking about similar ideas.

Mapping the ideas around the maps

This is a map I created today using Debategraph.

This is a way to connect the ideas I share on blogs, and other web sites I manage with a vast world of other people who share concern about the same issues.

Maybe you can find a use for this tool, too.

Different kind of maps

Most of the articles and graphics on this site use traditional maps, showing the Chicago region and places where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed.

However, the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been creating many different types of maps, showing the ways people might get involved to help tutor/mentor programs grow, or the range of information we host on our web sites to support involvement by an infinity of people and organizations.

This graphic is from a Trailmeme web site that enables visitors to map the path they take through the internet to discover information. In this case, a volunteer from the UK has built a map showing a progression of places in the Tutor/Mentor Connection library that she has located, and which she is sharing to help others follow and learn more about the T/MC and its resources.

When you go to this site, double click on each graphic and see how it points to a section and/or article on the T/MC web site. For instance, when you double click on "where to start" you go to this page.

See more uses of maps and graphics on this site.