Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Daniel F. Bassill

Daniel F. Bassill — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:25 GMT

Great article. Thanks. I lead a non profit that is trying to apply this thinking to creating a guide that people all over the world might use to become involved in helping kids in poverty move to jobs and careers. While I understand your concepts, I don’t have the tech skills, time or talent to apply them into building and constantly updating this blueprint. Thus, my goal is to recruit people from the design community to volunteer time, talent and leadership to this effort. Visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute section of http://msg.uc.iupui.edu/TMC/html/index.php to see how I integrate GIS maps and interactive databases into this project, and to see how I’ve applied your concepts thus far.

If anyone would like to get involved, or learn more, please post an introduction on the site. Thanks.

Daniel F. Bassill — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:25 GMT

Do you know of people in the Chicago area (or Internet) who might want to apply this concept in an internet learning environment focused on connecting volunteers, businesses and philanthropic organizations more consistently with kids living in poverty? At http://www.cabriniconnections.net you can see that we already connect inner city teens with adults. By applying the concepts described in this article I feel we can have a greater impact on what the volunteers learn from their experience, and thus, the extra roles they will take over time to help kids who are in 7th grade when they join us, be starting jobs/careers 12 to 15 years later.

Thanks. Contact me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net if you have recommendations.

Daniel F. Bassill — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 02:31:26 GMT

I lead a non profit and host an internet web site (http://www.tutormentorconnection.org ) intended to be a library and resource for anyone in Chicago or any other city who is interested in ending poverty by helping kids get through school and into jobs and careers. The challenge for me as a small non profit, is probably the same as it is for a big corporation … we’re all trying to find ways to motivate people to use our web sites as a meeting place, learning place, and shopping place. Of course, the difference between me and any corporations is that they have far more resources to devote to a solution. Thus, I’d like to see this idea of fostering community developed with examples of how the internet is being used to create social benefit communities, and how corporations might be supporting employee involvement in such communities as part of their own R&D in these areas.

Daniel F. Bassill — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:27:44 GMT

I’m a Commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, and lead a Chicago non profit called Tutor/Mentor Connection (http://www.tutormentorconnection.org ). The non profit world offers a tremendous opportunity for IA people to expand their talent in volunteer leadership roles that help strengthen the sector and improve the benefit non profits and community organizations offer to people in need. In the Discussion Forums at the T/MC site I’ve a section called Business School Connection. I encourage you to take a look and see how you might use your talent to support the ideas offered in that forum. In the same way, I encourage you to use your networking at this forum to share what you learn, and to point to the non profits you are supporting through your work. Because of the non profit sectors need for leaders, many of you will be given much more freedom to innovate ways to use your talent in your volunteer work before you’ll be able to use it on the job. Yet the skills and networks you build may be the reason you get greater influence in your work world.

Daniel F. Bassill — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:14:02 GMT

I introduced myself about a year ago and would like to update the web site I mentioned. You can now visit http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and find examples of how maps can be used to show where poverty is concentrated and where service organizations are located. In the links section of the site is a sub section on process improvement, creativity, collaboration and knowledge management. These links point to many organizations using visual tools to help express ideas that might unite the social sector, business sector and public sector in building better systems to help end poverty, improve diversity in the workplace, etc. I think designers have a special talent for communicating ideas and hope to connect with some of you professionally, or via the universities where you learn your skills.

Daniel F. Bassill — Sat, 05 May 2007 16:35:10 GMT

I’m also interested in seeing articles written that illustrate the use of design in creating blueprints, or greater understanding of complex problems. I’ve started to create short essays that illustrate uses of maps and charts to connect leaders from business to youth in inner city neighborhoods. Recruiting talent from this industry would greatly enhance our work, and lead to more and better support of youth in every major city of the world. Visit the program locator and Tutor/Mentor Institute sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org to see these ideas illustrated.

Daniel F. Bassill — Sat, 05 May 2007 16:38:18 GMT

It would be great to see designeds used as blueprints for connecting business volunteers with youth in structured, age appropriate activities that connect youth with mentors, tutors, learning and vocational opportunities and result in more young people becoming workers in industries that supprot this process. In the Tutor/Mentor Institute section of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org you can see a use of maps and charts to illustrate this concept. I’d like to be working with deisgners in colleges and industry to flesh out these ideas and implement them in cities throughout the world.

Daniel F. Bassill — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:29:24 GMT

I think the theory of this article is really important to understand. However it is the application of this thinking that gets a bit difficult. I’ve come to expect concept maps and diagrams when I read articles on Boxes and Arrows, which illustrate the thinking of the writer.

I work in a non profit where our goal is to create an adult-business infrastructure that reaches inner city kids in non school hours and provides age appropriate mentoring, tutoring, coaching, etc. from elementary school all the way until the youth is in the first stages of a job. There are huges systems changes implied in what I’m trying to do, and thus there is all sorts of resistence. Many people don’t understand what I’m talking about because it comes from a different frame of reference, and from a speaker who is not a traditional leader.

Thus, I’ve started to use concept maps and other communications tools to illustrate this thinking. You can enter the maps at http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?…

I’m not an expert in IA or other forms of visual communications. My goal is to recruit people who do have this expertise, and who would use their talent to help me a) because they care about the cause; b) because they expand their own knowledge and experience in facilitating change.

I hope that some of you will reach out to me here, or on Face Book, or at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com and offer your talent to help facilitate the massive systems change that would result in more kids born in poverty having the adult network that assure that they are in jobs/careers by age 25.

Daniel F. Bassill — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:56:54 GMT

Hi Olga,

I lead a non profit tutor/mentor program in Chicago and network with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters in our area. I think your article reflects some of the realities of non profits, but would like to see the same story written by someone working with a local non profit that has a fraction of the resources of a large national network like BBBS. Every challenge you mentioned is magnified in the small non profit because instead of farming out the work to paid contractors, we have to farm it out to volunteers. The only advantage we have is that being small, we often have less people in the decision-making mix. If we get an idea, and can find some volunteers and/or donors, we can move the idea forward. In some respects I think this is a parallel to small companies competing for business with big companies, using the internet to innovate ways to develop new products and reach new customers faster and better than slower moving organizations.

I’ve posted messages on Boxes and Arrows and other IT networking sites in the past because I feel that there is a huge opportunity that has not yet been maximized. There are more than 200 different volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in the Chicago region. Each has a need to market itself and draw volunteers and donors; each has a need to find ways to use technology to support staff, volunteers and students, or create a learning environment where each member draws upon the resources of the network. Finally, each needs to find ways to demonstrate it’s impact, both from an internal process improvement purpose, and from an external goal of showing donors the value of the work.

That means there is redundant work, and costs, built into this system. I feel that if IT volunteers, or networks, who share the same passion for a cause, were to take an intermediary, or capacity building role, they could help non profits throughout a geographic area, or a charity sector that is common in many cities, get volunteers, donors, training, etc. more consistently and at less cost, than can each of the volunteer organizations on their own.

I’ve mapped out this thinking at http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?… and use my participation in social networking sites like this to invite others to duplicate this type of concept mapping, and/or volunteer time to help me in what I’m trying to do.

Imagine if volunteers from Boxes and Arrows were creating concept maps to show how BBBS programs were connecting kids with mentors, and the result of this was ….what? Or that they were showing how other non profits were mobilizing resources, or building networks, to end hunger, or reduce teen pregnancy, or reduce poverty around inner city hospitals. Non profits can’t do this type of work on their own, but could benefit from groups like this using their talent to create blueprints of action strategies that others might follow.