Follow up to Feb. 25 Training Project ideas

[Daniel Bassill]

The first priority for each user of inFlow will be to get familiar with using it.  I suggest that a project each of you can do for that purpose, is to map the network of people who are part of this SNA group, and who attended the training yesterday.  If more people join this group, then they can be added to the SNA.  You all can discuss how to do that. You could create different surveys and different excel spread sheets, or you could collaborate on creating one survey and spread sheet that you each use in creating your own SNA of the group.

 

Valdis suggested a couple of project ideas that would be worth doing next, aiming to have something completed by the May 27 and 28 conference which will be held at Loyola.

 

a)  Create a SNA of participants from the T/MC conferences  held in May and Nov of 2007, 2008 and 2009. We can download from our Filemaker pro database the full name, organization, city, state, fields, and create one more field (y/n) telling  us if they are a tutor/mentor program or not.  The SNA maps created between now and the conference could be used to update participants on what we've been doing since the Nov 09 conference and to ask for support for further SNA which would require their involvement. That leads to the next step.

 

b) During the conference, we can use the list of attendees, to survey them with questions that tell us how much contact they have had with other people attending the confernces, either as a result of the conference, or through previous connections.  The list of questions for this survey would be developed by all of you, with advise from Valdis and myself.

 

c) Between now and the Nov. 2010 conference I want to do a map of tutor/mentor programs in Chicago similar to the map Valdis included in his ppt, showing economic development organizations in Clevelend. Such a map would be a primary tool to present to donors asking for further investment in the T/MC, and continued SNA project development.

 

The first step is to learn to use inFlow. Thus, I encourage  you to suggest other ideas, or just jump into it and show what you have created by posting your maps on this forum. Some of you will spend more time on this than others. Some will learn faster. That's fine. As long as we can show on-going growth in what we learn, and who is helping us, we are making progress.

 

[Jonathan Margaluhur]

Hey team,

Here are my available time to do the project:
Mo-TH anytime after 10 and before 5
I'm free all day Friday

[Daniel Bassill]

Anne and Katie are coming to Cabrini Connections tonight after 5:30 and Ahmed was here for a few hours yesterday. If any of you have some questions that you'd like me to discuss with Anne and Katie tonight, post them here.

[Jonathan Margaluhur]

Dan,

I will come there this Friday usual time around 9.30ish

[Katie Anderson]

Hi All,

Sorry I couldn't make the training last week, but I got together today with Anne and Dan. Anne showed me the basics of using In-Flow (Thank you, Anne!), and I will play around with it a bit and try to learn it better. We were talking that it would be beneficial for us each to create our own version of this SNA group, and then compare how we did it and the final products. I think this is a good way to get us all experience, and also to learn the most as we will each make our own mistakes and encounter different problems!

I think that doing a SNA for the Leadership Conference in May would be a really great way to get other programs involved. I know that May sounds kinda far away now, but it will come up fast. I think if we try to complete our initial mapping of our own little group by the end of March, then go on do map Cabrini Connections in April, it will put us on track to map the groups attending the program in May with some experience under our belts!

It's obvious that we all have very conflicting schedules. I will generally have time to work on this project Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. For the initial project, I am out of town next week, but hope to head over to CC the following Tuesday (Mar. 16th?) and try to figure out the program. If anyone else can go, let me know!

I look forward to starting on this project, I think that the potential is huge!

Katie

[Jonathan Margaluhur]

This morning Dan wanted me to think about what kind of survey questions we can use to map the six member of the SNA group.

Here are the question I think can be used:
1. Through whom did you know about the SNA project?(Answer can be the organization you belong where Dan listed the project)
2. Who in Cabrini Connection are you in contact with initially after finding out about the project?
3. With whom in the team do you often work with?

Tell me what you guys think

[Katie Anderson]

I think that those questions sound good. Do you think we should add one about who we've reached out to find more volunteers? (Does that make any sense whatsoever?)

[Daniel Bassill]

Do you guys each have the ability to email other members of the group? If you do, there might be times you'd want to email others to let them know of new information, or to set up meetings. If you don't, let me know, and I'll see if I can give you this access.

Dan

[Katie Anderson]

I think we can only send messages through Ning.

[Daniel Bassill]

I just checked the features. Members should be able to send messages to other members of the group through the Ning email.

[Anne Raci]

While it might not be particularly relevant to our small group, a good question to include might be along the lines of "In what capacity are you involved in the organization?" The information this would hopefully be getting us is whether people are involved in fund-raising efforts, actually tutoring and mentoring, just this SNA project. For example, I am only involved in the SNA aspect of it while Katie is involved in the SNA aspect while also volunteering as a tutor/mentor. I think this would be more helpful when we start mapping on a larger scale, but worth considering now.

I'm back in town now, and will be working on some survey questions and how to transfer that into Excel files. My plan is to come in and work with InFlow during the day on Monday, March 29. I can be there by about 9:30 a.m. if anyone else is available that day. I'd like to take a look at what we're dealing with as an export from Filemaker.

[Katie Anderson]

Hello Team,

I just wanted to update you all on what I've been working on, and hopefully hear about any progress by you all! I made it in this morning (Friday) and had a chance to learn the software a bit. I successfully made a (very ugly) map that roughly shows the connections between us (I fudged some data because we never actually took a survey and I haven't met everyone in the group). It made me comfortable with the way that the Excel sheets work (and remember to save as a .CSV) and how to set up and upload a map. I wish that I had more time to play around with different views and changing colors/size/etc., and also time to play around with the data and see how it all interacts. I plan to go in next Friday to work more on this.

As far as questions, I mapped the data roughly on how connected we are to each other, using a scale that reflected interaction in person and on Ning. I would also like to map who brought whom into the group, which would be slightly different, and I think I will try this next Friday. If anyone else is free, I invite you to join me at Cabrini Connections, I will be there approximately from 9:15 to 11:00 am.