Social Network Project at Tutor/Mentor Connection

[Daniel Bassill]

Our goal from this project will be to use SNA software provided by Valdis Krebs to map T/MC networks, showing the connections between us, and people we know, and mapping the connections they have, to people we need to know if we are to succeed in our mission.

While our database is huge, over 12000 entries, I think that the way to start on this project, and get familiar with the software, is to map small networks. For instance, I'm part of a list serve of mentoring researchers, started by David DuBois, who I met via Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the T/MC conferences. We could map that network and its connections.

We could also map each conference, then connect all of the conferences. We've hosted 32 since 1994. We could map the programs in the database, and show which of them have come to the conferences.

This list will grow as we do work with the software and learn its capacities. Add your own ideas and suggestions. Point to web links that illustrate the result of these maps, if you can find samples.

[Daniel Bassill]

On the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site we have links to 220 organizations who offer tutoring and/or mentoring of some sort to youth in Chicago.

One Network Analysis project goal is to view the web sites of each organization and create a map that shows how many have links back to the T/MC, and how many have links to any of the other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. Such a map would show how much we're all helping each other, and how much our help is a one-way street.

We need volunteers who will do this work, either as part of a formal class project, Masters or PhD project, or on their own. Please help spread the word so we can find this help.

[Daniel Bassill]

I found this Partner Tool web site this week. It provides tools to show how group work together on common social problems.  I'd like to find talent to help apply this tool to show participation in the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership  and Networking Conferences that have been held since 1994.  We could use attendee list to map participants, and to map volunteers who offered workshops at each conference. http://www.partnertool.net/

[Daniel Bassill]

I use graphics like this, and the "wheel" to illustrate how one person can build a network of support for a goal, like Tutor/Mentor Connection, by enlisting people from different backgrounds to help.

In reviewing some of my web files today, I came across a power point that I had created almost 10 years ago to illustrate my goal of finding a way to map the network that I had been building for the previous 30 years, and to segment members by specific categories, such as law firms, universities, etc.

I've converted it to this PDF which I hope you'll all review. Our aim is to be able to create an automated system that enables us to map our database, and our network, based on pre-determined categories, and to make this available on -line so others can search it to see who we are working with, and where they can connect.