Charles you brought up an interesting debate.

What keeps me up at night?

The realisation that we may never acheive real poverty aleviation, reduce unemployment to neglibe numbers, reduce suffering, stop the abuse of women and children ... must I carry on?

The trilogy of I, me and myself ... found in excess within the business and goverment sectors. Greed, the blatant disregard for LIFE and PLANET ... power abuses by polititians and business giants ... not to mention the people aspring to be like them ... after all they act as role-models ...

The realisation that it is in the polititians interest to maintain and increase poverty levels ... the abuse of youth as cannon fodder ... (poor people and highly influentable constituents make easy prey with false promises and glimpses of hope of a better life for them and their children ..

they are easy prey for corrupt and power hungry polititians and businessman ...

they are easily manipulated with promises that polititians and some business have no intention of keeping ...

the fostering of hate ... racism ... war ... death ... all on the altar of GREED and THRIST FOR POWER.

... fearing that we will never reach a stage where politics and busineses won't be driven solely by greed and power is what keeps me awake most of the time!

Laurinda Seabra

My position often requires me to delve into a great deal of research and trends in various topics related to youth, including areas of abuse, violence, homelessness, juvenile detention reform, teen preganancy, gangs, drugs and addiction...... its often overwhelming to see such need in the community and to see the staggering facts and statisitics that document that need. It often leaves me wondering- are we winning this? Or are we on a loosing side of just trying to put our fingers in a crumbling dike. I have found over the years it can be a driving force that inspires, but also burns out many people, includng myself. The chronic feeling that I need to do more keeps me up at night. I have left the sector and later returned, specifically to get away from the somewhat codependent nature of the work and the internal pressure I have felt as an agent of change in the world. It is a double edge sword we wield, afterall I think I would wonder and worry more if it DIDN'T keep us up at night. I suspect the politicians Laurinda wrote about are sleeping nice and sound their beds.

Hi Lisa

I can relate to what u said above. In 1997 ... I burned out ... so one day I just packed and left ... promising to never go back and to just live a quite life with no activism ... but "our higher power" must have sat a planned where I was supposed to go next, because within less than 1 year I was right back ... then in 2003 I once again hit a wall ... and the rest is history ... I guess that if we are born with this passion, in spite of all the episodes of burnout we just can't let it be ... that who we are.

When I talk to my mom (another social activist even at 87) ... she always tells me ... if not us then who? We have to keep on going ... and we have to support eachother along the way ... because if we don't the world will self destroy even faster than it is happening ... we may not be able to stop the human rot but we do indeed slow it down somehow.

I guess ... It is our destiny ...

Laurinda

Thanks for helping me realize that there are others out there who feel just as energized and overwhelmed as I do!

Leah

Hi, Laurinda and Lisa:

What I think I'm getting from both of you is that it's the general state of the world that keeps you up at night. Is that about right?

If it is, it's difficult for me to say anything practical about, because the field is so vast, so please indulge me if I make a comment that's non-utilitarian and frankly paradoxical.

I switch back and forth between thinking the world is almost completely upside down, and thinking it's perfect. The whole way we run things, starting with the sense that the bottom line is the horizon we should be shooting for, seems to me to be short-term, short-sighted, dangerous and pitiful. But that's what we live with, that's what we're born into, and perhaps that's what gives life and edge, a social edge, that's worth living on / in.

And that's where the paradox really comes in. I "see" a better world. And then at times, I find myself in it, very much as if I've been in it all along.

I don't think these two states invalidate one another, in fact I feel the second state is the springboard for action about the first, and perhaps too a place where we can get rest and refreshment after the fray.

*

But losing sleep over the state of the world...

None of us would ever sleep if we really "woke up" to it, I suppose, until we'd fixed the entire place. And we do need some rest, if we're to avoid burnout.

So my hat's off to you both, and you have my sympathy...

I work within a corporation as part of their CSR department. I have a strong desire to advocate for, collaborate and innovate to develop new products and services that address social or environmental needs. However, such business case development and project management takes lots of internal networking, proof of concept debate, partner (internal or external) selection, approval and project management. My limited allocation to CSR (I split CSR initiatives with another job role) can find me sometimes too caught up in the day-to-day to do the proactive planning I'd like to do to make strong proposals for improvement, new processes, procedures, products, etc. I guess my concerns are very different from social innovators and entrepreneurs working outside of the corporate structure in the fact that I have some security and a diversity of opportunities across a wide range of businesses, but I fear my job's necessary lack of focus on one particular solution or business line may dilute my effectiveness or pull me in so many directions I can never get anything meaningful done. Any thoughts? That concern aired, I tip my hat to the rest of the innovators and entrepreneurs out there who many of us "intrapreneurs" draw inspiration from. At the same time, I'd like to advocate for considering corporate partnerships to scale up for maximum impact, when appropriate (but not without good relationship building and due diligence). Thanks.

Corporates are like humangous machines that eats one up ... and you state that you have some security? (like a 30 day notice period?)

Yes, I do have some thoughts ... it is clear that you are at cros roads. My suggestion is select only one single CSR project and put most of your available time into getting it to work i.e. like 70% of your CSR time ... it may surprise you that if you can quantify the impact your bosses will quickly turn it into a massive marketing campaign ...

Then use that gap to push for the next one ... and so on ...

Regarding multistakeholder partnerships / PPP / etc ... I believe that the first thing that is needed is the built of a trust relationship ... supported by quantifiable data.

Hope this helps!

Laurinda Seabra

Mr. Hipbone, Lots of things keep me up at night, caffeine, money worries, health issues, but mostly frustration, the small mindedness of the lowly staffers clinging to their little self important positions and making decisions that they should not even begin to contemplate making. If someone has a bona fide save the planet action plan, based on corroborated evidence and is compelled by basic altruism to pursue the best possible avenue for the greatest impact, yet they cannot place a call to the top people ideally positioned to fully bring it to fruition because the receptionist will not put a call through, or the grant fund manager will not consider funding because your plan falls just outside the lines of the narrow parameters set forth by the board of directors and although she finds great merit and possibility in your plan will not budge from her locked in position of denial, refuses to consider options like presenting it to the board for merit, apparently lost sight of the fact that it is not her money, that it is foundation money for the betterment of society, isn't saving the planet meritorious of a small consideration! Months of rejection keep me up at night, An Inconvenient Truth kept Al Gore up at night, too, finally got the ball rolloing, yet it really only offered band-aid for a hatchet wound, the plan that keeps me up at night has the capacity to reduce global energy consumption by at least 30%, and pave the way for bringing many theories to reality. Imagine electric vehicles that can be recharged in minutes, at let's say, Starbucks, over a latte, would that be helpful in reducing carbon emissions, and let's say that delivering the electricity to these convenient outlets was so efficient that it actually reduces the strain on the creaky national grid, would that be helpful? Leonardo DeCaprio wants to do something "important" to push back the tipping point, I'll be more than happy to assist him in realizing that aspiration.

Now I am curious ... tell us more about your project and maybe we can come up with some ideas ...

Or e-mail me at laurinda.seabra@empowerment-gateway.com

(BTW - Our exec are mostly engineers that had enough of the hydrocarbons, mining and energy sectors way of doing business ... and if we can't help we may know someone who can)

laurinda

Everyone needs to join the "be the change" ring for things to change.The good news is that humanity is coming into an age of enlightenment. A wake up call where belief systems based on misguided and misinformed assumptions about the material world are coming into play, ie that there is more to life than material possessions etc.

Mass change in awareness can bring about a new reality but what is really needed is an inner evolution. Our collective self is unbalanced and in a crisis of consciousness, where too many groups of people are at the bottom of the pyramid. All of the world's problems stem from one root cause, human selfcenteredness.

My belief is that we need to free our minds from the traditional model of reality, with the understanding that we are not just in a materialistic universe but that the old way of thinking is destroying the planet. Laurinda is right the status quo stands in the way of behavior change. To break the spiral of power we need to find the trick of cooperation.But none of that keeps me up at night. Other things do, like self-imposed work deadlines.

I am sleepless over the fact that myself and a few other activists are starving and may be living in our cars this winter because we are trying to help uplift our community. I am starting 2 new organizations - one to address the needs of African Americans (especially children) in New Mexico - a state that refers to us as "statistically insignificant". The other organization will teach people of color environmentally sustainable skills and building practices through a demonstration project.

I toss and turn all night trying to figure out how to do this while getting paid enough to keep myself from being homeless. I don't do my best work when I am worried about my own survival. A evil man once told me - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. I don't want him to be right. E-mail me offline if you have any suggestions - maybe I'll finally get a good night's rest. tonyacovin@aol.com

Rage Charles, in short, and there are two literary references that keep me focused and in control. The first, from Shakespeare as Henry V urges his men to "disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage", the other from Dickens' Ignorance and Want allegory at the very end in the challenge to "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!’

It began when I came to the aid of a social entrepreneur, who'd been told by his tutor back in college that it needed more than passion to drive a world changing idea, nothing less than affliction would do.

He was a marked man in many ways, coming up on radar first in the case of US POW/MIAs who had gone missing in Laos, one was his father in law. I'd met him once in real life after he'd sourced a business driven development project in Tomsk, Siberia after he'd delivered a paper on a new development strategy as an alternative to trickle-down.

By 2003, the next time we were in contact, he'd been hung out to dry after taking a personal stand against corruption in development funding. He blocked his own project protecting it with copyright. In John Edwards home town of Chapel Hill, he was living in a tent and writing a narrative in a fast for economic and social rights. I persuaded him to break it, that we might work together. My anger at someone being mistreated have been stirred.

The original whitepaper I discovered was in the Clinton presidential library, though the librarian wouldn't release a copy of what he described as campaign records.

Bringing him to England, I began to discover that I'd inherited his fortune. Doors began to close in front of us, not least those belonging to our embryonic social enterprise movement. His second visit to the UK was blocked by immigration, claiming that he was an economic migrant, in spite of my support, standing next to him. Jerr Boschee suggested contacting Baroness Thornton at the top, which I did with a letter to our House of Lords and the almost unprecedented response of a non-reply. It was the beginning of a pattern of closing doors.

Nothing else for it but to redirect our efforts toward Eastern Europe again. He'd been in Ukraine for around a year with the plan of scaling up previous efforts. Our target, the children in institutional care.

Both of us were sleepless the night that news reached our ears of what was to become the "Death Camps for Children" article. An NGO leader in private correspondence revealed what they'd stumbled across in homes for the disabled they described as "concentration camps".

Then it really began to turn against us as more doors began to close. Nobody wanted to talk about this with good reason, they could endanger people's jobs, put projects at risk. Then a smear campaign began. As we were to learn it came from someone with political aspirations who was protected by a barrister in the UK, masquerading as a lawyer to threaten litigation.

Imagine my rage then. Knowing that a member of our own "establishment" would go so far to suppress a story and protect the smear source's identity. They managed to intimidate Google however, who to this day host the anonymous hate blog.

1. months have passed, a strategy paper has been delivered and approved and things are just starting to move. Recently too, a journalist took interest in the "Death Camps" and we knew where these were worst, having been sworn to secrecy. Yet we cannot meet them.

We cannot meet them as being fully reliant on trade, as what would now be called a social business enterprise, we are not being paid and simply can't afford to do this, over and above our maintained presence.

It UK government, above all who are the worst. Today, most of I direct my rage at the factious purposes of the British Council, an organ of government which represents our country overseas. They have not paid in over a year, despite my reminders and having finally reached the point of writing to describe how their laxity harms social enterprise and mine in particular.

It would seem, though I'm not entirely sure, that they sponsor social enterprise in some ways and yet find not paying outstanding debts to others acceptable. I can't lay blame on them uniquely for our not being able to act on "Death Camps" but they are by far the worst offender and at the same time the most righteous.

They will taste some of my rage, have no doubt. There is no difference to me between not paying for work completed and leaving a shop without paying for the goods.

Finally, as a friend observes me and my sleepless, affliction and I relate what an unrewarding effort it is attempting to grapple with the self-serving world of our Third Sector. She's hit the nail on the head by saying "You're not doing these things for your gratification, you're doing them because it's the right thing to do"

I've been leading a non profit for 17 years now and have had quite a few sleepless nights.

Some sleepless nights come because I'm not sure where the money will come from to pay the next rent bill, or the next payroll. The frustrations of fund raising expressed by others are frustrations I share. Many times I don't sleep the day before a conference, or an event that I'm hosting. I'm worried about getting the details right, or if anyone will show up. My next conference (http://www.tutormentorconference.org ) is next week, so I'm getting to that point again.

However, other times, my dreams bring me inspirations, new ways of seeing things. I've learned that if I don't get up and write them down, I won't remember them as clearly the next day.

Of course, other times it's been my own children, calling for their Dad.

In balance, I think I'm fortunate. I've learned not to stress and worry about things I cannot control, so that I can focus my energy on those things I do control. This enables me to put the stress out of my mind on most nights, so that I can get the sleep that I need to fuel my passion the following day.

I think that if you can't do this you'd burn out, either physically, or emotionally, and not be able to accomplish anything at all.

What keeps me up at night, absolute frustration after 30 years either as a recipient and then a deliverer of social services I feel the industry lack consistency actually come to think of it the most consistent thing about social issues is that they don't go beyond training! Training! And more training!

Implementation is ignored by most social funding agencies so trainees have to sell social products. Recipients of social services have to purchase these after training but they are already living in poverty. So all parties are frustrated because financing is either tight or just not available.

I dream of the day when social issues receive equal importance as medical, civil and political ones. In those industries funders fund training then issues contracts to trainees for projects they –the funders finance. Funding just keep pouring into these fields yet there are so much corrupt engineers, medical practitioners and politicians.

At the risk of offending some I must say, “it’s really been a waste of financing to keep training poor people in the same area for decades yet rob them of true achieve by failing to supporting implementation” of products that will alleviate the prevailing poverty.

I work with persons who are disabled and who know with just a bit more supports they wouln't have to live in poverty or be dependent on welfare or charity. Yet they have been shoved into this undesirable state.

Frastration! That sure is the name of the game that keeps me up at night.

Karen, your words resonate with me. I can't tell you how often consultants are willing to tell me "how" to do something, but don't make an effort to help me get the resources to put their ideas into action.

Thus, I've created the Tutor/Mentor Connection (starting in 1993) to change this. I began to build a library and database of tutor/mentor program information, listing most of the different non profits offering tutoring/mentoring in Chicago. Initially I shared this information via printed newsletters and directories. Now you can find it at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org.

With this information in a centralized place, I'm able to lead advertising and enlist partners, who talk about why and where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and ways volunteers and donors can help them. I'm a middle man in helping connect resource providers with programs who need help, but I don't act as a broker to determine who gets help, or how much help they get. My aim is to increase the number of people who offer to help, and to guide the distribution of resources into all poverty areas of Chicago.

I feel that what I do can be duplicated in any other part of the world, and in any other social sector category. It just takes someone who will duplicate my role of collecting and hosting the information, and of leading public awareness/advertising efforts aimed at drawing more concerned people to the web site and to the cause.

Rage, absolute frustration...

This event seems to have touched more than one nerve, to the point where it seems to me that all the twanged nerves are making music.

I don't want to interrupt the flow here, but I would like to thank you all for your contributions, and to suggest we keep this thread going

in a week or so, I'd like to summarize the various issues that have arisen, because this is as good a place as any to start figuring out how to turn things around.

As Dan notes, our frustrations (rage, too, methinks) are excellent indicators of where change may be appropriate, and generally contain the energy needed to (at least begin to) effect that change.

Charles,

In the couple of years since we first met on Social Edge I've continued to find better ways of collecting and organizing the type of information I focus on. Last spring I began to use concept maps to illustrate my strategy and the organization of the information on the T/MC web site.

You can see how I map this at http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1180119458133_1566509717_34175&partName=htmltext

If you follow the links to other pages, you'll see that I link to a web site where people can rate the information or add their own links. Using this as a tool, I feel that leaders could outline, or diagram the type of information, or network, they are trying to build, then let people from around the world populate that network with their own information and knowledge.

To me, everyone I link to represents a part of my network. Some don't know me. But I know them and am reaching out to them via the links, and via email introductions and forums like this.

A key part of network weaving it the way we connect people we know to others who we know, thus by using tools like this I feel we can not only build a broader network, and show how we relate to each other, but we can be active every day in helping others in the network get the resources they need, just by linking to each other, or talking about each other in forums like this.

I hope you'll take a look.

Recent month, october was a terrible and costly month.

None were interested in taking the responsiblity and the issue was moving towards possible friction.

I asked the elders would they help me, they were eager to know the issue but when asked to take the responsibility and they had their reasons.

As elders are to be respected but I had to come out of an answer, quiet sleepless nights and I was loosing my cool and I delivered the best way to come out of the issue.

Once the issue was solved and I claimed my legitimate right of acceptance that issue was given appropriate answer,Charles you should see the colors they showed.

It was disgusting.

So, the question here is "What is this elderly buisiness is all about".

Is peace can be won by avoiding responsibility or attending to it.

Who is going to pay for the cost for taking responsibility and why people fail to acknowledge?

The question is not just about elders lack of accountability ... but rather the trend of passing the buck (hot potato, et al) ... the culture of "it's not my problem" ... why should I be involved? ... and on and on ...

In Portugal we refer to those types of individuals as lacking "SALT" (ideomatic sentance) ... but it is a great discription noneless ... as they are tasteless!

Now my latest "keeping me awake at nite" ... is procastination ... lack of fibre ... lack of SALT in some individuals ... turf protection ... and then passing the buck ... what a waste of time.

I think it is time to start evalutaing and writing comparative reports on large stock market listed companies written value statements and SR reports versus the reality of delivery ... I was apolled at "some SR third party assessors report verifications ... versus reality" ... all in the name of profits ...

That is some of the other things that keep me up at nite in sunny and hot South Africa at the moment ... oh ... there is a lot more ... but it is enough for now!

Laurinda Seabra

Laurinda this expression is so close to Indian hearts too, what we add on is Salt & Pepper.

The expression goes like this - one who doesnt respond though ought to,is the one who never had salt or pepper in his life.

I am surprised at the convergence of expressions and I see it states clearly we are all ONE in thought and if we can move towards one in Action then we can have the best of the world.

Topics Charles chooses & leads are of such wide variety that it always pulls hearts into this site.

Convergence of hearts deffinetly builds society.

Surya Prakash.

Charles, If I were to sum up with a general impression it would be one of mixed messages. It's the mix of celebrity endorsed "be the change" and the cold reality, having raised their hopes to then leave them hung out to dry. There is so much being spent on sending the message so little in supporting the embryonic efforts of those that hear it and respond.

At the expense of the celebrity, the replication of so many social network, so many social foundations there are those who come to harm, small people with the same intentions.

Observe these social networks and the social causes. Have you ever seen one reaching out to collaborate with those like us here? You probably won't find many examples. Yes there are those who collaborate, but it seems something done behind closed doors as if some kind of freemasonry is involved. We never quite know who's into who for how much. All we know is that we're very unlikely to be part of it.

End of the day most of them do it because it generates SALES, reduces costs and improves their sponsors/patrons or their own PROFITS ...

Let me share an example:

A large cell company in SA started an ICT project in Soweto alledgly to bring communications to the needy ... they pledged a couple of million Rands to some NGOs to drive the project.

They put up a massive show ... the press including TV was there filming it ... it made the 8h00 O'clock news ... all the gravy train polititians et al ... gosh what a show ...

After the influential politiatins and the press left in less than half-hour they had packed and left ... and nobody heard from them since ... I was there as a guest of one of the NGOs.

But guess my amasement when a few months later I read about this massive CSR project in their annual Sustainability Report which had a stamp of respect by having been assured by one of the big 4 accounting firms ...

Then, to make it even more interesting I landed up at a workshop set up by the assurer ... listening to its employees using that case as a Show piece of their clients CSR ...

Being Laurinda I couldn't resist aking some very straight and pertenent questions regarding its impact ... not to mention asking about which NGOs had received the funding pledged the previous year ...

I have never seen grow-up execs back peddling as I saw on that day ...

You state that we will never be part of it! It depends how you look at it!

I would rather state that we are very much part of it ... the pain in their backside if noting else -:)

Laurinda Seabra

When it comes to corruption and graft, my colleague always says "Lift the rock, shine a flashlight and the insects will scurry away, guaranteed".

Yes, we can make ourselves a very powerful critical part if we so desire in the new world of social networking. For example only yesterday, an exchange with the former CEO of a big insurance business was just as unhappy as me about how big business walks, compared with how it talks. He'd taken up the cause by going straight to the top and telling them straight - If you don't clean up your act, you're going to get a lot more publicity than you want!

A quick note to say I heartily agree with Surya Prakash:

Convergence of hearts definitely builds society.

And that I am touched by and grateful for his words:

Topics Charles chooses & leads are of such wide variety that it always pulls hearts into this site.

Dan:

I has indeed taken me a while to respond to your post, and I apologize. You invited me to take a look your conceptual mapping of the terrain you're concerned with at:

http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1180119458133_1566509717_34175&partName=htmltext

and I did indeed go there, and spent some time looking around.

Let me first say that it's an impressive structure you're building, and that I like the graphics, which are so light on the eye as to make navigation feel effortless. I recommend all those reading here to take a look, giving themselves twenty minutes or so to get acquainted.

*

Here's my caveat. I'm coming to think it's part of the nature of our highly distributed medium than any effort that's even half as encyclopedic as your is, is far harder to "trawl" on account of its branching nature than the same amount of materials in a linear format such as a book would be. With a (non-fiction) book, at least, you get the impression you can skim and skip a bit without losing too much, as long as there's some sense of coherence between the different parts… but in clicking down along particular avenues in a tree structure such as the one you've offered, how can you ever tell if you've gone down the "main line" or off on some relatively minor branch line within the total structure.

Anyway, that's me thinking out loud about some of my responses to the current crop of "branching tree" presentations of info, and explaining (a bit) why I still prefer "linear" threads in conferencing, where each response follows the previous one in a time sequence, to "threaded" conversations where a response to post 4 may be added into the flow right before post 5, even though talk has since moved on to post 17, way further down the page. Indeed, the esteemed David Woolley talks about this in his masterful summary of conferencing options:

QUOTE:

Threaded discussions within conferences. This sometimes takes the form of a tree structure, in which each topic is the starting point for a branching tree of responses. Usenet is structured this way, as are many Web conferencing systems. But although a hierarchical tree is a good way to organize static information, it does not work as well for conversation. It is easy to get lost in the tree, and it's often hard to figure out where to attach a response. Discussions tend to fragment and dissipate. I prefer a linear structure, in which each topic has a simple chain of consecutive responses attached to it. This form is easily understood by most people because it closely resembles "real life" conversation. On the Web there is an additional reason to use this structure: displaying a discussion as a continuous stream of text keeps interactions to a minimum.

http://thinkofit.com/webconf/wcchoice.htm overview: http://thinkofit.com/webconf/index.htm

:UNQUOTE

I'm going on about this at some length because I think it's germane to what you're attempting here. When someone comes in which a specific question, they may be able to navigate their way to the branch and twig of your tree which carries the lost of resources they need, which is of course your primary purpose. But going any deeper than "single question" issues (browsing with a view to getting to know the whole of what you're offering) is a very difficult business.

*

I tend to think about these things because my own life poses so many information-display issues, and any insight I can glean is precious. And SocialEdge itself and it's Wiki in particular, are very much on my mind. I want to create a "friendship zone" here on the SE boards, and I want the Wiki to be an "easy" resource that's turned to effortlessly, like Wikipedia (for all it's occasional lapse) rather than a as a reluctant last resort.

Our friendship, it seems to me, has come about through the mutual respect that can be "grown" by repeated exposure to another's caring efforts, even in this "asynchronous conferencing medium". I know your voice, I am pleased when I see you've posted. And yet there's a barrier for me to overcome in visiting your site and dropping in extra links, as I might, and as you often invite us to. And I think a similar barrier keeps many of us from posting in the Wiki here.

I think it has to do with identification, with the sense of having a digital "home" somewhere online, and I have one place where I feel that strongly, a "second home away from home" here at Social Edge, and a few other places I visit in a less involved, more desultory manner.

What, I keep asking myself, makes a place online more welcoming, more like home? It's the same question, I suppose, as "what makes a site more sticky?" That's the way advertisers and web consultant's phrase it, anyway, but I supect we'll learn more if we ask it in terms of "home" and "welcome".

*

I'm hoping to explore all this in a future event, but for now, I just wanted to muse out loud. You are doing wonderful things, Dan, and I'll try to put more effort into supporting them.

Charles, I can't thank you enough for taking time to look through the web site and encourage others to do the same. That's the first step in learning, and in creating the stickness that is needed to build a community on-line.

Your description of "linear" and "tree" are issues that I understand. In the journey toward solving a problem, we constantly learn that the problem is much more complex than when we first started the journey. I'm trying to map that complexity, and still don't have the tools to do this as well as I want.

This week I will be joined by an Information Visualization intern from the University of Michigan and I'm working with an Information Visualization group at the University of Indiana, with a goal of being adopted as a class project. In addition, I now have an intern working with me on the mapping project. You can follow that progress at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com

The maps are critical to what I do because the map of poverty in Chicago, or other parts of the world, is the same for everyone. It's a unifying factor. Thus, anyone who focuses on the issues of poverty in Chicago, is a potential collaborator, and community member, in web discussions aimed at creating a linear process of reducing poverty. However, until there is a blueprint, as complex as those used to build tall buildings, we will not know who all of the sub-contractors are who need to be involved in this community, nor will be know the sequence of steps for when they need to be involved, or how they need to work with other sub-contractors during each stage of the process.

If someone were writing a book on the growth of open source technology, or the Internet, they could write a book that progressed from a beginning to where we are now. However, when you're at the beginning of charting a new course, you don't know what the ending is.

The Internet, and forums like this, enable us to connect with others who may be working on the same story, and who might share time and talent with each other.

Or, as you have done, might take a look at what we're doing, and encourage others to do the same.