[GKD] RFI: Costs of Web Site Development

[Daniel Bassill]

Can anyone direct me to a web site that shows a variety of comparitive
cost reports that illustrate the different expenses associated with
building web sites?  I know costs can be high or low depending on what
goes into a site, where you are, or who builds it.  However, I'm
wondering if anyone has tried to compile such information.  It would
seem to offer some value for anyone (individual, company, NPO, etc.) who
is budgeting such expenses.

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron
Chicago, Il. 60622
www.tutormentorconnection.org




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Re: [GKD] Digital Divide vs. Social Divide.

[Daniel Bassill]

When someone says "Most American children have computer access at
school", it causes me to ask a follow up question.

If a school has 1000 students, how many hours per day at the computer
does each student have? What ratio would be considered "access". Kids
who have a computer at home that they can use any evening or on the
weekend have different access than kids who might be in front of a
computer for 30 minutes once a week.

I totally agree that there are probably different levels of
content/training in different places. However, I also feel that we need
to find much better ways to understand the distribution and the depth
of access, various forms of training/learning, etc.

In urban planning GIS technology is beginning to be used to help
planners and community members understand asset distribution levels in
defined areas. I'd like to see some studies of access that map the
different degrees of access and compare this to demographics that show
the different levels of poverty.

I'd like to see such studies of access for children in different
countries, not just the US.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron
Chicago, Il. 60622
www.tutormentorexchange.net
www.tutormentorconnection.org




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Re: [GKD] Digital Divide vs. Social Divide.

[Daniel Bassill]

Kevin Rocap wrote:
> How are those with privileged access wielding that privilege? This to me
> is a key, virtually unasked question.

It's a topic I address daily via dozens of email letters sent through
various networks and via web sites that show where youth and families
who are economically isolated and disadvantaged are concentrated and
that also show actions those who already have "access" could be taking
to help reduce this isolation and disadvantage.

I posted an ad on Volunteer Match, Charity America and the
ChicagoVolunteer.net web sites yesterday looking for some of these
"access" types. My ad called on a few individuals who have IT graphics
skills, using GIS, animation, autocad or tools I've not yet even heard
of. I want them to convert charts I've done in desktop publishing
(Quark Express) into animated formats that can be placed on my web sites
in easy to use/read formats. Such volunteers can use their skills to
help me make my message easier for anyone else who visits my web site to
understand what I'm saying and to act on that understanding.

I've already recruited volunteers from many places beyond Chicago to
help with this work. A few more can help us be even more powerful in
motivating those who already have "access" to create a bridge that draws
all sorts of help to those who have a need.

You can see examples of our work and some of our one-dimensional charts
at  and . If any
"lurkers" on this list want to move from the sidelines to the front
lines, please email me off line.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron
Chicago, Il. 60622
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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Re: [GKD] Acknowledging the Digital Divide

[Daniel Bassill]

Dr. Morrison concluded with this comment: "I'm not sure that they will
have much role in changing the network of human power relationships
that have determined and tolerated these and similar circumstances for
so long."

I feel this is where the real power of the Internet lies.  Prior to this
revolution anyone who wanted to change life for himself or her
neighborhood or community was very isolated and had an almost impossible
task of recruiting others to share an individual vision.

Since most really creative new ideas involve "thinking in the
wilderness" that means that most individuals could not get new ideas to
the market.  Unless a person were uniquely gifted or independently
wealthy his/her idea just remained an undiscovered solution.

The Internet changes this, in potential, if not in reality.  Anyone who
can get on-line has the potential to express an idea and invite others
to join in making that idea a reality.  Now days it is so simple to
build a web site that that idea can be expressed with graphics, photos
and text that is there to be discovered by anyone.  If the idea is good
enough and the person persistent enough, others can be found to help
shape the idea and bring it to the world.

Just to give an example of how this works, I've been trying to use GIS
mapping to show poverty levels in Chicago to an Internet audience. Last
spring someone on this list posted a message and I followed that with an
introduction. If you  go to
 you'll see a web
site where this volunteer is now creating maps that draw attention to my
cause in ways that I could not do before.  Without the Internet I'd
still be looking for help to do this.

To me this changes the traditional network of power politics in radical
and revolutionary ways. The change may not be apparent today, but my
guess is that over the next 25 years it will have a dramatic impact on
historic power models.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
800 W. Huron
Chicago, Il. 60622
www.tutormentorconnection.org




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Re: [GKD] Relevance of the Internet to the Urban Poor

[Daniel Bassill]

My organization has been building something similar to what Darren
Hedley has described over the past 8 years, focusing on the urban poor
living in Chicago.

When we started in 1992 our goal was to identify all of the existing
non-school tutor/mentor programs operating in Chicago, benchmark what
age groups were being served, what time frames service was available,
and what number of youth and volunteers were involved. Our goal was to
"learn everything there was to know about tutoring/mentoring" and to
share that on an on-going basis so that others would have more
information to chose from in improving their own programs, or in
launching new programs to fill voids.

Our first survey in 1994 was responded to by 120 agencies.  More than
half said they had "little or no contact with each other".  More than
70% said they'd like more contact. More than 90% said they'd come to a
"learning conference" if it was free or low cost and fit there schedule.

So we organized a first conference in May of 1994 and 70 people showed
up. At the same time, we were struggling with how to communicate to the
public where these programs were located in the city.  Our solution was
to plot the location of programs using a GIS data base.  At the time of
the first conference, we published a listing (Directory) of programs, and
used our GIS to show where these programs were in relation to each
other, and in relation to the highest concentrations of poverty in the
city.

Our the past years we've come to understand that "learning and sharing
everything there is to know" is really a process of building a
"knowledge system". We've also come to realize that the Internet makes
it possible to do this and that our web site can be a "virtual library"
with links to others around the world who are also collecting and
sharing this information.

Our learning constantly helps us innovate new ways or new understanding
of our own efforts.  The growth of "open source technology" has given us
a model to emmulate.  We and everyone else who is concerned about the
urban poor represent a growing community of people who can share what we
know in a process of building "a better operating sytesm".

Our maps help us understand where help is needed. Our links help us
understand why we are needed, and what models that work well in one
location might be distributed throughout a city and work well in many
locations.

The 365 day calendar is the same for all of us.  That means that there
are opportunities to come together face to face, or via the internet, at
different times during the year in ways that draw more attention to our
cause, more visitors to our "learning library" and more dollars and
business partners to help us.

In the next few days I'll take a look at Darren's web site. If it
represents new "knowledge" or reinforces "existing models" I'll post it
as a link on www.tutormentorconnection.org.  That way my sites visitors
can learn from Darren, and maybe even become his partners.  As others
who are concerned about the Urban Poor learn to link to me and others in
this movement, we create a traffic flow through the system far greater
than each of us might generate by our own individual actions.  As we
join on key events, this generates public visibility all over the world.

To me there is an unbelievable power being unleashed by this process. No
longer do we need to wait for governments or power-brokers to take the
lead to solve problems. Individuals in small groups can build web
communities and link into larger communities so that new ideas can be
heard by millions of people. If an idea is good enough, it can take the
lead in this movement, or in any other movement.

Our ability to create access to technology and communications tools in
urban poor neighborhoods, as well as in rural and third-world poverty
neighborhoods is essential to unleashing the huge wealth of talent and
creativity that exists.


Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Chicago, USA
www.tutormentorconnection.org




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Re: [GKD] Markle/HP Recommendation to the DOT Force

[Daniel Bassill]

In the past couple of messages Vikas Nath has posted some great
demonstrations of e-Governance and Steve McCarty has suggested  "There
should not be one umbrella organization for all well-meaning initiatives
in a certain field".  He went on to say something we all too painfully
know.   "At present, many worthy projects end up as competitors for
insufficient grant funds. "

While I agree that "Dot Force needs to be sold to world governments, as
mutually beneficial and as an effective  approach", I feel that we ought
to be integrating some of the e-Governance concepts and this
understanding that there are too many good ideas, too much need and not
enough dollars.

All over the world we are going through a gigantic trasfer of wealth
from the post WW2 generation to their children, to charities and to
government taxing bodies.  In America an initiative has been formed,
called New Ventures in Philanthropy.  This is a multi-year project that
aims to create new foundations and corporate giving programs, and
encourage new donors to endow philanthropic funds whose income and/or
principal will be used for grantmaking. New Ventures is being
implemented and managed by the Forum of

What I find over and over again as that we who are trying to do good
work and are always short of funds are simply talking to the chior.  We
don't have enough of those who could be bankrolling our work in the same
discussion threads.  I lead a non-profit called the Tutor/Mentor
Connection (T/MC). It's based in Chicago.  If you review my
www.tutormentorconnection.org web site, you'll see a consistent effort
to reach two groups of people.  The first are those who are leading
tutor/mentor and mentoring-to-career programs anywhere in the world.  We
have tremendous power if we find ways to work together.  The second are
those business leaders and philanthropist who want to see poverty
reduced, or want to see the "costs of poverty" reduced.

If we can help groups like New Ventures in Philanthropy create greater
philanthropy capital, we have a chance of getting a share of those new
donors into our conversation.  If we can do that, we only need to be
linking and creating "libraries" of who were are, where we are, what we
do, why it is important, what we are achieving, etc." to give those
donors choices of whom to send a check to.

It would seem that all of the talent represented on this GKD list could
be working to help New Ventures in Philanthropy succeed, while working
to pull a greater proportion of those new donors into a "GKD
list/library" as I envision for tutor/mentor programs.  While it would
be nice to think that governments and bureacrats would find a way to
deliver long-term, flexible funding, that would help each of us innovate
to the great programs and outcomes we envision, I'm not so sure that
will ever happen.

Vikas has demonstrated what can happen when people decide to take the
lead.

Daniel Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
www.tutormentorconnection.org

PS  .. a link to the New Ventures in Philanthropy site is in the HOT
LINKS section of the T/MC web site.




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[GKD] Re: ICT for income generation in Zimbabwe

[Daniel Bassill]

When I read descriptions of programs such as Dumisani leads and such a detailed
description of his view of problems and solutions, I'm encouraged by the
creativity and the passion of so many people whom I meet via this 
discussion and
many others.  However, I'm also fearful that most people won't read through 
such
detail or understand all of the concepts.

I've lead a non profit in Chicago that is working with youth living in some of
the poorest communities in the city.  My organization is trying to get more
business people involved as tutors, mentors and school-to-career partners at
site based tutor/mentor programs in these neighborhoods. In many ways I'm doing
similar work with similar goals to Dumisani.

I use a Geographic Information System (GIS) to show a picture of where poverty
is in Chicago. Overlays on this map show reasons for more people to get 
involved
in these neighborhoods (poorly performing schools, youth-on-youth violence,
etc.). Overlays also show existing programs who all could use more dollars,
volunteers, technology, tech support, etc.  The maps provide a focus that words
cannot.  By posting the map on a web site, we can call on any of those who
could, and should, give us help and let them look at the map and make a 
decision
on where to get involved.

We use charts created with a desk top publishing tool to show our 
"blueprint" of
what an ideal program might look like.  Unfortunately we don't have tools like
3-D, animation and/or  AutoCad which might enable us to highlight key points of
our blueprint, or enable visitors to look at it from their own perspective 
which
might help them gain a better understanding, or even find a reason to invest in
what we're doing.

We've been talking of the digital divide in two dimensions. It's really
multidimensional.  We're using words to describe our views and there are 
limited
in their ability to express what we think as well as a picture or a map might.

I've been very impressed with the range of active participants in this
discussion. Those who listen and do not express their views may be an even more
impressive group of people.  I'd like to see some of you come forward and build
an on-line suite of tools which community builders could use, at no cost, to
express our ideas and our strategies in multiple communications levels.

Such an investment would do much to improve our exchange of ideas and perhaps
would lead to a flow of resources directly to the places where help is most
needed to bridge all of the divides we face.

Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Chicago
www.tutormentorconnection.org




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