Rob Mentoring is a broad name for the program. When we formed it other terms were bantered about one that comes to mind was apprenticeship but mentor seemed to fit a broader range of help areas.
The three descriptions you give are part of the program and have been requests from Proteges over time. But being a mentor doesn't mean to do the work for the person. Say a sysadmin has to deal with putting together a SANS for the first time (I myself have never done that) and would like some pointers or even someone to bounce some questions off during the process. For a time I had a mentor (whom I ended up losing touch with as the job pulled me away from the project) for learning PERL. I was looking for someone that I could just contact as I fumbled through writing some code. I did get some good pointers from him. As for the BBS to handle the traffic is a good suggestion. The Team's project is to make the entire process as easy as possible while at the same time be able to provide metrics to the Board to see how the program is progressing. The current automated program did most of it but it still required human intervention to move it through a few steps and also had no mechanism to keep the Mentorship team aware of what is going on. To give you an idea the team would be work on a rotating basis to monitor the application and handle the two or three human interventions needed. We were using mostly Google apps to handle everything but it was not perfect. As the team changed members the coding got stale as the expertise to handle Google programming waned and it was decided (by the team members at that time) to rebuild the entire application. There is now a new programming team who are trying to rebuild it which Craig has started with his call for ideas. Hopefully we can get this done this time around. On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 12:44 PM, Rob Jenson <[email protected]> wrote: > So Brian's questions raise some questions in me: > > • What is the intended scope of mentorship? For example, Brian mentions > specific technology/devices ... which would seem to be very specific, > project or task related. When I think of mentoring (or being mentored) what > comes to mind is more along the lines of: > - someone to advise me on how to develop my career as an SA or improve my > job-seeking skills (maybe resume review or a mock interview or such) > - someone to recommend how to move my career to "the next level" or maybe > act as a sounding board for working out career issues. > - introduction to the community, e.g. I just moved to DC, can you > introduce me to some of the local tech hangouts and meetups? (most can be > found by surfing, but sometimes it helps to go with someone you have > already connected with ... less terrifying) > > • Brian's other notes make me wonder whether a mailing list is the best > medium for matching mentors with mentees. A bulletin board -like thing that > is more persistent for potential mentors to register their willingness to > be a resource, or potential proteges to post what they are looking for help > with. > > • Is there going to be some kind of formal brokering of matching > mentors and protegees -- I think this would be necessary in order to keep > people from being overwhelmed ... e.g.; I might be able to mentor two or > three protegees at a time, but I don't think I want to put my contact > information out there and say "anyone who needs career help in DC give me a > call." I would die, as would my career. > > • Feedback mechanism, at least for the program coordinators to gather > metrics of whether the program helped anyone ... make sure that if you got > a well-meaning but problematic mentor in the stable that you > train/advise/remove him from the program. Same thing for difficult mentees, > or just a mismatch in personalties and styles ... which will happen. > > • Duaration of the formal mentor/protegee match. It is extremely likely > that long term friendships and professional relationships will develop, but > it is good to frame the mentoring engagement instead leaving an expectayion > that the mentor will be there forever for the protegee. > > That's all I have right now. > > _rob_ > > On Friday, July 29, 2016, Brian Bilbrey <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi, Craig, >> >> Stream of consciousness answer, because reasons: >> >> Does the mentorship team keep in touch with unmatched requestees, to >> ensure that they still want mentoring in the thing they requested? >> Especially when those requests go unanswered for long periods of time, >> leading to: >> >> How long do requests stay "on the books"? Clearly, some of the requests >> are so specific that no one has the specific equipment / skill set to >> address the request, to reach out and help: for example, the person who has >> a network setup request involving a Raspberry Pi, a Juniper device, and a >> LAN tap. >> >> Does the requestee get any feedback on the request? Initially? After a >> long period of the request laying fallow? >> >> Once a request has been sent out to the mentoring list a few times, does >> it still qualify as "NEW", as every email claims? How about standalone >> emails for "New" requests, say three months old or less? And send a >> periodic "digest" email for all the unmatched requests older than that? I >> presume the mentoring list keeps sending those out in hopes that new >> mentors will join the list with the appropriate skills, or the amount of >> free time to commit. >> >> These are questions that have rolled around in my head for a while now - >> thanks for providing a ladder to the soapbox. >> >> best, >> >> Brian >> >> >> On 7/29/16 10:23 :42AM, Craig Constantine wrote: >> >>> The wheels turn slowly, but they do turn. The next step in the >>> Mentorship Program rebuild project is to poll all the people who have any >>> interest in the system asking for any input they’d care to share. >>> >>> I have some ideas of what the different groups (Board members, Mentors, >>> Proteges) might want from the system, but I don't want to skew the results >>> by giving any ideas or structure to this request. :) >>> >>> so... >>> >>> Anyone have any requests/desires/ideas/suggestions you'd care to share? >>> >>> -- Craig Constantine, http://constantine.name >>> >>> > > -- > -- > Rob Jenson ... [email protected] > Spotch Systems Consulting > Sent from my iPhone ... bizarre writing is probably courtesy of SIRI > mistakes. > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > > -- John J. Boris, Sr.
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