On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 10:36 AM, Greg DeKoenigsberg <greg.dekoenigsberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 11:54 AM, susmit shannigrahi > <thinklinux.ssh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> > So, in effect, where we say "incredibly difficult to find a mentor", >> > what we >> > should be asking ourselves is "why is it difficult to find a mentor and >> > more >> > importantly, what can we do about it?". A solution as simple as a wiki >> > page >> > listing mentors and their location (physical proximity helps) might just >> > solve >> > that problem. >> >> >> >> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors_Join_choose_a_mentor#Regional_Ambassador_Mentors >> >> Such listings for important teams will be very helpful for new people. >> On the other hand, mentors *will* be inundated by mentoring requests. >> So, a balanced approach, such as a task list as a first filter and >> then proceeding with mentoring may be suitable. > > We've tried this approach in the past -- but mentor/mentee relationships are > a lot more complex than one party saying "hey, will you be my mentor?" and > the other party saying "sure." > > I think that if we look closely at Fedora, we will find that most mentorship > is organic, and arises when a busy mentor sees an opportunity to offload > work to someone who has shown an aptitude for that same work. But the > "mentee" first has to demonstrate that aptitude. > > I continue to think that concentrating on ideas like OpenHatch is the way to > go. Focus on the work, and the mentorship will follow. It's way easier to > mentor someone when they say "I'm trying to do X, and when I do Y, Z > happens, why isn't it doing Q?" is way easier than mentoring someone when > they say "hi, I want to be a contributor, what do I do now?" Hmmm I don't think I had ever heard of OpenHatch https://openhatch.org/ before this.. which I think is part of the beginning contributor problem: I might want to start something, but where in the world do I start? The internet is very very huge so you end up going to places via word of mouth..Iif all your friends say oh I hang out on Ubuntu then you will probably go there... If my friends told me openhatch you would go there... in our smattering of cases we have people end up at Fedora looking for things. To possibly take Greg's boat and tack it into a different direction... mentor relationships work differently in different areas. In the ambassadorship world you are doing sales... and you want to make sure the people you are selling the product are looking at long term goals versus short term gains. In that case a strong 1:1 starting relationship works very well. The system administrations world is a lot like plumbing and electrical work. If you get plumbers from two different trade schools working on a building you end up with a lot of clogged toilets.. because each has their own idea of where air releases should go etc. The same happens with systems administration, slap together one set of application layouts with another and poof 2 am pages that no one understands. Development on the other hand is much more like Zen monks. A good developer looks at the 'virtual universe' and finds their place of Zen in it. Put your school in the city and you will have a thousand students at your door who take up your time and all seem to fail. Put your school at the top of a mountain, and only those who really wanted to learn make it there and while they may fail.. you arent as bothered :). In the end though, most of the teaching of a developer at that point is pointing out the point where enlightenment might occur. So to conclude, I do not believe there is going to be any one method for groups to follow. However since Fedora's brand is really "Developer development" the Zen Monk method might make more sense to put resources in. > --g > > _______________________________________________ > advisory-board mailing list > advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board > -- Stephen J Smoogen. “The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.” Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University. "We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things."" — Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines _______________________________________________ advisory-board mailing list advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board
