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Re: Mentoring

2013-03-15 08:54:49
I agree that this is not just for the formal leaders. But mentoring is also not 
for everyone. I would guess that WG chairs, IAB and IESG members are more 
likely to know who would be good mentors for a particular group or area. Eugene 
Terrell would not be a good mentor, despite having authored 16 drafts. Even 
ignoring such extreme examples, not everyone is good at teaching others. While 
the socially-inept stereotype does not fit engineers in general, and fits this 
community even less, there are some of us who are like that, and would not make 
good mentors.

But I think a combination of self-selection and WG chair and IESG prodding can 
lead to a large enough group of mentors.

I intend to send to the mailing lists of my groups a message asking "who on 
this list is going to attend an IETF meeting or <groupname> meeting for the 
first time in Berlin. Please email me or <other chair> directly." Then if we 
get any replies, we can set up a get-together with those people before the 
actual session. If it's more than 1 or 2, we can get some other people we 
consider leaders to come as well. We can use such a get-together to talk to 
them about what they're interested in, and to ask them if they'd like to be 
considered the next time we're looking for an editor.

On Mar 15, 2013, at 9:35 AM, Arturo Servin 
<arturo(_dot_)servin(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
 wrote:


      Along the thread there have been great ideas on how to do mentoring to
newcomers; I just want to point out something.

      Mentoring is not only about WG chairs, IAB and IESG, it seems to me
that we want to pass the problem to them. My opinion is that anyone that
has come to the IETF three or more times, has written a draft (even
though it never became an RFC), has sent comments or review and I+D, has
gone to the mic or any combination of it could become a good mentor.

      So, please take mentoring as an activity for each one of us interested
in help new people get involved in the IETF and not just pass the
problem to our leaders.

Cheers,
as

P.D. Not replying to any comment in particular.

On 13/03/2013 23:23, John C Klensin wrote:
Hi,

Two suggestions that seemed easier to send in email than to
stand in the mic line that I'd encourage people to think about...

(1) I've found the Newcomer's Meet-and-Greet very useful in
finding newcomers I want to keep and eye on and try to help move
along and my personal instincts are to go for diversity in those
decisions.  But those sessions are open only to WG Chairs and
IAB and IESG members --people who tend to be among the more
overextended in terms of schedules-- in addition to the
newcomers.  So those sessions are more useful for giving
newcomers an opportunity to meet relevant WG Chairs (for
example) than for setting up any sort of mentoring relationship.
It may be worth thinking a bit about some other ways of
establishing relevant contacts, perhaps (as is done with ISOC
IETF Fellows) even getting those relationships in place before
the newcomer shows up.

(2) This applies to leadership development as well as to the
diversity and mentoring issues in particular, but the focus on
WG Chairs and I* members tends to exclude and underutilize what
should be an important resource.  There are a bunch of people
around who have retired from formal leadership positions (and
who are trying to stay retired).  At least in principle, we have
more flexible time than, e.g., an IESG member.  We should be
available for mentoring -- it is probably the most important
thing we can do.  But the system isn't well-organized now to
utilize us in that way and probably we should be thinking
together about how to improve that.

  john




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