Designing an Effective Online Mentoring Program

In every organization there is a wealth of knowledge that is never documented. Sometimes such knowledge could be very valuable from a competitive standpoint. The manager of a key account might know about nuances in her or his interaction with the client, that could be critical to the successful management of that account. All such knowledge stays and moves with the people who gain it.

What if the organization could harness the Internet to create a chain of mentors that can be pulled in to train a new recruit? Just as they say that it is smart not to burn bridges with a former employer, I believe it is also smart for an organization not to burn bridges with a former employee.

The way some of the top business schools in the nation maintain and sustain their alumni networks is noteworthy. They start with assigning an email account for each alumnus. It is a permission list they have created even before the students leave campus to enter the workforce. From that starting point the school actively nurtures the alumni networks for a variety of purposes, right from fund raising to career services.

I have not heard of business organizations do this as well, with the exception of a few such as McKinsey & Company. The Internet makes it easy to do. All it needs is a visionary management that understands that an ex-employee can be their ambassador. The ex-employee can be a mentor to their future employees. There are simple cost-effective ways to connect the ex-employees with the future-employees, no matter where they are located physically.

This was the topic of a paper that I had presented at the annual seminar of an international wing of SHRM in 2001. The paper, then seemed ahead of its time based on the audience-reaction. Now social networking has become a buzzword. Companies are looking into building the social networking capability into their Intranets. LinkedIn is coming up with this capability although it faces the challenge of being an outside vendor. Regardless, the sheer convenience of being able to connect with a former employee who is familiar with a particular business situation, will open the floodgates. It will tempt the current or potential employee to 'click' and make that connection, and get a quick update or guidance on how to handle the situation, or how it was handled way back when it occurred. These are interesting times indeed!

There are several unanswered questions, of course. Questions on worldly things such as privacy, liability, intellectual property, and competitive intelligence. Questions on non-worldly things such as unhindered sharing of knowledge, brotherhood, and helping one another out. (See some of the lessons learned in an experiment by McKinsey & Company)

If you wish to read the paper that I had presented, here it is - titled "Learning through Online Mentoring: Harnessing the Internet to Create and Retain Intangible Assets".

Are we becoming (global) villagers?

[ This post is a slightly modified version of the original note that I posted upon joining American Business Media's social network, seeing how quickly it was being embraced by the leadership at some very traditional media companies. ]

I used to always be amazed at the concept of personal space in the tangible world. In a crowded subway one would not mind someone breathing down one's collar. We learn to tune out the noise of a crowd and be able to drown ourselves in a book or in personal music. In the suburbs however, a friendly neighbor can border on the nosy depending on the proximity and frequency of interaction.

I therefore ponder over the the concept of personal space on the web and what is considered an acceptable boundary of personal information. When individuals are open to having strangers online 'follow' them on twitter, I begin to wonder where one draws a line on dimming the lights on one's professional time and taking a break for some quiet time to be spent with one's family, with one's near and dear ones, and with oneself. Quiet time is essential for recharging the brain. It is essential for creative work. When everyone we know gets on LinkedIn or Facebook or other social media that can comb an addressbook and send an invitation to a whole group, it is hard to choose to be left behind, and it is hard not to rethink the concepts of personal space and privacy.

I have heard that keeping a journal, whether on a blog or in a book is considered therapeutic and beneficial to the writer's well-being. Perhaps social (and now business-social media) is helping the world become more accepting of friendly neighbors when they lower their guard collectively to share more and more personal information. Perhaps, as a society we are gently being steered into a place where we are not so hung up on privacy and learn to share thoughts and things to make the world a better place.

Some years ago, I took my parents on a visit to a village in southern India where my father had spent a part of his childhood. We stopped our car to ask for directions. A villager on a bicycle offered to help. I did something one would never do in a city. I swapped seats with him. I followed the car on his bicycle, and he sat in the car giving directions to the driver. Not only did he know the elderly aunt and cousins we were visiting in the village, but also shared a whole lot of details about every house in the village that would never have crossed our city-bred minds because it was none of our business. However, that is the essence of village life. Your life is everybody's business. They are always there to help the family in need. They clobber the store-owner who scalps a customer who often happens to be a neighbor or a friend of a neighbor. There are no pretences, no false images one can sustain, and the concept of privacy is very different from what we see in big cities.

Online social media, in my opinion is pushing us to make the world a smaller place, a cozier place, making it more like a village. Perhaps we are beginning to see a widespread manifestation of the term 'global village' only now. We are indeed becoming 'global villagers'.