An easy way to further increase the value of the mentoring experience is to create opportunities for participants to network and interact outside established mentoring relationships. By connecting participants to one another via online topical discussion groups and community Q&A boards, you can multiply the opportunities for additional learning many times over.
Here are 3 tips to ramp interaction across your mentoring program community:
Find some flag wavers:
As with any online social network, many will watch for a while before jumping in. Find a few mentors and mentees who are willing to start discussion threads and post content. This will help catalyze the rest of the community to engage.Post frequently:
After the initial effort of seeding content, don’t stop posting if there isn’t a surge of participation. This is completely normal. Building participation takes some time. Develop a posting calendar with your core group of contributors and post weekly. But, don’t make creating content a heavy effort. If it is, it will burn out your core contributors. Focus on short, frequent posts.Keep it light:
This is a mentoring community, not a lecture. The key is to encourage connectivity, which means your members must be drawn into a conversation. Content should have an informal, even a fun feel to it. There is no reason why content and resulting dialog cannot be both professional and engaging.Recommended Reading: for more practical tips and guidance on how to start and run effective Mentoring, Coaching and Social Learning programs, read: http://chronus.com/blog
