ONBOARDING MENTORS – OSCEdays 2016

##UPDATED (an probably way more elegant idea below in the first comment.)


This is the workflow of the OSCEdays mentorship team for the OSCEdays 2016.

Team: @Gien & @Lars2i; Support: @sharmarval

Resources & Related Topics:


##MENTOR ONBOARDING PROCESS STEPS

(I think this looks like +/- 1,5 hours of work per mentor. :-/. Not sure if we really should start it.)

4 STEPS
. . . . . . . . . .

  1. Reach out (10 min)
  2. Arrange A Call (10 min)
  3. Have The Call (60 min)
  4. Set Up Infrastructure (20 min)
    . . . . . . .

##(1) Reach out
Let’s send emails to people, we’d like to be mentors. Or let’s ask them personally. There is the possibility that through the call of mentors people will reach out to us to be mentors too.

Email template to ask people:

SUBJECT:
Open Source Circular Economy Days – Mentorship Program

TEXT:
Hi °°°°°°NAME°°°°°°,

My name is °°°°°YOUR NAME°°°°. I am part of the Open Source Circular Economy Days mentorship program coordinator team.

The Open Source Circular Economy Days (OSCEdays) is a globally distributed event to explore and use Open Source as a method to develop a global Circular Economy. In 2015 there were 33 local events across the globe collaborating online. Check: http://oscedays.org

In the OSCEdays 2016 we will have for the first time a global mentorship program. Experts (like you) will make themselves available to the global community for 90 minutes in a live chat to answer questions. The conversation will be public and visible and create a useful resource for a growing global community developing a sustainable economy based on open collaboration.

We consider you an expert in °°°°ADD FIELD OF EXPERTISE°°°°°. And we would like to ask you, if you could imagine to become one of the mentors in the first global OSCEdays mentorship program.

WHEN?
The global OSCEdays happen from JUNE 9-13 2016 and your mentorship would mean to be online for 90 minutes to chat with the community. You can do this from everywhere.

Tell me if you are interested and we can set everything up for you.

Thank you very much.

°°°°°°YOUR NAME°°°°°°

##(2) Arrange A Call
However after the first initial contact try to arrange a date with them on hangouts to explain them everything in detail – and if they are up for it – create a video with them.

Email template:

Hi °°°°NAME°°°°°,

great that you are interested in becoming a mentor in the OSCEdays 2016!

Our procedure to enable you to mentor a global community is a bit innovative. For that reason I would suggest that we meet in a brief video call (15min) in the coming days where I can drive you through the procedure and answer all the questions you might have.

I would like to meet you on Hangouts – the video chat system of Google. Are you familiar with it? It is very simple. Just install the client on your computer: https://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/hangoutplugin And I will send you a link to our call 15 minutes before we start.

If you have trouble setting up hangouts we can always switch to Skype (my Skype ID: °°°°° ADD YOUR SKYPE ID °°°°.

Ok, how about meeting on:

Weekday (Date) – Your Time = Their Time

Weekday (Date) – Your Time = Their Time

Weekday (Date) – Your Time = Their Time

Feel free to suggest other dates if the times above don’t work for you.

Thank you and talk soon!

°°°° YOUR SIGNATURE °°°°°

##(3) Have The Call

###STEP 1 – Prepare the Call

  • Set Up a Hangouts On Air in the OSCEdays YouTube channel or your channel, if you can’t login to the OSCEdays channel.
  • Send them the link to the hangouts via email 15 min before your call starts.

Email template:

Hi,

Here is the Link for our hangouts to set up your OSCEdays Mentorship

°°°°°ADD LINK°°°°

In the call I will explain you the whole procedure how you will mentor the community in our forum using a public topic. Here is an example for a topic like that:

°°°°EXAMPLE TOPIC LINK (still to create)°°°°

See you

°°°°YOUR NAME°°°°°

Start the call.

###STEP 2 – Explain them the whole workflow in the call

So explain them:

  • that you will create an account for them in the forum
  • and create a topic for them, where they will answer all the questions (refer to the topic you sent via email.)
  • And that you will send them the Log-In details to their account along with the Link to the topic where the mentorship will happen.

###STEP 3 – Answer Questions & Set A Date & Time

  • If you haven’t set that already you will need to agree on a date and time, when they will be online.
  • Answer all remaining questions, if you can.
  • And tell them that you will need a profile picture of them for the webpage.
  • Tell them (in case, they ask about stuff like that): it is a written exchange - they don't have to answer all questions. Just the ones they like. And we can moderate the call and erase. 
    

###STEP 4 – Hashtags

  • Ask them about 2 or 3 hashtags to add to their profile that make clear what people can ask them about like #circularbusinessmodels or #materials – If their expertise is too specific, try to find a hashtag that also newbies can somehow make sense of.

###Step 5 – (optional) Record a Video with Them
If you are on hangouts ask them, if they would like to record a little video where they say a view words to the community. Make clear that this is optional, no pressure! It is the first time they hear about that idea - I left it out of the emails before to not overwhelm them with complexity, for now. Lets see how it goes.

If they agree to record a video hit the „Record“ button of Hangouts on Air and ask these 4 questions.

Intro :

You: Hi, my name is °°°°°YOUR NAME°°°° and I am here with °°°°°NAME OF MENTOR°°°°° who is ready to be mentor the OSCEdays community during the global event 2016. Thank you for that. This short video is to introduce °°°°°NAME OF MENTOR°°°° to you.

Questions :

  1. °°°°°NAME OF MENTOR°°°°° Tell us a little bit about you. What is your profession? 
    
  2. What can people ask you about?
  3. Ok. When will you be online?
  4. What is your view on the Idea of Open Source Circular Economy? Why have you decided to join us and support the community with your knowledge? Anything you expect?

Outro :

[To mentor] Ok. Thank you very much.

[To the communty] Ok. Please make sure to ask all the questions you have to °°°°°NAME OF MENTOR°°°°° You are invited to post the questions already before the event.

###STEP 6 – End The Call
End the call.

But in general somehow in the call make them aware that they are part of an experiment that can fail. Be grateful. And use the word “improvise” - to communicate that they can creatively invent everything with us.

Make them aware that we have super limited resources and that there can’t be much handholding before or during the event. We try to mobilize self-organizing-effects as much as possible. Be of course super polite. If they are smart, they will understand. Most of them have started small and making mistakes.

##(4) Set Up The Infrastructure

If they have agreed to everything you will have to set up their infrastructure:

  • Sign out of the forum and create a new account for them using their email address – use their full name. Create a long and difficult password. Don’t forget to save the password.
  • Create the topic for them. Name the topic: „A Conversation with °°°°NAME°°°° on #hashtag #hashtag #hashtag
  • Assign the right tags to the topic like „materials“ – maybe create them. And add the tag “mentorship” as well.
  • Add this text in the topic:

°°°°°NAME°°°°° is °°°°°PROFESSION°°°°

[Add A Link to their Webpage, Institution or whatever]

He will answer questions about #hashtags #hashtag #hashtag

On °°°°°DATE°°°°°

Feel free to ask all kinds of questions starting now :slight_smile:

Technical help on how to use the forum is here. [LINK TO TECH-TOPIC]

  • If you have created a Video with the mentor add the Video to the topic (Just copy the Video URL into the topic. Discourse will take care of it.
  • Add the (1) Mentors Name along with (2) the hashtags, (3) date of mentorship, the (4) Link to the topic of the mentor and (5) the email address of the mentor below here in this topic. (important)
  • Send them the “Welcome to the OSCEdays 2016 Mentorship Program” Mail:

SUBJECT:
Welcome to the OSCEdays16 Mentorship Program - & A Picture of You

EMAIL TEXT:
Hi,

Welcome to the OSCEdays Mentorship Program! Nice to have you in.

The date you will be on is: °°°°°ADD DATE & TIME°°°°°

Your hashtags are: °°°°°°ADD HASHTAGS°°°°°°

––

As said, I created your forum account. Your credentials are:

NAME: °°°°°NAME°°°°°
PASSWORD: °°°°°PASSWORD°°°°°

The topic where you will have your conversation with the community is here: °°°°°°ADD LINK°°°°°

All necessary information about how to edit your topic and a bit more technical guidance is here: °°°°°°ADD LINK TO TECH TOPIC°°°°°°

PICTURE OF YOU
Please send me a picture of you along with a short Bio so I can add you to the OSCEdays website. Thank you.

If you have more questions don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

All the best,

°°°°°YOUR NAME°°°°°°


#MENTORS ONBOARDED

###MENTOR NAME
Time:
Hashtags:
Topic:
Email:

###MENTORS NAME

1 Like

Claire Janish - Biomimicrist and director of Biomimicry SA

UPDATED IDEA - We struggled to find the resources for the process above. But how about this:


##Mentorship Program Self organized?

I was just talking to a great and very experienced guy in Los Angeles. And he will set up the local event in Los Angeles.

I was telling him about our mentorship program idea. And as always he was super excited about it and offered to be a mentor right away.

This got me thinking. One more time. If there is so much enthusiasm … Maybe we can have a more selforganized Mentorship program.

#“Meet The Mentors”

  • We set up a category called “Meet the Mentors”
  • We publish a call for mentors

In this call we ask the people to open up a thread in the “Meet The Mentors” category where they introduce themselves and their field of expertise. And where they can write down, when they will answer the questions. We can provide them with a simple template to do introduce themselves.

That’s it!

From there we only have to advertise it.

And if we know really cool people we want to become mentors - we can personally engage with them and help them to set up this thread. But only when there is time.

I think this can very well work together with the network @JayKay opened up for us.

And it is not resource intense! Not at all.

What do you think?

If it’s easy for the potential mentor to do, then it sounds good.
I guess people would just contact the mentor if they have a question?

Sounds good enough!
How Do I subscribe as mentor?

Here is the Final Call For Mentors including the tutorial.

Topic Closed. Let’s continue the discussion about the current Mentorship Program here: