#mentornetwork

In my last post I walked through the first step of the process of mentor exploration to apply it to our Creator program. Now we will take a look at my approach for answering questions about promotion, execution and retention.

How do you promote it?

Our Creator network wouldn’t really be much without the network part, so we needed to be able to recruit experienced professionals in the community to join in on the fun. Luckily, The Factory inherently connects us to a network of professionals doing some great things. We gathered our first group of Creators just from having conversations with people at The Factory and Elevator Up. From there the challenge shifts to getting the word out beyond our four walls. We have a number of resources we are using to tackle this.

Social media

Attending community meetups and events

Print materials

Email outreach

This part of the process can move slower, but we are already noticing growth every week we put these tactics into practice.

How do you connect the Creators with the coLearners?

I discovered a few common approaches to this question. The most common was to have an administration or staff deliberately match the mentors with the mentees. In certain environments this would appropriate, including youth mentor programs like the one I work with. The other involved creating a physical or digital environment specifically designed to be the setting of those interactions.

In the case of coLearning, we try to empower coLearners to take the initiative to dive into the community with any opportunity that they get. That same initiative works even more so when making an impression on the Creator you hope to emulate. Having coLearners reach out to the Creators also gives them the freedom to hone in on what specific areas they feel they need to grow in most. This requires them to build their self-reflection and targeted networking skills.

As for the environment, Slack served all of our needs for digital communication channels. We created a channel specifically for Creators and coLearners to connect. We also already have our weekly Coffee with Creators <link> event where the Creator network can connect with both coLearners and local professionals in West Michigan. Moving forward, we will consider what other events we can host to provide each side with flexible opportunities to connect.

How do we keep Creators engaged?

I think Elevator Up’s CEO Aaron said it best when he said, “It’s pretty common that people can forget that they are even in a program like this if they don’t have anything keeping them engaged.” Retention is an issue that didn’t come up a lot in my research of sources, so I was able to get the most out of this by actually asking people who have been mentors in other programs.

Jim Smith, a developer at Elevator Up, shared an experience he had with a mentor branch of a bootcamp program. His insight showed that engagement can mean different things for different people. In his case, seeing that his guidance actually contributed to a project or goal for his mentee kept him interested in the mentor relationship.

Another important piece of retention is right in the benefits listed earlier: The Network. The network not only gives Creators a chance to connect with coLearners, but also have a finger on the pulse of other great industry people and what they are working on.

To apply these concepts, we keep Creators plugged into coLearning events like orientation and graduation so Creators can see the progress made by coLearners over time. Creators are also invited to see individual or small group project presentations for our courses. Throughout the duration of the courses, I’ll connect with Creators to get their feedback and see what we can do better so they have a consistent voice in the program. After all, it takes a village to provide the growth that our coLearners are looking for.

We're so excited to be relaunching our Creator network. As time goes on, we're excited to tweak it where needed and to continue to make it better as we learn. If you have any tips on what you've done to create a mentor network, I'd love to hear it. We are always looking for new Creators. If you're interested in learning more, send me a message or find more info on our page here.