"HP's Mentor Connection" or "Kids Make Electronic Connections with the Real World"

Fast Company November 1998 pages 78-80

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is using technological and human resources to make connections between professionals and kids with dreams. Often young people can only imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut or engineer. If students are lucky enough to find mentoring programs there is limited contact between working adults and kids because of scheduling constraints and geographic limitations. Now, with the availability of virtual mentoring through e-mail, kids can correspond with professionals and know what it is like to work in a specific field.

The advantages of mentoring via an electronic medium is that it allows mentors to have as frequent interactions as needed. Also, it permits people to be connected even if they're not in the same time zone. For example, students from the other side of the world can "talk" to engineers working in their profession in California.

As is often questioned in transforming a face-to-face human interaction to electronic delivery means, isn't something personal lost? The article points out that the incredible impact gained from the e-mentoring program by professionals having daily contact with kids and their aspirations far outweighs concern over whether the program has the "human touch". If compared with total isolation from working professionals the e-mentoring program is a step closer to educating kids about career possibilities. Additionally, learning takes place when there is a feedback loop--continuing e-mail communication provides this interactive learning environment even though the individuals don't meet in person.

Very specific guidelines must be followed for a mentoring program such as HP's to work effectively. The commitment from both mentor and mentee needs to be defined and described so there is mutual understanding of the relationship and communication that will take place in the program. Students are sponsored by teachers, who also must understand the ground rules, coordinate the projects with classwork and guarantee that the students will have access to e-mail. Mentors, in turn, agree to answer every e-mail, and "hang in there" even when the kids' interest may vary during the program.

In my experience with distance education and e-mail use by instructors, I agree that anytime there is a "mentoring" relationship between two people through e-mail, clear expectations must be worked out ahead of time. In one online course I took from an institution across the country, I found it very frustrating when I got no response from the instructor many days after submitting my assignments. I soon found out through a local assessment of the course that other students also had the same problem. The local governance team for the course then asked for some ground rules--

1. The instructor posted his schedule so if he was away from the office for 2-5 days, the students could see that and not expect an answer.

2. Submitted assignments were graded in 2-3 days after receipt.

3. Course assignments were filtered by the instructor's software so he could sit down and just grade assignments and not be distracted by all the other "junk" e-mail.

These improvements dramatically improved communication between the instructor (mentor) and students (mentees).

A concern I might have with an e-mentoring program between adults and children is that the adults are screened carefully. Just because someone is an engineer doesn't preclude that he/she may have ulterior motives for striking up an e-mail relationship with a juvenile. The program needs good initial screening of mentors and ongoing assessment to measure the effectiveness and success of the mentoring process.

A second concern is that a young person may want more from the mentor than the mentor is trained to or is able to give. There should be strict guidelines of topics that the mentor is allowed to discuss and other subjects should be referred to parents, teachers and counselors. The responses from the mentor that draw this communication line need to be sensitive and kind but firm if the e-mail discussions begin to contains topics outside the agreed upon subjects between mentor and mentee.

Lastly, the nature and scope of the e-mentoring program should be clearly defined. Issues such as frequency of e-mails, time commitment by the mentor and guidelines of e-mail communication should be part of an orientation in which both mentor and mentee participate. Because written communication has nuances that are different than verbal communication, it is important that the mentor understand the impact his/her message might have on a child. Non-verbal cues such as body language and facial expression are absent in e-mailing. Sometime written communication can be misunderstood unless care is taken to clearly express oneself and indicate the context in which a comment is made.

In polling my colleagues about e-mentoring several expressed concern that professionals have the time to commit to a relationship with a young person that is ongoing and caring in nature. If there are deadlines at work and the professional's life gets quite busy, does the mentoring relationship suffer or is there room in the relationship for a temporary break in e-mentoring? It is disconcerting to send an e-mail and receive no response--a less than mature person may take this personally and feel dejected.

Another point a colleague made was that good mentoring may require the mentor to do some research or at least be able to recommend some good resources to the student if he/she doesn't have the answer. This requires a level of responsibility that must be clear to the mentor at the onset of the program. An advantage of this research is that in the process of helping the student with a question or interest area, the professional may discover something new as well.

In conclusion, e-mentoring is an innovative use of technology to connect working professionals and students who wonder about future careers. It is a connection that is difficult to make successfully using traditional mechanisms and it's potential is vast. With good program development and management, it offers limitless opportunity for successful adults to reach out to young people and make a difference in their life and dreams.

Karen Johnson

-- Anonymous, November 30, 1998

Answers

Karen Johnson,

You have a very fine discussion regarding mentoring. You craft a nice document. Keep up the good work!

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999