News Flash
The SQL Community is about to get stronger. Why? There is a great new initiative that was recently launched. Steve Jones and Andy Warren are teaming up to conduct this initiative. As they aptly named it, the new initiative is called “The Mentoring Experiment.”
How many times have you wished you had somebody to show you the ropes? Have you ever started a new job and been thrown to the wolves to try and figure things out on your own? Many of us wish we had a mentor at some stage or another in our career – even if it is somebody more experienced with the current systems or applications in your current environment.
What is a mentor?
A mentor is defined as 1) a wise and trusted counselor or teacher, or 2) an influential senior sponsor or supporter. A mentor might also be referred to as a guide, counselor, master, or adviser.
A mentor is a person, in other words, that can be trusted to give you good advice and information. This is a person to whom you should be able to bounce questions off of in order to learn more. This person is somebody with more experience and/or knowledge, in the given domain, than you currently have. And a mentor is a person who is willing to give a little service or volunteers to give of him/herself for the betterment of another individual.
What is the Goal?
Much the same as a mentor should have a Goal in regards to the padawan to help that person get better, Andy and Steve have a goal of improving mentoring in the SQL Server community. There is a plan in place for this experiment. Furthermore, there are multiple stages to this experiment. The first stage is focused on a smaller group of mentors/mentees and the relationship that evolves between the two.
From the information gathered, they hope to be able to provide better information to mentors to determine if maybe there is something that a mentor is missing and needs to learn as well.
You can become involved in this project by submitting a short application. Not everybody will be selected, but you can’t be selected if you don’t try. I hope there will be plenty of community support for this experiment. I look to provide support where I can.
