Mentorship, or How to rebuild civilisation from scratch
A presentation at Beer City Code 2022 in in Grand Rapids, MI, USA by Jeremy Meiss
MENTORSHIP, AND RESTARTING CIVILIZATION FROM SCRATCH If we lost everything, and had to restart civilization from scratch, could we do it?
REVOLUTION 2 seasons, 2012-14, NBC
What if everything as we know it stopped working, and we had to make do with what was left - or recreate everything from scratch?
Jeremy Meiss Director, DevRel & Community
How did the ancients pass on what they knew to the next generation?
Orality - thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. - Wikipedia
Orality gave us the stepping stones that allowed us to get where we are today, it was a necessity for the growth of civilization. - Couch, Carl J., Information Technologies and Social Orders
Storytelling and the Lakota People from the Luritja people from the Chickasaw Nation
Oral tradition is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. - Wikipedia
ancient Egyptian apprenticeship source unknown apprenticeship in England
Apprenticeship
“ After the fall of the great Egyptian, Mayan, and Roman empires we had evidence and examples of their engineering achievements all around us. But aqueducts or senate buildings are worthless without a society around them to maintain, contextualize, and protect them. - Alexander Rose Executive Director, Long Now
Coaching vs. Mentoring
Image credit quiettenacity
Mentoring ⬆ :⬇
Practical steps to mentoring / being mentored
For the mentor…
Understand why you are / want to be a mentor
Hard to identify mentee’s ways of learning, but essential
Set a timeline and an outcome you both want to see
When setting up meetings with your mentee…
- Set focused topics for when you meet with mentee towards that desired outcome
When setting up meetings with your mentee… 2. Recap what was discussed / learned after each
When setting up meetings with your mentee… 3. Keep a shared doc of meetings notes and progress
It’s OK to not know
Normalize “I have no idea WTF I am doing”
Use questions to shape decision-making, not robots 1. 1. Get around biases for assumed knowledge 2. 2. Understand their thought process 3. 3. Identify gaps
Can’t save someone from stupid mistakes, but can tell them how you fixed them
Pair with mentee, think out loud, try wild ideas, fail together, and debug together
Model how to get others promoted
Show you aren’t finished learning
Help them share to a broader audience if they desire
As a mentee…
It’s OK to not know
Come prepared with what you want to learn, questions you want answered
Specific takeaways… for white males
Specific takeaways… for non-white males
A bit on mentorship wins and failures
You can’t mentor someone to success
The good and the bad, together
Remember people are humans with feelings and personal lives
So what are some of the takeaways from all this?
Always be learning
Mentorship isn’t always from older to younger
Make yourself available - people are looking
Recognize as a Mentor when it’s time to pass the baton - make a connection for the Mentee
A quick note on sponsorship
MENTORS SPONSORS people who can give us people who help us find helpful advice new opportunities and improve the visibility of our work Lara Hogan, Tech Management Coach and Trainer
Illustration by Catt Small
Scott Hanselman at RenderATL 2022
Mature teammates list the skills and expertise AND NAMES of those around them. - Lara Hogan, What does sponsorship look like?
Marginalized people are over-mentored, and under-sponsored. - Lara Hogan, What does sponsorship look like?
Thank you to…. Rachel - @sundyclan Beth - @bethqiang Cecilia - @ceceliacreates Heidi - @wiredferret Erin - @erinmikail Jason - @StCyrThoughts Dan - @mooreds Tamimi - @TweetTamimi Gareth - @garethgreenaway David - @davidgsIoT Ben - @RabbiGreenberg Jason - @2jase Ross - @datahowler
Thank You. timeline.jerdog.me IAmJerdog jerdog /in/jeremymeiss For feedback and swag: circle.ci/jeremy
How really important are mentorship and documentation to the survival of civilization? What would happen if we lost everything and had to start over, say, due to a global pandemic? In this talk, we’ll explore my fascination with dystopian TV shows and seek to answer these questions, and come to some action steps to do our part through mentorship, documentation, and more.
Resources
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
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Original Twitter thread
First thread where I asked for insights into Mentorship
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Follow-up Twitter thread
Secondary thread around other learnings on Mentorship
Buzz and feedback
Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.
