On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote:

> That seems like a KPI that *someone* should be tracking.  And maybe
> reporting?


We don't gather that information directly. So I did some digging to get
some harder numbers (December 2012 - present), and there haven't been that
many proteges who've joined LOPSA. We're more a draw for *mentors* who want
to help rather than *proteges*. 38% of mentors in this time period stated
they joined because of the program vs. 5% of proteges who were not
self-identified LOPSA members then went on to sign up for membership under
the same email address (admittedly, the latter number is flawed).

On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Will Dennis <[email protected]> wrote:

> I never again heard from the mentorship team about the mentee, and most of
> the time (with one exception) besides the first contact/discussion, I never
> heard from the mentee again. (I did not do a lot of “chasing after” the
> mentees, figuring if they want to ping me on something, they’ll contact
> me.) Anyways, I did not see much value in the mentorship program as a
> result, and eventually resigned as a mentee (i.e., asked to be removed from
> the mailing list.) Maybe (hopefully) it’s run differently now… IDK.
>

It's in the process of changing. We've always struggled with following up
on relationships, defining successful relationships and keeping tabs on
projects once they began. The logic was that the mentors would track and
follow up with their protege. If the protege had an issue with the
relationship, they'd follow up with us. And that was that.

We always knew that proteges were more likely to give up on a relationship
than a mentor. And we've known for a while that mentors are unhappy with
the lack of follow up, sometimes thinking they've failed as mentors when
the proteges fall off (which isn't true at all). Over the last few months,
we've been discussing and coming up with ways to improve the situation for
the mentors. And hopefully alleviate all of their frustrations.

One such change is forcing proteges to become LOPSA members, thus ensuring
only proteges whop actually want to be mentored (and keep up with the
relationship) do so. We're also planning to better track relationships and
offer metrics so mentors know how they're doing and offer resources for
first time mentors who want to take on their first proteges. These are all
at varying stages of completeness, but we'll be announcing the paid protege
measure in June's LOPSAgram.

Now, to be a bit more on topic. I've noticed something frustrated when
trying to find mentors for proteges with stale requests (especially on the
Windows side). People are always *willing*. But they turn around and say
they don't want to be LOPSA members, sometimes citing the lack of direct
value. And I feel they believe LOPSA is irrelevant to them. Not that LOPSA
doesn't offer a subscription to Safari Online or exclusive talks. They're
also not the sort of people who actively take advantage of IRC, the local
conferences, the discussion boards or the other community draws that LOPSA
usually has. Is that likely to change if the organization starts hiding
non-exclusive talks behind subscription walls? Or will it simply make us
look sad for forcing people to pay for sparse offerings that might never
catch on? And, would it affect who decides to contribute and speak at any
live online event? This is the sort of thing the board should consider
before poisoning the water.

Has the board ever considered some kind of corporate membership to gain a
new revenue stream while increasing the organization's visibility?



On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 5:20 PM, john boris <[email protected]> wrote:

> Just to inform the folks on this thread. The mentorship team is taking
> steps to require the mentees to be LOPSA members. They are drafting
> language for this. This was announced at LOPSA-East during the Mentorship
> BOF and I believe as part of the careers panel
>
>
> On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 14, 2014, at 4:30 PM, Will Dennis <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>  but would be interesting to know if any (or more positively, how many)
>> mentees went on to join LOPSA.
>>
>>
>> That seems like a KPI that *someone* should be tracking.  And maybe
>> reporting?
>>
>> D
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> John J. Boris, Sr.
> Online Services
> www.onlinesvc.com
>
>
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