A brief reflection on my first 18 months mentoring
It's been 18 months since I started offering mentoring slots to anyone who felt I could help them. I wanted to publish a couple of observations and renew the call/option for people to book in for a session if they wanted.
It's been 18 months since I started offering mentoring slots to anyone who felt I could help them. I wanted to publish a couple of observations and renew the call/option for people to book in for a session if they wanted.
- I've completed 37* sessions in that time, averaging about 2 a month. I'm not sure how much time I thought I would spend on this, reflecting on it now, 2 sessions a months seems reasonable, but I think I expected more people to take up sessions.
- Only three people have sought out repeat sessions. I don't know if this a reflection of the career stage of many people who are essentially looking more for 'spot' advice, rather than an ongoing mentoring relationship or that people don't want to monopolise my time. (Of course it could be I wasn't any help...)
- All publishers are dealing with similar challenges and as such employees are dealing with similar career challenges. How do publishers empower news-product thinkers? How do I grow in my career when there are no established career paths? Are my skills valued correctly? Why is change so hard?
- Every publisher organises their product/marketing/editorial/innovation/audience teams differently which makes it hard for people thinking about moves and progression to transfer orgs.
- Lots of people feel quite lonely and like they are tackling these issues in their org on their own. It's great that the NPA exists and is helping grow a supportive community for these types of roles, but it's clear we can do more, both within our orgs and within the industry to offer more support.
If you are looking for help, I can mentor and advise people looking to get started in the media/product/innovation space and understand the wide range of paths they could take. I can also coach those moving into their first management roles and particularly anyone who is responsible for cultural change and innovation in their organisations.
In addition I can help if you are working on new business/product/organisational strategy, newsroom tooling and data & insights in the newsroom.
*This doesn't include the NPA mentoring scheme that I am a part of that kicked off in November last year
