Twitter mentoring

Abigail Willemse asks the following questions on her blog, New Professionals NZ:

What do you think of when people talk about ‘mentoring’?
I know what the definition is: A mutually agreed-upon relationship in which someone who is as more experienced or more knowledgeable helps to guide someone who is less experienced or less knowledgeable. Both parties agree that they are going to set up this relationship, even if they do not name it as such.

I don’t know if this definition is enough, though. I don’t think the “traditional” definition above takes into account the connections and relationships technology now enables. Within the Personal Learning Network (PLN), where do all the relationships with people fit? The Wikipedia definition recognises that within a PLN, “the learner will collaborate and connect differently with various members. The learner will establish stronger relationships with some members and have a low level of connection with others. Not all nodes will be equal.^[3]” This changes, depending on where you are in your learning/career. For instance if you change jobs or start on a new project you might contact different people for support or advice.

The other thing about the PLN is that I don’t think the definition of “more experienced or more knowledgeable” is necessarily easily applied. I’m good at some things, have experience in others, but am completely new at others. I think we’ve all come together, voluntarily, and use the tools to stay connected, informally. I’ve certainly not asked anyone within my PLN to be my mentor, but there are a few who have played that role for me at different times. (I’m not sure if I am expressing this clearly but am just trying to get my thoughts down.)

Does your view of mentoring fit into what you do on Twitter? If so, how? If not, why?
Not wholly, but only because I think there are all sorts of discussions/interactions you can have outside Twitter, that are longer and more in depth. Of course, Twitter is not a private space by any means so I’d take confidential discussions off Twitter. And even when not confidential, sometimes you want a more detailed discussion that it is hard to fit into 140 characters – I have those sorts of discussions using other means (Skype, phone, email, face to face).

Having said that, however, the amount of support and learning I can get access to via Twitter means that it’s a vibrant, amazingly useful network. I highly recommend it!

Do you see Twitter as a tool to enable you to form relationships?
Yes!
Twitter’s been one of the best tools I’ve found, for me to form and maintain professional relationships and friendships. One particular example I can give is at the the time of a conference. For me, at a conference, Twitter allows me to magnify and focus on topics and people I want to learn more about or learn more from. I’ve had the experience of getting to know people from other states or countries at a conference, and then, after the conference, Twitter’s allowed me to continue to build on those professional relationships.

If so, what kind of relationships does Twitter allow you to form?
A whole range. I follow people on Twitter for many different reasons, so these relationships vary, depending on who the individuals are: family members (I have a very connected family), friends, casual acquaintances, colleagues: professional acquaintances, and closer professional relationships. With some people I share links to interesting stuff, look forward to the links they share, and any discussion is strictly “professional”. With others there is both professional sharing and personal, “idle chatter”. I keep up with my some family members’ doings via Twitter. I also value the connections I’m building with people from outside the library profession.

How do you use Twitter to identify interesting people/mentors (in the library and information profession and wider) to follow and learn from?
It takes time, but it starts when someone follows me or I notice their tweets from someone else’s retweet. I check to see if I want to follow them, and if I do, I suppose I notice if they tweet stuff on a regular basis or not. This ebbs and flows, really. Different people are active at different times, their interests change and their tweets may change also. I find it’s good to follow a largeish number of people, so that there’s always something interesting in my timeline. (It’s fine to start small, but don’t hesitate to follow people.)

I always stress that I prefer to follow “real” people – I follow very few celebrities and very few brands/companies. I check Twitter almost daily (it’s part of my routine), but I don’t worry if I miss stuff. The really interesting stuff gets retweeted often so you will see it eventually. When you start, don’t feel you have to tweet for the sake of tweeting. Just follow a few people, watch, read, and learn. Eventually though I would encourage you to join in the conversations – it is not rude to “butt in” on a conversation people are having on Twitter – in my experience Twitter becomes better and better as your network grows, and you get to know your tweeps (as they’re called), and you start to give back.

Have you been mentored by someone on Twitter? Can you think of someone on Twitter you look up to as a mentor?
I don’t want to name names, I might leave someone out! 🙂

Are you able to give an example of how you have used Twitter to either mentor/give someone advice, or receive mentorship/advice from someone else?
I can’t help but give advice if people pose questions or conundrums on Twitter! 🙂

A recent example: someone lost their job and I gave them support/advice both publicly and via DM.

I can’t give you an example of the advice/support people have given me; I find that people are incredibly generous with their time and energy on Twitter – it’s my go-to network in many cases, even if I might continue the discussions using other forums after having made the initial contact.

If you think that Twitter is useful for mentoring, do you think it is more appropriate for a traditional, one-on-one mentoring relationship between an experienced person and a beginner, or a peer-mentoring approach, or a different sort entirely? Why?
I would consider that if you have a traditional mentoring relationship with someone, you could use Twitter to build on that relationship. I suspect that you’d probably still find that talking to each other is going to be vital to the relationship. (I’m pondering the points made in this post, Mentoring Moments: Just In Time Support, too.) Having said that, I don’t currently have such a relationship so I’m really just speculating at this point. I’ll have to see if I can try it sometime…

Or conversely, do you think that Twitter is perhaps not suited to mentoring or is not an appropriate tool to use in a mentoring relationship? Why?
Again, I don’t know that I have enough experience here to answer this in relation to traditional mentoring relationships. I think Twitter is certainly a useful tool to have in your professional network. From my observation of new grads on Twitter, for instance, I think many of them would say they find it a good place to get support and advice. For me personally the benefits have been immeasurable.

Thank you Abigail for posing these questions. I hadn’t really thought of Twitter as a mentoring tool before this, and I think there’s definitely potential to explore it further, to see how it adds (or otherwise) to mentoring relationships!

I’ll finish this way-too-long post with the words of a writer on leadership who I learn from daily: