This is Project #1. The naming style is intentionally telling because it means there will be many follow up projects with names like Project #2, possibly Project #3 and so on.
Apparently to accomplish these projects you have to learn how to code—duh!
Here’s one of those moments I wish I could just tap my temple twice and activate a learning algorithm to simply download an entire language (many thanks to The Matrix for that analogy).
Sadly, we aren’t to that level of advancement in the area of neural tech, but judging by my luck, I have a feeling we’ll be there as soon as I learn coding and finish this latest project. On that note, let me take a few seconds to grind an axe that I’ve been carrying over my shoulder for a few years. I feel like the learning curve to coding is intentionally kept somewhat difficult so that the level of participation by the wider public is kept at bay. It makes sense for the tech community (i.e. job security, pay, etc.) if you think about it. If one can bring down those barriers to entry just like blogging services brought down the barriers to entry for journalism, just think what that could do for global GDP.
Ok, apologies for the minor digression (although my axe—I have many others, mind you—needs further grinding). Let’s get back to the project at hand.
The non-profit’s request is to have a catalog of local mentors with their career profiles. Is this Linked-in Lite? I don’t think so. Linked-In is more about flexing your intellectual and career muscles so that your friends, family and colleagues know that you’re better than them or want to be better than them. This still-unnamed project will focus on the more altruistic members of society who want to give their time and energy to the next generation of doctors, engineers, scientists, lawyers, etc..
This will be a very closed network highly focused on location of the prospective mentor and mentee. Each mentor will be vetted by an FBI database to make sure they aren’t going to abuse an unsuspecting mentee. We will also keep attention merchants from abusing access to members of the community. The mentors will also go through a special training session on how to be successful mentors because let’s face it, just because someone wants to give their time and energy to local children pondering potential career paths doesn’t mean they understand the best practices in the area of mentoring. Just like any other trade, mentoring can be mastered by reading a book or two and attending a couple seminars on mentoring before practicing those skills on actual mentees. The ultimate mastery will come through study, practice and sharing of best practices with other mentors on the network.
This will be a pilot project that will attempt to design the full suite of solutions from the digital to the physical world. This isn’t one of those tech-heavy, find-any-shmo-from-street-style gig-economy solution, but rather one that takes people into consideration. We aren’t looking for volume of mentors but rather the quality. Ultimately, mentors are our product and we’re fully cognizant of the fact that they are a scarce commodity, although one that can be molded with some work on our part. Also, there isn’t any money to be made here (aside from the boatloads of money the kids will make in the future once they are mentored successfully). We understand the attention merchant dynamic to this and we will mindfully stay away from this aspect simply because it poses a danger to all participants involved and the credibility of the network at large. This aspect is so critical that will take another one of our axes out to grind for a few minutes:
1. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist mentor to figure out that advertising could potentially fund the services we intend to provide, but it will exponentially degrade the quality of those services so what’s the point of offering services when the quality isn’t the best.
2. Ad-funded model creates a situation where the interests aren’t aligned. The creators of the service will soon start pandering to the attention merchants as opposed to the mentor/mentee community that they should serve.
3. Ad-funded model poses distractions. We should once again highlight that the tech portion of the overall solution is merely a piece of the puzzle—a small piece. It will offer a marketplace of careers and mentors as opposed to anything else. It’s purpose is to inform prospective mentees of possible career options and allow them to find deeply vetted and trained mentors in very specific careers.
With that said, the model that we are shooting for is a non-profit model that will be funded by the community at large (more on this later), but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s not forget that we have an entire coding language to learn…
Faisaling.com 