Mentoring/Informal

Informal mentoring helps everyone involved and happens all the time. It is not tracked or managed. Keep doing what you do and have fun! The following ideas and resources might be useful as you think about your need for training and mentoring or your desire to help others.

Details

• Editors asking and answering questions in the forums and live chat.
• Can take place anytime, without any special process to set up the interaction.
• There is no approval process to be an informal mentor.
• Advice can range from exceptionally good to highly questionable depending upon the provider.
• Task oriented: solve a current problem in editing and nothing more (e.g., how to fix a particular junction that is giving bad directions or bad map appearance).
• Generally lasts a few minutes or a few hours, with little to no recurring communication expected.
• Provides instant answers to questions, but cannot track the quality of the information provided.
• Not expected to significantly change the abilities of the Mentee and no expectation for change in rank during or after the mentorship.

Informal mentoring ideas

• Ask a question in a Waze Forum.
• Ask for help in WME Chat.
• Send a PM to a higher-level editor you have seen around Waze, or an Area Manager, State Manager, or Regional Coordinator for that region (check on your state wiki for an Area Manager list).
• Utilize web conferencing/screen sharing to communicate with one or more editors while learning and editing on a project (there are many free tools for this, such as Google Hangouts).
• Establish a Google+ Community to help local or regional editors learn from each other.
• Organize a local Meet-up of editors in your region for a Waze conversation over lunch.

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All the Mentoring program pages are linked in the box below. New pages can be added to this list by clicking here.