Ongoing Mentoring

I have found that staying with a newbie for a few days, (some need more time, some less) will lead to a larger retention rate of newbies. Doing this gives them a reason to come into world again and see more, do more, learn more. Knowing they have someone who wants to spend some time with them can lead into making them am active member of the community. Sometimes it is the extra that we give to a newbie that makes them want to stay in our community.

I would be interested in hearing how you feel about committing time to a newbie. If does not have to be the entire time they are in but anywhere from 15 min on. Be sure all is ok with them and see what they need or want to learn. What I do is when I say goodbye to them on a given day suggest we meet the following day to do something that they might find interesting.

What a great question/suggestion!

I will commit as much time or as little time as seems to be appropriate. Each individual seems to have different desires/expectations with regards to my presence--some want little or no help at all, some are looking for a short discussion of 'the basics' (this takes an hour or two) while some desire an on-going conversation (these can go on for a week or two--a few hours per night). I am happy to help in any way I can.

I try to get a feel for what makes an individual comfortable and let him/her determine the length of our contact. Generally, the types of questions determine the lenght of contact.

Hope that this is helpful.

Well I think its better to let them fly on their own. I use to have a many that followed me. But when you have too many you landup finding out that must are alts and they are just messing around with you. Not all newbies are like that.But there are people that love to mess with you and your mind.
I always assume the newbie is a new player no matter what. But you also need to protect yourself.

Morning Usagi,
"Ongoing Mentoring" in my view is meant to be a mentor will speak with the newbies, IM one and go with just that one to show them what SL is all about.

It would be ideal if SL were to make a "claim" page where we could go and select one newbie at a time to help. As they arrived they could be asked if they wanted a mentor, if so, their name would be paced on the claim page, once claimed their name would be gone from the page. Once their mentoring experience was over the would fill out a report about their experience. Just a few basic questions, did you mentor help you, do you have any suggestions for us etc. This would give SL some idea of what is going on. Also a report from us about our experience with the newbie, this would take a minute or two to do. Not a lot of time involved.

As for ppl playing with my mind I would not allow it to happen, I would expect that we could reject a newbie on a moments notice and/or ask for help.

If we expect SL to prosper and grow it is necessary for the retention of newbies. If you do a find on ppl just type in A for example. You will see a list of names, check to see when they were last in game. While we might have a large so called member base there are many who are never here. Personally I would like to help that change and see SL living to its highest potential. More ppl means more money while will contribute to the growth of the game, making SL ever more exciting, helping the community as a whole.

Maybe "long term guidance" is what really defines the difference between "mentor", "greeter" and "instructor", I think that as a mentor your are a bit of all of the three but that as "mentor" implies, a new person should be able to call you off and on for months if necessary.

It's also important to give them a kit, general guidance and then, send them off on their own, because they need to discover their unique SL personality. As mentors, we want to encourage them to develop that personality naturally - not develop it for them.

If a new person that I meet has an interest in building, I strongly encourage them to visit the Ivory Tower first before I work with them on building. Though I do make sure that they understand that if they find themselves blindly stumbling around a laggy mall with a cabin on their head they can IM [me] their mentor for help.

I also give them permission to hang out at my place whether I'm around or not and to hang around when I am building. I try and introduce them to people in SL that have similar interest to theirs. Basically, I just try and me there when I am needed.

I have my "MENTOR" I still am friends with. So i guess long time mentoring can happen. He is a great person who I still look up to. If not for him I would not be here today.

Great thread, guys, thanks for all the worthwhile input.

I just joined the Mentor group, so greetings! I was attracted to this group because of the promise of developing relationships with new people to help guide them through their first experiences in SL. To be that friend who will try to answer questions even after the newcomer has moved into their "virtual niche" is what I think mentoring is all about.