Mentor Center

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Career Development   Communications Management  

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction.” - John C. Crosby

The bonus of having experience means that in addition to benefitting ourselves, we also have the capacity to help others. As seasoned IT professionals, we are in possession of a vast and increasing knowledge base that is a virtual Fort Knox that should be shared with the next workforce generation. Seminars, lectures and training sessions are a good start, but the hands-on assistance of a mentor is something that provides lifelong lessons and guidance for real-life application.

Mentoring programs are commonly associated with managerial and executive branches and often not as available to the IT pro. The curse of many IT people though, is that we’re often very busy--not just putting out technology fires, but also potentially starting them. However, with the economy making us all feel a little edgy about our jobs, providing and getting some help and counseling from other experts is important to sustaining and growing in our roles.

The introduction of mentor/protégé collaboration is actually the building of a relationship. Initial meetings may be short and lean toward fact-finding between the two parties so they get to know a little about each other and build a comfort zone foundation. The process understandably takes time because it …

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