I’ve just returned from the EMCC (European Mentoring & Coaching Council) at Ashridge. It was a great learning opportunity. Instant highlights for me included; ‘Creativity in coaching supervision by Alison Hodge, ‘Coaching with the brain in mind’ by David Rock and ‘Virtual Coach/Virtual Mentor by Zulfi Hussain & David Clutterbuck.
I’m just in the process of trying to work up a research proposal for my MA (Coaching & Mentoring) and want to focus on the latter area. It seems to me that there is so much scope now for virtual & remote coaching as part of a rich multi-media approach (that includes social networking). It appears that there is limited empirical research that has been done in this area & I’d really like to make a difference.
My challenge now is to decide;where should I focus, how can I narrow this down & what can I refer to in my lit review?
Any thoughts would be welcome
I’ll share more detailed thoughts re the conference once I’ve had a chance to reflect (as always!)
Learning 
Lynn, this is out of my area of expertise (as are so many things). I’m not sure whether you’re thinking of someone who’s essentially a professional coach/ mentor (i.e., does that full time), or someone who carries out that role along with others — e.g., a manager who does remote coaching.
I don’t know if that makes a difference, but suspect it might.
That connects to something I heard Allison Rossett talk about some years back. She and a partner were developing a coaching/mentoring program for a real estate firm, and found that most of the successful people tapped to be coaches needed guidance but also some feedback on how they were doing, how successful coaches operate, etc.
It seems to me that that kind of information (how should I be doing, how am I doing) might be of even greater concern to a virtual coach.
Yes I think the difference between professional coach & manger would make a difference. Supervision for coaches is very much a hot topic with standards currently being agreed & developed.
Thanks for your thoughts
Hi Lynn,
Being a part-time mentor(!), I do rely on e-mentoring and use multi-media technology to communicate with my mentees as they are based across the UK. After listening to some people from my group yesterday, majority felt that mentoring/coaching via multi-media technology is not sufficient enough, and does not do the profession justice. I do disagree with their thoughts and do feel that as someone who works full-time and who also has an interest in mentoring and coaching and enjoys mentoring on a part-time basis, multi-media technology is a fantastic resource. However it is only a fantastic resource if used correctly. I strongly believe that if there were some guidelines around this area then this would definitely take off, especially with the younger mentors and coaches, (I could be wrong with this!). I agree with Dave and think that you should concentrate on one area, I think part-time mentors and coaches as they are the ones who would probably benefit more from this and appreciate it more (again I could be wrong!)
I do agree with you and think that literature in this area is very limited and I do suspect you will find it difficult locating decent material dedicated to multi-media mentoring, however, there is a lot of material and journal articles on multi-media technology, which would be handy if you decided to do an inductive dissertation.
This is a fantastic area to research Lynn, and think you will definitely make a difference to the multi-media mentoring world, especially because you are so passionate about the area. Good luck with the proposal Lynn and let me know if you would like some technological advice (!!)
Thanks Advita. I guess for me a multi media approach offers flexibilty & choice for mentors & mentees. Contracting re use of media would probably need to be done up front as well as the checking out of competence & confidence in using the available tools. Multi media could include face to face too.
Interesting that some people in your group thought that using technology “does not do the profession justice” I wonder if this is because they haven’t appreciated yet the opportunities and value that technology enabled learning can bring. For me it’s always about the learning first, integrating the technology into the experience can add a richness and flexibilty to the experience.
I just want to make clear that I wasn’t saying what you should focus on, only tossing out thoughts that occurred to me.
You’ve raised a key issue, Lynn: the techno-barrier. It’s certainly not limited to mentoring. I think it’s difficult for people unfamiliar with web 2.0 tools (or put off by a label like “web 2.0 tools”) to figure out how they would derive value from them.
As Bob Mager taught us years ago, “you really oughta wanna” isn’t much of a motivator.
Also, if the adult population fits into a normal distribution (bear with me, now!), then at least 80% of us are not early adopters.