reverse mentors

Rae Ann Fera and Laas Turnball from Boards Magazine were in town for the LA AICP show. Mal and I met them for lunch. At lunch Rae Ann mentioned a concept I wasn't too familiar with but I practice frequently, reverse mentorship.

If mentorship is an experienced individual advising or passing on their knowledge to someone from the younger generation then reverse mentorship is the old learning from the young.

I don't think this is a new phenomenon. Every new generation creates their own culture. Young learns from old and old from young. However there is something different today. The communication and technical revolution has created change quicker than current and past generations can adapt. The ones who are most fluid in adjusting to the rapid advances are the youth.

This past weekend my nephew Josh was in town. He's 13 year old. He lives in NYC. He has two older sisters. During the four days he played many games of Guitar Hero with my kids and continually texted his friends, mostly girls. When he wasn't doing those things, he played games on his computers and watched shows online. I turned him on the Three Stooges on Hulu. He loved it. We also found time to go the beach, play tennis and cook.

Not only is Josh a great kid but an amazing mentor. He's a sports fan but never reads the sports page. He gets all his info on espn.com. He likes TV but rarely watches it live unless it's a sporting event. Why adhere to someone elses schedule when he came create his own. He rarely calls to talk to his friends but is in constant communication. He loves movies but downloads them from BitTorrent rather than use a pay service like Netflix. A recent NY Times article says he has changed his ways. He said the article changed the story. He still uses BitTorrent, mostly because they have a better catalog. Yet another reason for him to disengage from old media.

Josh is not a rebellious kid but he does not conform to the old means of communication and receiving media. I have found this with not only Josh but with many other teens and early twenties. I continually question my kids camp counselors, teachers, babysitters and other friends families. They are my own private focus groups. It makes me realize my business must continue to evolve otherwise I'll end up like bad guy at the end of a Scooby Doo episode. "If it wasn't for those meddling kids...".

I learned a lot from Josh this weekend. Now I finally have a name for it.