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Introducing...

CyberMentoring ^sm

A new Profession...   

 An ARINA Innovation     

responding to 21st Century needs   

ARINA is pioneering the development of this new profession to meet the current and future needs and opportunities in the 21^st Century. Our ARINA Room is the laboratory where we will introduce Associates to experiences of CyberMentoring ^sm in group and individual contexts. There, we will conduct ongoing action research into how this service benefits group discussions, individuals' participation, new openings, and productive outcomes. We will also elicit Associates' case examples or descriptions of where this sort of professional service would have served them well in other cyber-settings, so we all develop a concrete picture of how professional CyberMentoring ^sm  responds to existing and budding needs in our world today, and in the future. This research will support our efforts to seek program development funding to launch a certification program in CyberMentoring ^sm and institutionalize it as a new profession.

Characteristics of CyberMentoring ^sm

Whether experienced within a group endeavor or in individual contact with a CyberMentor, a chief purpose is to introduce conditions that elicit options from an individual or group. Some of the characteristics of the process include:

   Help to identify and disembed from assumptions

   Serve as a catalyst, not a pro-active or re-active agent

   Create space for openings, rather than looking for or reinforcing closure

   Because normal, conventional, conceptual language does not fit the process, encourage the development of new meanings by unpacking old language into new forms in 3rd grade English.

    Create space for not accepting or choosing between paradoxical elements, but rather unpacking them

    Use thinking as an evolving process of opening up to inquiry, and understand inquiry as a state of suspension, not a round of questions

    Recognize "seeds" and release the process so a group or individual can nurture them

Some of the products a cyber-group or individual might expect from a CyberMentor's services can include:

    Develop the ability to see and form a wider range of options

    Cultivate sensitivity to how different options are attractive or evoke resistance, and learn how to unpack responses

    Develop capacities to change/transform dynamics, in real-time

    Learn real-time feedback dynamics and develop more fluid adaptability