It is time for the 2. NordicMeetup on May 26, 2010 at our favourite spot – Ruby’s. We are co-locating the event together with TechCrunch Europe who is in Copenhagen for their third TCNordic event.

Since NordicMeetup got sold out in 1.5 hour – and before we had a chance to publish the tickets, we have arranged with TechCrunch Europe that if you buy a ticket to TCNordic, you will get a special offer by using the promotion code: nordicmeetup giving you access to the evening event as well.

This time BvHD has made NordicMeetup a reality, by sponsoring the ticket to a free drink at Ruby.

Petra & I are so thrilled to see the amazing support for NordicMeetup, people are offering their help, also with co-hosting in other Nordic cities – and most of all by showing up, having fun and supporting the Nordic startup environment, this is exactly what we hoped for.

Looking forward to see you at NordicMeetup!

We launched Mentory almost a year ago. A lot of interesting profiles have joined as protégés, mentors and even as both. All sorts of skills are represented, but the majority of users are tech and entrepreneurial oriented.

While people have been supporting the idea and the need of an online mentorship, the ideal online transformation still needs to be developed. We must find the way to motivate for participation for all parties, so conversations will flow. Some has mentioned the mentor/protégé relation as a barrier – they do not see them selves as either. The need of access to global skills has been expressed, but not necessary only between two people. Some believe the mentors should be paid, or as in real life get something in return from the protégé i.e. time.

Our thoughts is to strengthen online conversations, and global connection between people. One way is to emphasis the “advisory board”, so one person is connected with a board of people representing different skills. The initiator/protégé can post questions to the board, and the best suited will answer and thereby also share their knowledge with the other members of the board. We are also inclined to turn the focus towards Tech Entrepreneurship, so Mentory will become more focused as a community within this area.

Our objective is to support our users needs, any ideas and feedback to our thoughts are more than welcome – so please throw a comment.

When a jazz band gather for a jam session it is all about improvising based on experience, skills and creativity. They are focused on the opportunities that arises from the chord chart (the frame that defines the rhythm and harmonic). They sense, they listen, they collaborate while creating unique unpredictable art.

Based on the same principles we create jam session startups, meaning that we set a course and we gather the perfect team of highly skilled people. We do not create an agenda or agreements, but we focus, do our best, sense and listen to our users. We collaborate on creating unique, unpredictable and user driven startups.

What happens when we skip the business plan, the agreements and the technical specifications? It is simple – we execute, learn and improve. Instead of a business plan, we set an overall strategy i.e. our course, set up milestones and deadlines, and we take these very seriously. Our deadlines makes us prioritize and fight the perfectionist part of us, that want´s to launch a perfect service, which will never happen.

I have tried both ways of running a startup, but somehow the more effort I put into planning, structure and great business plans, the less I achieve. The reason is that I miss out on spontaneity, which in many cases are the best source for innovation.

When we build Mentory, we knew that we should launch a basic version i.e. no Rolls Royce to start with, but instead sense the adaption while listening to our users. In the past three months since we launched, we have learned lessons and gotten ideas that couldn´t have been predicted up front. The journey is also much more exciting, we know our course but we do not know where it will take us a long the way, and in the end – it is all about Jazz.

Being a woman in tech, men will outnumber you at most occasion, and the big question is why are there so few women in tech? I attended Geek´n Rolla on April 21, where there was a panel discussion on the matter, and it really engaged the audience.

Some of the reasons mentioned for the lack of women were:

• Women that work in the tech industry identify themselves with their niche, ex. working with PR instead of working in tech with PR.
• It starts in the early stage of girls education, they are not encouraged to work within tech.
• Startups are driven by developers, and since there are so few female developers, it affects the imbalance.
• Women choose family over 70 hour work weeks.
• Women are not risk willing.
• Women do not have flair for tech.

Apart from physical abilities, we are capable of the same, so do we find the answers within society, culture, education and social (unconscious) behavior?

The tech industry reflects society, also in this matter. Besides tech, it is also within management, the percentage of board members, the level of wages etc. Some countries have implemented gender quotes to focus on equality, while most countries are just talking about the challenge. As some guys stated – is positive discrimination the way to create balance? Shouldn´t the criteria be a persons skills rather than gender, race, age or appearance? And why do we necessarily want more women in tech. These opinions helped warm up the following discussion.

The word, “balance” indicates an optimal state, and don´t we want to achieve that in our industry? It is not just a matter of equality for women in tech, it is equality in every sense, and the loss of innovation based on multiplicity. Balance also improves a working environment, and a manifold perspective is important in the work we create. Some research even states that having female leaders positively affects the financial results in a company.

But are there any upside to the lack of equality?
Well for one you are not lightly to be caught wearing the same dress, but besides that if you are good (and of course you are) and have the ability to present your project, you will have the benefit of standing out. But in my opinion the upside for the individual does not equal the downside for the industry, so we still have to rely on change.

In Denmark we experience that women are becoming the majority on higher educations, they are focused on their studies and take equality for granted. Based on that development I am optimistic about a future balance. But until we reach the point where it is an absolutely matter of course meeting a female CEO, board chairman or President, we must start with our own self-image and stand out as role models for the future generation.

When we share, we give others the opportunity to take advantage of our knowledge and experience, making it evolve in the minds of other individuals. This is basically what a mentorship and Mentory is all about. 

So why have a mentor relation when it can be done sporadic on Google.

As a protégé you set a goal with your mentorship. And while having the relation, you are able to ask specific questions, reflect on the answers and try it out. After trying, new questions rice, and here comes the benefit of asking a mentor that know your case and background. 

We all have mentors, formal, informal, unconsciously and in different areas in life. Some inspire us with our carrier and on our dreams while others strength us as individuals. 

And what is more giving than giving? Receiving a grateful, moved or happy email or expression on a persons face, when what we did made a difference – it makes our effort worth while. Most mentors reap the gift of supporting their protégé through the different phases from questioning, frustration, trying and finally achieving. Only made possible from the fact that we shared!

Creating Mentory made us question if the analogue process is the best way to run your mentorship. As a believer in sharing, participating and being open, I see the opportunity of evolving the mentorship towards this idealism. Which gave birth to the idea of Journster (spin-off to be revealed in details later).

When choosing your mentor or protégé, you judge based on chemistry, the goal and expectations. Some times you do choose wrong, finding it difficult to know what went wrong in the process. Was it the goal, the mentor or protégé response or your own ability to act upon the input. 

Making the mentorship and your goal open while broadcasting your questions, gives you instead multiple and varied answers to choose and act from. Remembering of course to pass on the experience you got based on the answers, to benefit others and continuing the sharing circle.

The challenge is barriers. Are we willing to reveal deeper goals, show our insecurity and lack of knowledge? In that case you can decide to close your mentorship, after validating the person(s) based on the broadcast response. 

The nature of an open mentorship may be based on skills, rather than chemistry and presence that defines the closed and analogue relation.

What type of mentorship would you choose? 

My observation is that 3 elements motivate us:

Curiosity. Have you ever spent time exploring profiles of strangers? It is somehow a core instinct – we just cannot help looking through the profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. Which must be the answer to why (mainly women) buy gossip magazines. 

Profiling is the answer to why we don’t mind sharing pictures and thoughts that we probably would not share with strangers in offline life. Suddenly we are able to show a side of our self, and in that way promote our personality across circles.

Recognition. Some believe we are driven by money, power and/or recognition. Recognition is exactly what we get when we suddenly have +200 friends or followers. Being followed or invited gives us status in the community. By the end of the day we just want to fit in, having a purpose in life and get recognized for our contribution. We are suddenly able to benchmark our popularity among friends, colleagues and people we dig. 

So how can your start-up benefit from this? 

Exposing your users with pictures, tags, short descriptions gives fellow users a teaser for reading more – driven by curiosity.

With an ocean of spectators we have the opportunity to stand out, revealing our self in new ways. So give your users the ability to profile them self as individuals, thinkers, believers and helpers to the community.

Most of us (if not all) needs recognition and that is why this element is so vital, encouraging us to spent hours participating on the community, sharing information and networking. So make sure your users contribution gets recognized by the community.

Obviously these elements cannot stand alone, you still need a dynamic and brilliant service, but if you do not support natural behavior, you might become a bit lonely on your community. I pay attention to these factors on Mentory and our other services, trying to hit that perfect balance.

I believe this is also the fault of many Inter/Intranets. Organizations are puzzled why their employees or customers are not generating content, knowledge sharing and participating. 
Try to ask – what is in it for them?

But launching also means full steam on bug fixing, improvements and further development based on all the user feedback.We decided to take a day out and work on the matchmaking process of a mentorship – the vital part of Mentory.

We experienced that we were drawn in two directions. 1 – developing a process that matches an offline mentorship. 2 – developing a process that supports online behavior i.e. redefining the mentorship. We want to support both, so we are enhancing the online process, integrating Mentory with other services, using API´s and then dada… we got a really neat idea since it is generic and supports the ideology of our other start-up concepts (the service former known as Journster.com – Jacobs brainchild).

Since we apparently are first movers I will only reveal a few details. We move towards semantic web, we observe synchronicity but yet we build and use services in a silo. This is basically what we want to change. In the futile search of a name, we discovered that one of our other start-ups, had the name we needed, so we took it – Journster.com.

For now we will improve Mentory in it´s first version, integrate video communication and then we will work on this new service to optimize the mentorship matchmaking.

We expect to launch it on Mentory within 2 months – so if you are up to become a beta tester please signup on journster.com

So when to choose what. I have a degree in coaching, and I have tried both. I found coaching excellent for inner development such as overcoming stress. While mentoring has been ideal for professional development, and when I had a clear goal but needed experienced guidance, constructive challenge and hints on who to contact. The mentor does not necessarily need to be a precise match, but rather have a significant angle. 

And expect the same aspects as in life. Good chemistry is essential. Both parties must give ongoing feedback – to know your value and in order to improve. What did I do that worked, what should I do more etc. Without feedback the relationship will most likely die out.

Coaching and mentoring are generic. Mentors can benefit from the questioning techniques coaches use, in order to make the protégé think – not necessarily answer.   

But what makes mentoring amazing is that it is a relationship based on a non profit interest. The mentor will experience as much reflection as the protégé i.e. give and take. Finally this relationship can and will often become one of the most significant relationships we experience in life. 

Most of us remember a person that had significant influence in your life, being an extraordinary by listening, being present, respecting us, this character is often a teacher or family member. This is what Mentory can do for you, finding a mentor with these personal skills that matches our stage in life, making us grow – who can ask for more in a mentor.

Almost 2 years of work has come to an end – or rather a beginning. From getting the idea, defining the concept, designing the user interface and developing the website, we are finally ready to welcome our users.