The idea of “mentoring” has always been a hot topic in the system administration community. This is reflected in the roots of the SAGE name, recognizing that the commmunity was (at that time) more like a Guild than a rigidly-defined and codified academic discipline. SAGE tried to create mentoring programs several times, but they never really took off, yet there were always people willing to take up the gauntlet again and again. At the first planning meeting for LOPSA (August 2005), we spent a lot of time talking about community and we seemed to all agree that mentoring was one of the most important parts of the community we were planning to serve. This topic was again raised at the LOPSA Community Meeting at LISA (December 2005) as one that our members felt strongly about. When we ask our members about what should be our highest priority services, a “mentoring program” always ranks near the top of the list.
We as a community seem to want a mentoring program, but before we begin again, shouldn’t we ask ourselves, ”’Why have sysadmin mentoring programs been less than stellar successes?”’
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