IP & Mentor Program Status

[IP coordinator]

We have been reporting on the IP and Mentor program at the different
monthly meetings we attend. The minutes for those have not been put out
yet, and there's been some expression of concern about the IP program, so
here's a summary of the program's current status. 

NEW IPs SIGNUPS 
New IPs are signing up through the online form at a rate of about 4-6 per
week. The process for creating their accounts and directories has been
streamlined. In general, the turn around from the time of request to when
the IP's setup is ready to use is about one week. We have had a few
(including Jean Buskin recently) who have gone from request to completed
web pages within one week. Others have taken longer, particularly because
of delays with mailing lists. 

We are expecting to have Shirley Bishop Inc (SBI) start handling the
welcome letters (taking one small piece off Robert Katz's very large plate
of registration activities).  When done through SBI, the welcome letters
will go out once a week on Tuesdays, so the turn around time may be a few
days longer for some and shorter for others, based on how close to Tuesday
the request came in. Batching account setup in this way is expected to
significantly ease the burden on the volunteers doing setup activities. 

The current setup activities go like this:  a new IP submits the online
form which Steve/Rod/Robert receive. If Steve raises no red flag with the
type of IP (e.g. not a commercial company from Chicago trying to sell
stuff or some such), then Robert creates the account, issues the welcome
letter and informs Steve/Rod it's been done. Rod creates the requested web
space, and sends a long informative email to the new account about how to
create and upload their first web pages on SCN. A week or so after the IP
is likely to have received the welcome letter, Steve has been calling to
check in with the IP, and see if they need any initial help. 

Steve spent several weeks putting a lot of new pages together to replace
the existing IP-signup pages, but there were some complaints with them -
Rod & Barb, can you remember what it was you didn't like? They're up
online at http://www.scn.org/help/steves.ip.pages/ and ipinfo-top.html is
the front page (I've revised this one quite a bit at home in another file
- can upload it if someone else wants to proof it). 

MENTOR PROGRAM
There have been few requests for mentors in all the online requests, and
we have a couple of explanations:
1 - New IPs are coming to us through the web site, so are already
familiar with the web (if we were actively doing outreach to
non-web-savvy IPs there might be a much higher demand for mentors).
2 - Steve has been answering most of their questions during his
initial phone call.

For the few IPs who have requested mentors, mentors have been assigned
based on a match of interests, availability and type of IP need. Only
mentors and other volunteers who have recently expressed an interest in
continuing to do this have been contacted and the request for mentor has
not been put out to a list because we wanted to ensure more well
considered matches. When we started, many mentors and IPs complained about
how abysmal the mentoring experience had been for them - lots of
unrealized expectations - we wanted to avoid continuing with that because
it only frustrated and burned out everyone involved. 

HTML CLASSES
While a few people have been interested in having an HTML class, we have
not tried starting one from scratch. We have referred a number of people
to King County Library's NetMasters program - a well conceived free class
given by the library in exchange for a commitment from students to teach
in the future. We haven't had a chance to take it ourselves, and have not
heard from anyone about it - if you know more please let us know. 

We think that, in keeping with SCNA's 501c3 status as an education
nonprofit, it might make very good sense to offer HTML classes to the
public. As desirable as we find this, we agreed with the rest of the board
members during the annual retreat in February that the first priority we
all had was fixing the existing systems within SCN/A before we launch any
new projects. We have asked a number of new and old volunteers about their
interest in developing an HTML class but so far have had no takers. If you
know someone who might be interested in investing some time in this,
please give them our contact info, or tell us about them and we'll ask
them directly. 

TAKING CARE OF CURRENT IPs
We have an urgent need to communicate with our existing IPs, hence the
current MOTD recruitment message. We want to talk with the existing IPs
about what we currently have available for their use, and survey them to
find out more about what they want and what benefit they currently feel
they get from SCN. Lots more stuff waiting to happen here - needing a team
of volunteers and a coordinated effort. 

Current IPs who need help are getting it through help at scn.org and through
Steve directly, whose technical background allows him to answer even very
difficult system questions. One of the most enjoyable aspects of working
in help is the positive responses that sometimes come back from users and
IPs who have been helped. We are getting many more of those type of
responses than complaints - especially from long time SCNers who cannot
believe the responsiveness they're now getting. 

SPREAD THE WORD
Even with the improvements, though, there are people in the community who
have had bad impressions of SCN (the historical lack of timely or any
response to reg requests, or help). If you talk with anyone who could
benefit from SCN's services, but is gun-shy of wasting time trying to get
through the process, you can have them call us directly and we will
personally walk them through the process. The personal interactions have
been making a huge difference. Also, things are not yet perfect (nor are
they ever likely to be in the real world!) - if you know of anyone who has
had a recent problem with SCN, we would also be happy to help try to
improve their experience, and try to fix whatever caused the problem for
them so that others don't suffer the same way.  Having users/IPs with
"squeaky wheel" needs can sometimes help move along an improvement already
identified. 

It'd be easiest for us to talk with you by phone, and answer your
questions interactively (and we'd be happy to, especially if you'd like to
get more involved in helping with the IP program). If you really can't
stand phoning, please send email directly to us with your questions, and
we'll try to answer them as best we can, when we can. Please understand if
responding to your questions about what we're doing falls lower on our
list of priorities than taking care of our other commitments - it will
certainly move higher if you're asking not just because you want to know,
but because you want to help. 

Once a few volunteers have signed up and we're back from our travels in
England (July 26 - Aug 15), we're planning to launch a real IP Program
Team (including a first meeting), especially focused on getting in touch
with the existing IPs.  Let us know if you want to be part of that meeting
(no commitment immediately necessary) by sending email to xx029 at scn.org. 

Thanks for reading this far.  Hope the several hours I've just spent
writing and rewriting it were worth it ;-) 

- Mel (& Steve, Rod & Robert)
  IP & Mentor Program Team

   -=-  -=-=-  -=-  -=-=-  -=-  -=-=-  -=-  -=-=-  -=-  -=-=-  -=-
Melissa and Steve Guest                                (425) 653 7353
Seattle Community Network                          http://www.scn.org
   "Supporting People and Communities with Free Internet Services"





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