smallFISH

bigFISH

In a previous post both Nick Marsh and Sarah Drummond commented on the importance of a mentor for students. smallFISH encourages students to enter the real world and deal with real clients, these unknown territories can be quite intimidating and daunting for a student, and a mentor is somebody that can point them in the right direction. This got me thinking how smallFISH can aid students in such a way, smallFISH-to-student mentoring in my opinion wouldn’t work, it’s just too high maintenance. The advice coming from smallFISH will be a lot more general and less one-on-one in the form of a blog.

So I got thinking about the bigFISH, Nick Marsh mentioned in his comment that it was an ex-IDEO mentor who looked over his intern project at the Design Council and how valuable an experience it was. So why can’t the bigFISH get involved? smallFISH will be given the option to post up their on-going work, any problems they encounter etc. and send out a signal requesting advice. Professional designers, business owners, entrepreneurs etc. will be encouraged to participate and give a lending hand. It’s something I can see working, a similar concept works well on forums such as core77 and product design forums with advice sometimes exceeding that offered at university!

While it opens up interaction between users on the website I also think it could have a positive effect on student’s work. The fact that they know people are watching, and of all people, those that hold the key to their future once they graduate will encourage to make sure they’re on top of their game. It also gets a lot more people involved and allows professionals to have an impact on their local community.

I’m interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and thank those that have already commented, whether on this blog, their blog,  twitter or wenovski.

1 Comment so far
Leave a comment