Mentoring Bounce

[Big Ideas]

My team recently Had an opportunity to meet with a large companies marketing department. The purpose was for the professional to describe to the team marketing group, what they do, how they do it, what they think about and evaluate, show some examples of work product, and process. . .

The meeting went well. Our team now has a bit better vision of what to do and how to do it.

The bonus "Bounce" is that the companies marketing group is now showing more confidence in their abilities ans upper their game. Apparently as a direct result of this meeting with the first team.

It has always been discussed that, teaching is a great way for the teacher to learn, or strengthen their knowledge. I thought it was nice to hear this positive outcome.

Has any one else got concrete examples of how interacting with First teams strengthens companies?

[Jared Russell]

Many companies (my own included) have at various points encouraged young engineers to mentor FIRST teams as a way to hone leadership and problem solving skills. I think there is a lot of evidence (albeit anecdotal, unless someone has actually tracked statistics) to suggest that these relationships are tremendously beneficial to those companies.

Another obvious way that mentorship/sponsorship benefits a company is media exposure. When we won the Championship Chairman's Award, our sponsors' logos were seen on a variety of local and national television broadcasts and by the President of the United States in person. For a while, the Lockheed Martin home page had two pictures on it...the Joint Strike Fighter, and Miss Daisy. Even on a local scale, many FIRST teams find themselves in newspapers and on the local news, where the company gets positive exposure.