How This Started

It started with a tweet where I wanted to know how I would go about finding someone that wants to be mentored. Now, before I go any further I wanna say that I don’t expect to be the supreme beholder of all that is. I’m sure my mentee will teach me things too. I look at it as a close professional relationship with someone where the intention is to help guide one another. I don’t think nor have the mentality that I’m the only who knows everything in the relationship. I hope for it to be a Yin-yang type of cycle.

In The Beginning

Believe it or not my first GitHub experience was donating a script to the mothereffinganimatedgif project Paul Irish started. I think of that experience and project as a real driving force behind my love for open source. Paul helped guide me along the way letting me know where I made mistakes or how to improve them and we even got to chat through IM during the project. Pretty cool to get pointers from Paul Irish about GitHub…just sayin’. Paul has even taken the time to do things for me personally like talk via video chat and help with some JS issues I was encountering on a project.

I’ve also had the opportunity to work alongside Dave Rupert on GitHub for the A11YProject (I went completely red in the face when he incorporated information I’d been collecting prior). So friggin’ awesome to work on a project with someone I admire the work of. I also have access to channels in order to contact him directly and even chat via phone for the project. I JUST TALKED TO DAVE RUPERT ON THE PHONE!!!! Dave is the one responsible for the extra push that helped my polylion article get published on CSS-Tricks and that finally leads me to Chris Coyier.

Chris has been a real driving force for me when it comes to writing. Not only was I able to help on the CSS-Tricks Almanac, but he really shows support when it comes to my work in many ways. Having the ability to work on CSS-Tricks with Chris gave me real insight into how he looks at writing and teaching. He would look at my submissions and come back with corrections and this is exactly how I could get a glimpse into his ideals when it comes to explaining difficult topics simplistically. What can I say…Chris has been amazing with his support and help and I really appreciate everything he has provided me in terms of advice and guidance.

The Mentee

As I was saying previously, I sent out a tweet into twitterverse and got a very quick reply from Pekka Hiltunen or known as @modipeluri on Twitter. Pekka was really excited to see that I was looking for someone to mentor and I was more than happy to do that for him.

I immediately started following him on Twitter, GitHub and even set him up with a Dribbble invite he was interested in. We then hooked up on Skype and had a great intro chat for almost an hour getting to know one another and allowed me to gain some insight into Pekka’s desires when it comes to the Web.

Over the course of our relationship I hope to guide and inspire where I can and give insight into my world, how I go about my daily routine and guide him towards his desires without pushing my own agenda. If you have the desire or the time to mentor someone I highly suggest you do so. Giving back this way helps to move the web forward for all involved.