In defence of benevolent mentors for young professionals, source of innovation & ideas | Blogs Series: Agriculture, ICTs & Youth

If information and communication technologies (ICTs) have a great potential to bring information and knowledge to the poorest populations in the world’s rural areas, one has to admit that ICTs today mainly benefit those who already posess these tools in order to disseminate their ideas and innovations. Therefore, ICTs have become the irreplaceable working tool for “knowledge organizations”, the function of which is to generate ideas, disseminate them and to share information and knowledge. In the field of agricultural development, FAO, international agricultural research centres, national agricultural research centres and NGOs have all become knowledge organizations by making available the fruits of their labour on the internet. Some economic or information services of government institutions do the same. In the private sector, various centres for studies and other think-tanks are also part of the institutional landscape of new ideas.

To my mind, when it comes to using ICTs to disseminate ideas in a constructive manner, young professionals will find the best conditions within these knowledge organizations. Indeed, web 2.0 tools (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) indeniably enable young people to express themselves and launch ideas but too often these innovations are launched in an independent manner, lacking the hindsight and relevance to respond to the problems of the real world. The comment functions of web 2.0 tools allow feedback on one’s ideas, but this feedback is not necessarily systematic nor constructive. On the other hand, in a knowledge organization, the whole institution is geared towards the creation of ideas or knowledge. Do the networks of colleagues that emerge within these organizations contribute to this innovation?

From my own experience, I have observed that young colleagues will often constitute their own network within the organization, within which ideas are exchanged and can evolve. One should note that this network can take a physical appearance as a group clustered around the coffee machine of the office or remain virtual when the organization has a global scale, such as FAO where officers are based all over the world. However, even more important than the network of young colleagues, I believe it is the benevolent mentoring by more experienced and older colleagues that brings a real value-added to the ideas of young professionals. To use YPARD’s terminology, the interaction of youth with mentors allows the ideas and innovations of the former to develop, be confronted to what may already exist or what has already been attempted. In particular, this interaction helps their ideas to become more relevant to respond to real problems: nothing beats field experience to understand the challenges faced by farmers.

In my current position at the Centre for Studies and Strategic Foresight (CEP) at the French Ministry in charge of agriculture, our main function is to disseminate knowledge, ideas and innovations that emerge from society – agrifood chain stakeholders and researchers – to our colleagues in other departments of the ministry. The work team is multidisciplinary and overall young, which facilitates informal exchanges of information and the use of ICTs. However, I particularly appreciate the role played at the CEP by the few older colleagues who remind us of the wheels that have already been invented or encourage us to develop our ideas by sharing their experimented and field-informed viewpoint.

I must admit that I have always been lucky, up to now, to get jobs within favourable working environments where more experienced colleagues were generally open to sharing their expertise with young professionals. I believe this benefits both parties. One colleague who just retired from CEP mentioned in his goodbye speech that he had particularly appreciated working with young colleagues who were filled with ideas and innovations so as to discuss his own ideas while also discovering ICTs.

The lesson I have learned from my short professional experience in knowledge organizations: the role of a benevolent mentor is fundamental to improve the production of ideas and innovations in young professionals. When this relationship is approached from both sides with the respect due to one’s liberty of opinion and a willingness to share, this interaction between young professionals and experimented mentors is beneficial for all. In the end, ICTs are only tools which improve this interaction and allow its resulting innovation to be disseminated.

Jo Cadilhon

NB: this blog has been cleared for circulation, yet does not represent the views of the French Ministry in charge of agriculture

Jo Cadilhon
Agro-economist – Governance and marketing chains
Centre for Studies and Strategic Foresight
French Ministry in charge of agriculture
http://agriculture.gouv.fr/centre-d-etudes-et-de-prospective 

Email : jo.cadilhon@agriculture.gouv.fr
 

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