Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

Paul’s Halloween mask

Jack-o’-lantern lights, glass squash

Mexican Skeleton Lady

I’m delighted to announce that Sun’s new worldwide Engineering-wide
PreSEED mentoring program is now accepting applications. PreSEED is a
mentoring program aimed at helping Engineering staff in the Member of
the Technical
Staff job family (grade 5 to 9, MTS-2 to MTS-4 equivalents) who have
been getting almost all “Sun Standard” annual performance ratings onto a
path which may lead them to higher engagement.

PreSEED and SEED?

One way to think of PreSEED is as a preliminary to the successful SEED
Engineering mentoring program. The PreSEED and SEED program take a broad
definition of Engineering. PreSEED alumni are welcome to apply to the
SEED program. Since 2001, the CTO-sponsored SEED program has a proven
track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by
management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more
promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual
experiences will vary.

Sponsor? Schedule?


Greg Papadopoulos (Sun CTO and EVP) sponsors the PreSEED and SEED
worldwide mentoring program. This PreSEED term will run from January –
June 2009. Applications will be accepted starting now (Halloween,
31 October 2008). Application materials should be submitted as soon
as possible. The application period will close on 14 November 2008 at
12 p.m. (Noon) California Time, or as soon as 100 complete applications
are received.

PreSEED’s General Selection Criteria:

1. All participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be
   a 2 (“Sun Standard”) or better.
4. Manager support is required.

What about GSS?

Global Sales and Service (GSS) worldwide Engineering or technical staff
at the principal level (US Grade 10 to 12, or non-US equivalent) or above –
by 7 November, please consider applying to the new GSS SEED Mentoring
Pilot Program sponsored by

Peter Ryan, Sun’s Executive Vice President, GSS, and

Hal Stern, GSS Distinguished Engineer and Senior Vice President, and
12-time SEED mentor. GSS worldwide Engineering or technical staff with jobs
equivalent to MTS-2 to MTS-4, in job grades 5 to 9, are welcome to consider
PreSEED. For more, see my blog:
October 22, 2008.

Become a Mentor?

Mentors must be the global equivalent of U.S. job grade level 10 (Staff Engineer) through Senior VP. PreSEED Mentors are in grades 10 to 12 only
(not yet executive level). SEED and PreSEED Mentors can come from any
part of Sun, not just Engineering.

More?

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program
is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Peter Ryan, Sun’s Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services
(GSS), just sent out the long-awaited announcement for SEED’s newest pilot
mentoring term. This term was specifically created for worldwide Engineering and Technical staff in the GSS division. Some of the GSS pilot Selection Criteria and Scope are unique to this term; some are the same as for a regular SEED term.

Hal Stern, GSS Distinguished Engineer and Senior Vice President, and 12-time
SEED mentor is co-sponsoring this pilot term with Peter. Sun’s CTO and EVP

Greg Papadopoulos has been SEED’s executive sponsor since 2001.

GSS Pilot Term Dates

This new SEED Pilot Program will run from January – June 2009. Applications will be accepted starting 27 October 2008. All application materials are due 7 November 2008.
Potential program applicants should read and think about the program and talk
with their managers between now and when the application forms open on 27 October 2008.

SEED’s General Selection Criteria:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
4. Manager support is required.

There are additional criteria specific to this term – see the SunWeb
GSS SEED term home page for details.

Why should I apply?

The SEED program works with you to increase your value to Sun and your satisfaction with Sun, and thus the likelihood that you will become an even more productive and recognized contributor. By linking you with an appropriate mentor and exposing you to the prominent talent in Sun, the program will help you broaden your skills, and increase your connections to the Engineering community as well as to the rest of Sun. One of the long term effects of SEED should be a larger pool of diverse talent for Sun to draw on for the highest technical and management positions. This should result in a more varied and valuable set of solutions to the difficult problems before us as a company.

In most SEED mentoring terms, over 70% of Mentors are executives: Vice Presidents, Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, Principal Engineers or Directors. (In the 2008-2009 Established Staff term, 84% of the Mentors were executives.) Since 2001, the SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual experiences will vary. GSS staff have participated in the regular all-Engineering worldwide SEED mentoring program since 2002.

More?

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program
is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/

The SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is holding its annual in-person
event yesterday and today in Menlo Park, California. I wrote about our preparations
on
8 August 2008. Over 90 people from all over the world are registered to
participate in person and by phone. Last night, over 30 people attended the
SEED dinner. Here is the first SEED Event group photo with
Greg:

Executive speakers for the SEED Event include:

• 
  Dr. Greg Papadopoulos,
  Chief Technology Officer and
  Executive Vice President of Research and Development –
  SEED’s executive sponsor!
• 
  Mike Lehman,
  Chief Financial Officer and EVP of Corporate Resources
• 
  Aisling MacRunnels,
  Senior Vice President of Software Marketing
• 
  Dr. Ron Ho,
  Distinguished Engineer, VLSI Research Project, Sun Labs
• 
  Dean Nelson,
  Senior Director, Global Lab & Datacenter Design Services

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program
is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Image Copyright 2008 John Plocher

Today was the Silicon Valley Heart Walk 2008 at De Anza College in Cupertino,
CA. We gave away red squeezy hearts and pedometers at the Sun booth.
Other booths were distributing water bottles, magnets, juice, energy bars,
fans, blinking heart lights and other theme giveaways.

I have been working with Sheri Kaneshiro coordinating the Heart Walk
fundraiser for Sun Microsystems on behalf of our sponsor

Greg Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice
President of Research and Development. We have been recruiting walkers and
donors from both inside and outside of Sun. Even though the walk
is over, you can still make a donation through the

Company Page of Sun Microsystems. If you work for Sun, you can
join the group donation match request.

Some photos of Sun from today’s walk:

John, Harsh, Paul at Sun’s Booth

Heart Walk 2008

Greg, Katy, Paul at Sun’s Booth

Greg and Sun Heart

Sheri

On the Heart Walk

On the Heart Walk

Sun’s Sign on the Walk

Charles and Danny at Sun’s Booth

Balloon Clown

Images Copyright 2008 Katy Dickinson

2008 Start! Silicon Valley Heart Walk

September 21, 2008

De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

I am coordinating the Heart Walk effort for Sun Microsystems on behalf
of our sponsor

Greg Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice
President of Research and Development. I hope to recruit walkers and
donors from both inside and outside of Sun. Please consider walking
with us this Sunday (meet at 8 am at the Sun booth), sponsoring a walker,
or making a donation through the

Company Page of Sun Microsystems.

Click here for
Event Information. You can also find information on:

Sun’s Heart Walk page on Facebook.

“Since 1924, the American Heart Association has helped protect people of
all ages and ethnicities from the ravages of heart disease and stroke.
These diseases, the Nation’s No.1 and No.3 killers, claim more than
910,000 American lives a year. The association invested more than $543
million in fiscal year 2005-06 for research, professional and public
education, and advocacy so people across America can live stronger,
longer lives.”

Some photos from Sun in the Silicon Valley Heart Walk 2007:

Sun Heartwalkers 2007

Sun Labs Walkers

Littlest Heartwalker

Images Copyright 2007 by Sheri Kaneshiro, John Plocher

Last week I was in a new class for Sun Directors and
Vice Presidents. The class is called “Leadership Connections”.
See my
September 05, 2008 blog entry for what it took to prepare for this
class.

“Leadership Connections” was challenging, hard work, and very interesting. There were
over 100 Sun Directors from all over the world and every professional area
split into 16 teams, each with a VP advisor. The teams competed in running
simulated companies for three days (or three years in the life of each company).
We had to create a strategy and then modify our company numbers to support it.
There were screens for each of the major Engineering areas, Sales, Service, etc.
with maybe 100 fields we could modify. How many in the salesforce? How many
software vs. systems Engineers? What kind of prices and discounts would we offer?
Which companies would we bid to acquire? We took turns being keyboard jockeys for
the laptop running the simulation. Every morning each team was presented with
the financial and competitive results of the prior day’s decisions and the
companies were ranked in order of their success.

We named the company for our team of six Eclipse. Eclipse included staff from Sales,
Service, Finance, and Marketing in addition to me. I got to be Chief Engineer (only in a
simulation!). Out of the four Red World companies, Eclipse came in 3rd the first day,
4th the second day, and 2nd the final day. That is, we did not win but
we competed well and improved. On the last day, each of the 16 teams presented
their strategy and results to a member of the Executive Leadership Team (CEO’s
staff). After the presentations, the winners in the Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green worlds
competed for overall winner.

In addition to the company simulations, we discussed team communications, played games,
built a product, and ate too much. There were three panels of Vice Presidents
for us to question, plus a talk by Sun’s CEO and President,
Jonathan Schwartz.

On the morning of 11 September, we stopped for a minute of silence to honor the memory
of Sun Director Phil
Rosenzweig, who was among the victims killed in the crash of American Airlines
Flight 11 at the World Trade Center in New York City seven years ago.

The best part of the class was getting to know some of the extremely capable people with
whom I have worked for years without actually meeting. Also, it was great fun to learn
which Director wears socks patterned with baseballs and which Distinguished Engineer
is amazingly good playing Guitar Hero. Here
are some photos from “Leadership Connections”:

Eclipse Team

Mary and me

Executive Leadership Team panel

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Welcome and Congratulations to the 84 New Mentoring Pairs
of SEED’s September 2008 – September 2009 Recent Hire Term (23) and
the September 2008 – March 2009 Established Staff Term (61):
we are honored and delighted to include them in Sun’s worldwide
Engineering mentoring program!

These terms had a 57 day matching cycle (9 July – 4 September 2008).
76% were matched in the first 14 days. Some additional metrics:

• Executive Mentors
• Recent Hire Term: 5 Vice Presidents or Fellows (22%), 10 Distinguished
  Engineers or Directors (43%), and 8 other titles (35%). 65% executive mentors
• Established Staff Term: 17 Vice Presidents or Fellows (28%), 34 Distinguished
  Engineers or Directors (56%), and 10 other titles (16%). 84% executive mentors
• Local vs. Distant
• Recent Hire Term: 5 mentoring partners working locally (22%), 18
  working at a distance – in another state or country (78%)
• Established Staff Term: 14 mentoring partners working locally (23%), 47
  working at a distance – in another state or country (77%)
• Meeting Priorities
• 77% of mentees were matched with one of their top four mentor requests
• 54 mentees were matched with their 1st or 2nd priority mentor (64%)
• 11 mentees were matched with their 3rd or 4th priority mentor (13%)
• 19 mentees were matched with a mentor lower than 4th in priority (23%)

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program
is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/