Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

Since 9 July, we are in the SEED 2008-2009 Mentor Matching Cycle.
That is, the 85 Engineering mentoring program participants have
created their 15-name Mentor Wish Lists and I am in the process of contacting
the highest priority potentially available mentor for each of them.
In this first six days, 39% have been matched so far.
There are two terms being matched at the same time:

• September 2008 – September 2009 Recent Hire Term
  
  which already has 9 out of 23 matched
• September 2008 – March 2009 Established Staff Term
  
  which already has 24 out of 63 matched

It usually takes between one and six contacts to make a match. In time,
this requires six weeks to two months for the entire group.
SEED always matches everyone in the term eventually!

Besides the fun of communicating with some of the most talented and
interesting Engineers
in the world (SEED’s mentor and mentee population), I enjoy seeing who
links up. We track all sorts of patterns: gender, geographic location,
professional area, seniority, etc. Some trends are consistent from term
to term: about 2/3 of the mentor-mentee pairs will work at a distance
(that is, they will be widely separated by geography and time zones), very
few mentors will accept a mentee in their own management chain, more
women mentees will ask for women mentors, etc.

I send out a great deal of email during the mentor matching cycle. However,
I also get responses when I see potential mentors in the cafeteria or at
meetings. Some of their answers are very encouraging for Sun’s Engineering
Community even if they mean disappointment for the particular SEED participant
who has requested that mentor. “Can’t take on another SEED mentee – I am
still spending time with my mentee from last year. It worked out great!”
is a rejection I am happy to get.

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

From time to time, a SEED or PreSEED mentoring program participant (Mentor or Mentee)
will leave Sun during a current term through voluntary termination, a reduction in
force, or sadly, even through death. If possible, I hope that all who leave will
consider returning to Sun if their circumstances permit. We happily and regularly
reinstate SEED and PreSEED alumni as program participants when they return – just ask!

I have collected some resources which may be of help to new and old Sun Alumni:

• 
  Sun Microsystems Alumni Association
  The network is the people
• 
  Facebook has several Sun Alumni groups, including:
  The Sun Microsystems Alumni Group,
  Sun Alumni on fb, (& several others)
• 
  Linkedin has several Sun Alumni groups, including:
  SUNAlumni, (& several others)
• 
  Sun Alumni Blogs

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

Sun’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development

Greg Papadopoulos is again sponsoring Sun’s participation in the
American Heart Association –

Silicon Valley Heart Walk. See

Sun’s Heart Walk – Photos for more on Sun’s 2007 participation.

We kicked off our preparations with the first in a series of three
Heart Walk Talks, a presentation by
Dr. Jim Mitchell
called “Staying Alive and Younger Next Year”. Jim talked about heart issues,
health, aging, and hope based on his own life changing event a little over
six months ago.

Jim is a Sun Fellow and Vice President in Sun’s Chief Technology Organization where he is involved in the development of novel technologies for chip-to-chip communication and microelectronics packaging to enable very high performing, compact computer and electronic systems. Previously, he was Principal Investigator on Sun’s High Productivity Computing Systems Research project under contract with DARPA to develop the technologies to enable peta-scale supercomputers. Before HPCS, Jim was Vice President in charge of Sun Microsystems Laboratories. Read Jim’s

Contrarian Minds profile for more.

Yesterday at noon, we greeted each member of the audience with a gift: copies of
Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond
by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. Jim felt strongly enough about the excellence
of this book that he generously purchased both the men’s version
(# ISBN-10: 076114773X, # ISBN-13: 978-0761147732) and the women’s
version (# ISBN-10: 0761147748, # ISBN-13: 978-0761147749) to distribute to
yesterday’s audience. He says the book saved his life.

Jim’s talk began with me giving an introduction about why he would be a little
late, followed by Jim pounding on the door, then riding down the aisle of the
conference room in full gear on his racing bike. He talked about his recent scary
experience with open heart surgery and the changes he has made to improve his health
and lengthen his life. It was a moving and impressive presentation. Jim:

• Things I did:
• I paid attention to the “wakeup call”
• I read and paid attention to a book
• I began regular exercise
• I ate sensibly
• I rebalanced my priorities
• Things I did not do:
• I didn’t diet
• I didn’t become an exercise fanatic
• I didn’t stop working and having a passion for what I do

Jim’s Summary slide:

• Read Younger Next Year
Or, you can get an AudioBook version to listen to as you exercise
• Start walking
• Join me and other Sun people at the Heart Walk
• 2008 Start! Silicon Valley Heart Walk
• September 21, 2008
• De Anza College, Cupertino
• If you can’t walk on September 21, sponsor someone who is
• Anyone can do what I did
• No matter where you are now or what shape you are in
• It only matters that you start

Sun’s second Heart Walk Talk on 12 August will feature Dr. Cesar Molina
Medical Director of the
South Asian Heart Center.

Late yesterday, I announced the selection of the 86 participants in
the Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) mentoring program
for the 2008-2009 terms. The worldwide Sun-Engineering-wide selection
took months of work in preparation by the SEED program staff and our
partners in Sun Human Resources, plus the essential contributions of
the applicants, their managers, and the recommenders.

We very much appreciate the time and trouble that
everyone put into developing their SEED materials. Whether or not the
applicant got into SEED this time, I know it takes a great deal of work to
apply and the work is much appreciated! Thanks also to the SEED
Selection Committees for their time in reviewing and picking the new
participants!

Participants in the SEED program for the two terms which start in
September 2008 were chosen based on professional performance and
manager’s recommendation, with consideration given to the other
factors included in their applications. We picked two distinct groups
yesterday:

• 23 September 2008-September 2009 Recent Hires (12 month term)
• 63 September 2008-March 2009 Established Staff (6 months)

The next steps for new participants is to
create their 15-name Mentor Wish Lists and their personalized SEED
web pages (for potential mentor review). Here are some general
metrics on the new SEEDs:

Location of Participants
1 Australia, 1%
1 Canada, 1%
3 China, 3%
7 Czech Republic, 8%
1 Finland, 1%
1 France, 1%
2 Germany, 2%
5 India, 6%
2 Ireland, 2%
1 Israel, 1%
4 Italy, 5%
2 Japan, 2%
1 New Zealand, 1%
1 Russia, 1%
3 Spain, 3%
1 Sweden, 1%
2 Switzerland, 2%
4 UK, 5%
42 USA, 49%
7 Central USA, 8%
7 Eastern USA, 8%
28 Western USA, 33%
Division of Participants
4 CTO/Sun Labs, 5%
1 Marketing, 1%
10 Microelectronics, 12%
20 Sales & Services, 23%
34 Software Group, 40%
5 Storage Group, 6%
4 Systems Group, 5%
5 Worldwide Operations, 5%

Tanya Jankot and I have been answering happy emails (“I’m so happy to be a SEED participant. Thanks for your kind advice and great help!”),
frustrated emails (“Need answers please!”), and requests for more
information (“How come xxxxx didn’t make it into the SEED program?
Can you give me a call?”), or all three (“I am ecstatic that two of
my direct reports, xxxxx (new hire) and xxxxx (established staff), made
it through. However, I’m very disappointed that xxxxx, a star performer
in my group, did not make it. I would definitely like to talk to you to understand the rationale for his not making it so that we can keep that
in mind for future applications.”) from applicants, managers, and
recommenders. Lots and lots of emails…

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

Since the 9 June deadline, Tanya Jankot and I have worked with Sun’s Human
Resources records to review the 169 SEED applications which were submitted on
time. 121 of the 169 were complete and verified by HR. Yesterday, I passed the
27 eligible Recent Hire (RH) applications to the 2008-2009 executive Selection Committee
for review. The Recent Hire and Established Staff selections will
be made and announced on 18 June.

There is a wide seniority range among the RH applicants: from Sun
Grade 5 (Member of the Technical Staff 2) through Grade 13 (Director). This term,
SEED has modified is scope and welcomed acquired staff as RH
candidates within 9 months of their acquisition date.

The job of the RH Selection Committee is to sort the applications assigned to
each of them into L-Low, M-Medium, or H-High buckets. Giving someone a H-High
rating means that in the Selection Committee member’s opinion, that person has
a good potential over time to rise to the top of Sun Engineering’s individual
contributor or management ranks.

Why not accept them all? Because we have unfortunately found in prior
terms that just meeting the basic SEED criteria does not mean an
applicant can be expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering’s
individual contributor or management ranks. If I am going to ask
senior or executive Sun staff to accept a SEED mentee and spend a year
coaching them, the mentee should be a rising star with potential for
notable success in Sun Engineering.

Each SEED application is read independently
by at least two Selection Committee members. Each member ends up reading about
the same number of applications. The discussions are often around differences
of interpretation (usually for an Applicant rated High by one and Low by
another) and around how many Medium/Mediums to include to achieve an
appropriate level of diversity among the Participants. Diversity is considered
in terms of demographics, geographic work location, and professional area
within Engineering (software, microelectronics, labs, storage, etc.).
So long as they have one or more Medium/Medium (or higher) ranked Applicants,
every Sun division gets at least one Applicant accepted.

After the selections are announced on 18 June, I will not tell RH applicants what
rating they got (H, M, or L). However, I will tell their managers their staff member’s rating if the manager calls to talk about it. I will not tell anyone
who on the Selection Committee gave which rating. Some terms, 30 or more managers call to get specific information on the case of their staff members. I will not
refer any managers to the Selection Committee.

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