Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

There have been 24 applications so far to SEED’s 4-Site Engineering mentoring term. 7 are complete – meaning the basic materials (application form,
resume, and manager’s recommendation letter) are all in. Applications are due between 1-14 March from Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg.
So far, there have been:

• By Sun Organization:
  • Software Group: 22 [ 92% ]
  • Systems Group: 1 [ 4% ]
  • Worldwide Operations: 1 [ 4% ]
• By Work Location:
  • Bangalore, India: 10 [ 42% ]
  • Beijing, China: 9 [ 38% ]
  • Prague, Czech Republic: 3 [ 12% ]
  • St. Petersburg, Russia: 2 [ 8% ]

The Selection Committee (including executives from each of
the target sites) meets on 22 March; the selection announcements
will go out that day.

There have been 11 applications so far to SEED’s 4-Site Engineering
mentoring term. Applications are due between 1-14 March from
Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. So far, there
have been:

• 3 applications from Bangalore, India
• 6 from Beijing, China
• 2 from St. Petersburg, Russia
• 0 from Prague, Czech Republic

I have already given two in-person presentations here in Bangalore
plus one worldwide call-in meeting. There is another call-in meeting
on 13 March. Details about the
calls and the presentation materials are on the 4-Site web page.
Participation in these meetings and calls is not mandatory for
applicants and no one keeps track of who attends.

In parallel with the 4-Site term application period, I am also continuing
to match two very senior terms: SEED-2 (for alumni SEED participants who wanted a subsequent mentoring partnership), and the Distinguished Engineer (DE) term. The DE term is for a group of newly promoted DEs to work with more experienced DEs.
8 of the eleven new Distinguished Engineers have now been matched with DE-mentors.
7 of the ten SEED-2 alumni participants have also been matched with mentors.

There have been 7 applications so far to SEED’s 4-Site Engineering
mentoring term. Applications are due between 1-14 March from
Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. So far, there
have been:

• 2 applications from Bangalore, India
• 4 from Beijing, China
• 1 from St. Petersburg, Russia

I have already given a presentation to the managers here in Bangalore and
I think I am giving an All-Engineering presentation on Monday as
well (although I did not see the announcement go out). In addition,
I will have 2 phone-in meetings for all potential applicants and
their managers, on the 6th and 13th of March. Details about the
calls and the presentation materials are on the 4-Site web page.
Participation in these meetings and calls is not mandatory for
applicants and no one keeps track of who attends.

I am getting a good many questions from prior SEED applicants
on whether they should apply again. In general, since SEED gives
credit for persistence, I do recommend applying again. Since parts of the
application material are confidential (recommendation letters for example),
I am happy to give feedback only to the manager about a prior application.
The manager can then coach their staff member directly. I can give applicants an evaluation of whether
they are eligible to apply but only a guess as to their chances of being accepted. Until all the applications are in, I don’t know what the
competition looks like.

Greg Papadopoulos (Sun’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice
President of Research and Development) yesterday sent out the email announcement
on the most recent SEED Engineering mentoring term. Greg has been the
executive sponsor for the Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development
program since it started in 2001.

The new “4-Site” term is for Sun Engineering Staff in
Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg.
I am working here in Bangalore so that I can answer questions from
the staff at this and the other 3 sites during the 1-14 March application
period. I give my first formal presentation to the IEC (India Engineering
Centre) managers tomorrow morning. There will also be two formal
phone-in meetings (on 6 March and on 13 March) during which Tanya Jankot
and I will answer questions from potential applicants and their managers.

SEED is now running 6 mentoring terms:

1. 4-Site Term (June-December 2007) application period starts tomorrow
2. Distinguished Engineer Mentoring Pilot (March – September 2007)
   in mentor matching cycle

3. SEED-2 Program for SEED Alumni Participants (March – September 2007)
   in mentor matching cycle

4. Established Staff Participants (January – June 2007)
5. Recent Hire Staff Participants (September 2006 – September 2007)
6. Established Staff Participants (September 2006 – March 2007)
   ending soon

This is as many terms as SEED can run at the same time with its current
structure. Hand-matching participants and executive mentors is limited by the
number of executives available at any time. Also, very senior participants (and the very senior potential mentors they require) often take longer to match.
The more terms SEED offers for senior staff (Established Staff, DEs, SEED-2),
the longer the matching cycle and potentially the fewer terms offered.

When we went to the Sun office at Divyasree Chambers this afternoon,
everything just worked: our access badges got us past the guards and
the electronic doors, and my Sun Ray card brought up my home environment
and current email session immediately. It was especially pleasant
to have so many people I know come by to visit on our
first day in Bangalore.

Except for the polite-but-very-pushy airport porters, the local people
with whom we have spoken have been very friendly and helpful. My
ignorance of the complexities of Indian culture, language, and religion
is largely pristine but I am working to learn a little.

Business hotels try to reduce the inefficiencies and disorientation
of travel by being mostly the same from place
to place: making a cocoon of dull consistency despite all of the local
differences. The hotel rooms that John and I stayed in while in Beijing and
St. Petersburg have much in common with this one in
Bangalore. Some of what is different here:

• Intermittent power failures (about a minute each every hour or so)
• Intermittent web access (five or more “Save as Draft” attempts for
  every actual blog save)

• Large numbers of hotel desk and door staff, all speaking good
  English and all wanting to help

• Wrapped plate of cookies and chocolates on the desk
• Bright and ugly original pallet knife paintings rather than
  ignorable prints for decoration

• A large amount of counter space given over to food and drink:
  hot water pot, tea cups, glasses (on the counter and still more in a
  drawer), hotel food and alcohol displayed for sale on special shelves, etc.

• Almost no drawer or shelf space (we have to use our suitcases as
  drawers)

• A strange freestanding metal and hanging pocket piece of furniture
  which I think is for storing magazines (we are using it as a rack for
  the hotel bathrobe which was taking up too much closet space)

• Local cooking influencing standard dishes. Tonight, we were too tired to
  go out for dinner so we ate in the hotel. They were offering their
  version of an Italian menu. John had Chicken Tikka pizza and I had
  spaghetti pomodoro with a distinct taste of curry in the marinara sauce.
  It was a good fusion.

Now that we have settled in a bit, we need a local bank to
accept our ATM cards. We talked with our home bank before we came
but still none of our cards work here.

One of the books on India I enjoyed reading most was Traveller’s
Tales: India, True Stories (Edited by James O’Reilly and
Larry Habegger, ISBN-13: 978-193236101-4, Traveller’s Tales, 2004).
This is part of a book series offering excerpts of stories and
commentary from a wide variety of experiences and points of view.
Some of the section titles:

“A Bath for Fifteen Million People” by David Yeadon

“Hobson-Jobson” by Salman Rushdie

“Worshipping the Wicket” by John Ward Anderson

“A Vision of Vijayanagar” by Jan Haag

“Lost and Found in Agra” by Joel Simon

“Shalom, Bombay” by Fredda Rosen

“In the Ladies’ Compartment” by Thalia Zepatos

“Shifting Gears on the Grand Trunk Road” by Steve Coll

John and I arrived in Bangalore, India, very early this morning after
two uneventful flights (San Francisco-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Bangalore).
The flight to Frankfurt showed Hollywood movies but the screen
on the United 747 was so far away we could not see a thing. The Lufthansa
flight to Bangalore showed Bollywood movies fraught with romance,
followed by Mickey Mouse cartoons. I haven’t seen many Bollywood
movies but they remind me of early Shakespeare comedies, particularly
of Comedy of Errors. In the Bollywood movies I have seen,
the emotions are simple, the plots complex,
and there are great opportunities for staging, costumes, and sets.

Our hotel is pleasant but even on the 6th floor, we can hear the
incessant beep-beep-beep of the cars in the busy street below. The 3
wheeled yellow auto rickshaws are particularly noticeable as they dart
between the cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles, and busses. There are
relatively few pedestrians. Even in the middle of the night coming in from
the airport, the driver beeped constantly at the mostly empty street.

We are catching up on our email in the hotel before going into work.
The plug adapter we brought from home broke immediately so we borrowed
one from the hotel. We had to ask the guy who cleaned our room how
to get the electrical plug into the wall socket (you stick something in
the ground pin hole to move the cover away). Wanting to use two laptops in
one room surprised the hotel but they adapted (and charged double).

I was here in Bangalore 3 years ago at a different hotel but both
served extensive and varied breakfasts as part of the regular rate. Since
we will be here for several weeks, we will get to try everything on the
menu. Today, John asked for a masala dosa with sambar (spicy vegetable
soup), and cocoanut and tomato chutney. It was very good.

The SEED Engineering mentoring program here at Sun is currently matching two very senior terms: SEED-2 (for alumni SEED participants who wanted a subsequent mentoring partnership), and the Distinguished Engineer (DE) term. The DE term is for a group of newly promoted DEs to work with more experienced DEs.

7 of the new Distinguished Engineers have now been matched with DE-mentors.
I have 4 more to match. 5 of the SEED-2 alumni participants have also been matched
with mentors. 5 to go in that term. It is harder and takes longer to match
very senior staff since they need to be paired with the most senior executives.
I will continue to work on matching
these terms while kicking off the application period for the SEED 4-Site Term (for Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg) this week from India.