Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

We will be running a SEED mentoring term application period while I
am working from Bangalore, India 1-14 March. Tanya Jankot has been testing the
web application forms and I am reviewing SEED’s Application FAQ this afternoon.

We have also set up times for two phone-in meetings for Sun applicants from
all four target Engineering sites: Prague, Beijing, St. Petersburg, and Bangalore.

The World Clock Meeting Planner has been of great help. There is no time which
is convenient for everyone and most of the USA is going through a daylight
savings time shift on 11 March, so schedules are particularly complex. I am
thinking of setting up SEED question and answer calls for:

• 6 March (Tuesday) 10 a.m. Bangalore time
  
  (=8:30 p.m. California, =12:30 p.m. Beijing, =5:30 a.m. Prague,
  =7:30 a.m. St.Petersburg)

• 13 March (Tuesday) 9:30 p.m. Bangalore time
  
  (=9 a.m. California time, =midnight Beijing time, =5 p.m. Prague,
  =7 p.m. St.Petersburg)

My husband, John Plocher, who manages the process and tools for Sun’s
Architectural Review Committees
will also be working from Sun’s India Engineering Center. We got our visas, hotel
reservations and plane tickets, and are both setting up our secondary electronic
accounts, requesting Sun Bangalore building access upgrades, arranging for office
assignments during our stay, and otherwise trying to make the transition to working
in India easier. In addition to work, John and I plan to go
railfanning while in India and
we hope to visit some model train clubs and layouts as well. We are in an interesting
email discussion with IRFCA (Indian Railways Fan
Club) members now.

John and I visited the
Travel Medicine department at our clinic several weeks ago and got punctuated.
That is, we brought our immunizations up to date. Our clinic has a very helpful
online service which provides summaries of visits and tests and lets us request
appointments and renew prescriptions online. I can chart life events by looking at
the dates of my immunizations: Typhoid and Hepatitis B to go to India in 2004,
Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis (Tdap) after the Whooping Cough outbreak at my
son’s school this year, etc.

We are also reading travel and background books. The best train travel web site
we have found is The Man in Seat Sixty-One.
The India page of that site
recommended reading the Lonely Planet guide,
Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, and Peter Hopkirk’s Quest for Kim. I think
I have read Kim at least a dozen times so I am having a lovely time
reading Quest for Kim (which describes the people, places, and history
of that most famous adventure novel).

I have my little wooden
pillar of Ashoka on my desk to remind me of India itself as I manage my
way through the details of getting there. Soon, we actually start to pack!

Here are publications, articles, and announcements in the public
press and on the open web about the SEED program. (I just updated the
internal-to-Sun SEED web pages so I will include the information here too.)
I have included live links where I could find them. There may be more
articles but I don’t know about them…

2007

• Ida Abbott Consulting
  Management Solutions Issue 17, Winter 2007
  
  “Best Practices – Proving the Value of Mentoring”
  profiles SEED

2006

• 
  “Success Metrics from Mentoring by the Numbers”
  Silicon Valley Chapter – Project Management Institute,
  description of talk by Katy Dickinson, December 14, 2006

• 
  “Mentoring for Employee Development”
  National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)
  Social Scientists picked SEED among Promising Practices
  as the Case Study in this report, 2006 (2 pages, PDF format)

• 
  “Mentors can help women shatter glass ceiling – Senior colleagues can toot
  your horn, bringing you money and power”
  By Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC contributor, Nov 19, 2006
  (there is a mentoring quote by me on the 2nd page)

• 
  “20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry”
  By Dan Tynan, October 16, 2006, InfoWorld
  (SEED is part of “10. Find Your Yoda”)

• “5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers”
  4-7 October 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and
  Computing, San Diego
  
  Program Schedule for GHC Session 1 – Thursday, October 5, 2006
  
  
  “5 Years of Executive Mentoring” TechLeaders – Building and
  Sustaining Change in Technology Cultures: Showcasing What Works
  (October 4, 2006, San Diego, CA)

• Information Week in Israel, 28 Feb 2006 (in Hebrew,
  with a photo)

2005

• 
  “Outsourcing is essential for survival of companies” (SEED is
  mentioned), interview with Crawford W Beveridge, Executive
  Vice President (People & Places) and Chief Human Resource Officer interview,
  Deccan Herald > Economy & Business > Detailed Story,
  April 11, 2005

2004 and earlier

• “Bit by
  Bit: Mentoring & Practical Approaches to Advancing Women in High Tech”
  Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
  (“GHC 2004”) Moderator: Katy Dickinson, Sun Microsystems, SEED
  Program (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development)
  7 October 2004

• 
  Rhonda Holt (VP of Grid Engineering Program Office) interview,
  DiversitySearch – Up Close & Virtual Interviews,
  2004 (mentions SEED)

• “SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development”
  Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication
  in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic
  Publication Date : 17 May 2004 10:45,

• 
  “Nurturing a Culture of Innovation” Express Computer
  May 2004 article on SEED program and participants in India
  Engineering Center (IEC) in Bangalore

• “Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters
  Growth New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior
  Staff Mentors” Paragon Pinnacles > Volume 73 > Issue 3 > Sun Features >
  (March 15, 2004, Article #12480, Volume 73, Issue 3)

• “Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters
  Growth – New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior Staff
  Mentors” Sun System News, March 15, 2004, Article #12480,
  Volume 73, Issue 3

• 
  “Tapping into the Knowledge Network” http://www.sun.com article on
  SEED, 18 Feb 2004 [was featured on both the http://www.sun.com and
  research.sun.com home pages]

• “Sun (SEED) program pairs college recruits with senior
  engineering mentors, 23 Feb 2004 link to
  
  “Tapping into the Knowledge Network” http://www.sun.com article
  from LSTN
  (Learning & Teaching Support Network for Engineering section on
  “UK & World Media News”- now
  called The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre)

• 
  “Mentoring and Being Mentored on the Technology Track”
  By Carla King, published on “developers.sun.com –
  The Source for Developers”, 2003 [Now called Sun Developer Network or SDN]

• Bit by Bit: Catalyst’s Guide to Advancing Women in High
  Tech Companies, SEED is the featured case study in
  the “Use Mentoring and Networks to Win” section (page 106), book
  published by Catalyst, 2003,
  ISBN 0-89584-243-2

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.

Both are pilots: experimental terms. I have matched five pairs out of the two
terms so far: 3 mentor DEs with 3 mentee DEs, and two Vice Presidents with
SEED-2 participants. I hope to get all 21 participants matched before I
go to Bangalore, India at the end of this month to run the SEED 4-Site Term
(for Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg).

All 49 of the SEED participants in the 2007 Established Staff Term of the
SEED Engineering mentoring program are now matched with mentors.

Seniority

73% of the mentors (36 count) are executives:

14 Vice Presidents (including 1 Fellow)

12 Directors

10 Distinguished Engineers

Since this is an Established Staff term, all participants are
Principal level or are even more senior, and all have been
with Sun Engineering as regular staff for over 2 years.

Mentors

• 6 SEED Alumni Returning as Mentors (12%)
• 22 Mentors are serving for the 1st time with SEED (45%)
  
  11 Mentors are in their 2nd time (22%)
  
  10 Star Mentors are in their 3rd or 4th time (20%)
  
  6 Superstar Mentors are in their 5th or higher SEED term

Location*

• 31 mentoring pairs are at a distance (63%)
• 18 work in the same area or the same town (37%)

* In the December 2006 SEED quarterly reports, as in prior reports,
analysis does not show significant difference in responses to “Q15 Overall
Worth of Meetings with Mentor” and “Q24 Overall Satisfaction with Program”
between participants At-a-Distance from their mentor and those co-located
with their mentor. In this quarter, the difference in reported satisfaction
was 5% between the two groups for Q15, 2% for Q24. This is a positive
indication that SEED mentoring partnerships are beneficial to participants
whether or not the mentoring pair is able to meet in person.

Priority

80% of participants (39 count) were matched with one of their
top four priority choices on their Mentor Wish List:
26 with #1 or #2

13 with #3 or #4

10 with someone at #5 or lower in priority

In most SEED terms, 80% or more of participants are matched with
one of their top four mentor choices.

Cycle Time

• Matching started on 11 December 2006 and ended 1 February 2007:
  a 52 day cycle

• Specifically:
  
  24 November 2006 – 2007 Established Staff Term applications were due
  
  28 November – 49 participants were selected
  
  11 December – first 49 invitations to mentors out in email
  
  14 December – 15 matched (31%)
  
  18 December – 26 matched (53%)
  
  25 December – 37 matched (76%)
  
  1 January 2007 – 37 matched (76%)
  
  8 January – 44 matched (90%)
  
  15 January – 47 matched (96%)
  
  1 February – 49 matched (100%)

Gender

• Gender of Participants
  
  37 Male, 75%
  
  12 Female, 25%

• Gender of Mentors
  
  39 Male, 80%
  
  10 Female, 20%

The SEED Engineering mentoring program has been working through old and new
business the last few weeks. We have been matching the last few participants
in the 2007 Established Staff term, rematching a participant from the 2006-2007
Established Staff term whose mentor left Sun, accepting applications
for the SEED-2 alumni term (which runs March-September 2007), and preparing for a
new term which will open for applications in March 2007.

SEED-2 is an experimental term (pilot) to see how it would benefit SEED participants
who entered the program some time ago to be matched with a subsequent official SEED
mentor. SEED was asked to run such a term many times over the years. However, when
we opened the term, we were surprised when only ten people applied. We had been
prepared to accept up to 25 participants but, after verifying application information with HR, we accepted all 10 alumni participants. This group is remarkable for its
accomplishments (7 of them got two or three perfect annual perfomance ratings in
the last three years) and seniority. 4 of them have already served as SEED
mentors. It will be a pleasure to work with them. The SEED-2 group is putting
together their Mentor Wish Lists now (due on 5 February). Here are some of their diversity patterns:

• Location of Participants
  • Central USA: 1 [ 10% ]
  • Eastern USA: 1 [ 10% ]
  • India: 2 [ 20% ]
  • Western USA: 6 [ 60% ]
• Division of Participants
  • CTO/Sun Labs: 2 [ 20% ]
  • Software Group: 6 [ 60% ]
  • Sun Services: 1 [ 10% ]
  • Worldwide Operations: 1 [ 10% ]
• Gender of Participants
  • female: 2 [ 20% ]
  • male: 8 [ 80% ]

We have also been preparing for SEED’s next international term. The “SEED 4-Site
Term” will benefit four Sun Engineering sites outside the United States: Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, & St. Petersburg. This is the 6th pilot term SEED has offered.
The SEED program from time to time creates one or more pilot terms for which the
rules and process are somewhat different from the regular worldwide all-Engineering
program. These pilot terms serve two functions:

1. Test a new rule or process to see if it
   should be rolled into the regular program.
   (This is how the Established
   Staff part of SEED was created in 2002.)

2. Focus on a particular group in which we want
   to build a critical mass (or supportive network) of
   SEED participants.

In order to run a SEED pilot, we need an Engineering base population of at least
300 to pull from. Experience has shown that a group smaller than 300 will not
have enough rising stars and superstars to make up a SEED term. The six pilots
so far have been:

1. The India Engineering Center (IEC): 2005
2. The Sun China Engineering & Research Institute (SCERI): 2005
3. Europe and the Middle East (EMEA) two groups: 2006
   
   Dublin-Grenoble-Hamburg-Prague, and St.Petersburg-Tel Aviv

4. Legacy StorageTek: 2006
   
   for Former StorageTek Engineering staff acquired by Sun

5. SEED-2 Worldwide Program (for SEED Alumni): 2007
6. 4-Site Term: Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, St. Petersburg: 2007

I have visited most of the target sites during the application period when SEED
has run a term focussed on Engineering staff outside of the USA. In 2004, I
visited Bangalore, India. In 2005, I visited Beijing (China), Prague (Czech Republic),
and Hamburg (Germany). Tanya Jankot also visited Dublin (Ireland) and Grenoble
(France) on behalf of SEED in 2005. In 2006, I visited St. Petersburg (Russia) and
Tel Aviv (Israel). In March 2007, I will be in Bangalore again during the 4-Site
application period. I am looking forward to talking with as many of the Engineering
staff in Bangalore as I can fit in.

My husband, John Plocher, who manages the process and tools for Sun’s
Architectural Review Committees
will be able to travel with me again. John was also able to work from the Engineering
sites at Beijing, St. Petersburg, and Tel Aviv when I was there on SEED business.
We also hope to be able to do some weekend travelling in India.

We only have five more SEED Engineering mentoring participants
to match in the 15 January – 15 June 2007 Established Staff
term. So far:

• 24 November 2006 – applications were due
• 28 November – 49 participants were selected
• 11 December – first 49 invitations to mentors out in email
• 14 December – 15 matched (31%)
• 18 December – 26 matched (53%)
• 25 December – 37 matched (76%)
• 1 January – 37 matched (76%)
• 8 January – 44 matched (90%)

I just announced the SEED-2 term as well. This is an experimental term (pilot) to see how it would benefit SEED participants who entered the program some time ago to be matched with a subsequent official SEED mentor. SEED-2 will run March – September 2007. We already have two applications in, all materials are due by 19 January 2007.

We started the mentor matching cycle on 11 December and as of today,
39 out of 49 participants are matched:

• 24 Nov 2006 – Application period ended
• 28 Nov – 49 SEED Participants Selected
• 11 December – first 49 invitations to mentors out in email
• 14 December – 15 matched (31%)
• 18 December – 26 matched (53%)
• 25 December – 37 matched (76%)
• 1 January 2007 – 37 matched (76%)

Nothing much happened during Sun’s winter break week but two potential
mentors whom I contacted before Christmas agreed to accept a match today.
Quite a few of the other potential mentors are still out on vacation but
I hope to hear from more this week.

So far, we have 10 Vice Presidents or Fellows and 18 Directors or Distinguished
Engineers matched this term. Most of the mentors are in California (from
San Diego to San Francisco) but there are some based in other states (4 in Colorado,
1 in Massachusetts, 1 in Illinois, and 1 in New Mexico) and countries
(1 in the UK, 1 in Germany, 1 in France, and 3 in China). They represent
a wide diversity professional areas: Software, Systems,
Service, Marketing, Finance, Labs, Business Planning, Sales, etc.

The SEED Engineering mentoring program has 3 priorities:

• Increase the value, satisfaction, and retention of program Participants and their Mentors.
• Build Sun’s Engineering community by making and strengthening connections between its members and with the rest of Sun.
• Work to balance the diversity of Participants in terms of demographics, professional area, and geographic location.

This term is looking very strong so far in building connections between
professional areas and in having a good diverse balance. In about three months,
we will send out our first quarterly survey to this group and see what they
say about their satisfaction. Next summer, after Sun’s annual focal
reviews are complete, we will see how everyone is doing in the more objective
measures of performance, promotion, and retention. Until then, Tanya Jankot
and I will do our best to support this term’s participants and mentors
and to help them make this a great learning experience.