Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

The email just went out from CTO Greg Papadopoulos to Sun world-wide Engineering
announcing the start of the application period for the 18th SEED Engineering
mentoring term. This will be a six month term (January through June 2007)
for Established Staff.

SEED’s four basic General Selection Criteria are:

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.

In addition, there are two specific selection criteria for
Established Staff:

1. Must hold a senior position with a title such as Member of the Technical Staff-4, Staff Engineer, Hardware or Software Manager, Senior Staff Engineer, Engineering Director, Distinguished Engineer, etc. That is, they must be at a Principal Engineer level or above.
2. Must have been with Sun for two or more years as of the term start month.

SEED Preferred Accomplishment Areas for Established Staff

(applicants are expected to excel in many but not all of these areas):

Tanya Jankot and I had everything ready for the announcement to go out
on Tuesday but with one thing and another, it took a while to get the email actually sent. We have received two applications already! All application materials and
recommendation letters are due the day after Thanksgiving (24 November). Between
now and then Tanya and I will hold three phone-in information meetings and be
answering hundreds of questions… Greg’s email going out is like the starting
gate opening on a horse race.

An article which mentions Sun’s SEED Engineering mentoring program
was recently published in InfoWorld:

“20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry” by Dan Tynan, October 16, 2006.
The whole article is well worth reading – look for the SEED reference in
item #10. Here are the twenty ways:

1. Think Business First, Technology Second
2. Raise the Bar … and Leave It There
3. Hold Your Nose and Raise Your Hand
4. Don’t Pass the Buck
5. Be a Lone Voice in the Wilderness
6. Back Down Gracefully
7. Develop a Killer App
8. Stay on the Cutting Edge
9. Feed Your Mind
10. Find Your Yoda
11. Take Deadlines Personally
12. Share the Wealth
13. Be Your Own Cheerleader
14. Build Your Own Portfolio
15. Schmooze It or Lose It
16. Walk and Talk
17. Hire Your Own Replacements
18. Embrace the Gray Areas
19. Keep Your Nose Clean (Not Brown)
20. Consider a Switch — for the Right Reasons

The SEED Engineering mentoring program holds its big kick-off event
tomorrow and Wednesday here in Menlo Park, California. SEED holds monthly
phone-in meetings plus two in-person annual events: this two-day meeting in
September plus a one-day meeting in March. Over 100 people are signed up
for the event. We have participants who have travelled here from
China, Czech Rep., France, Germany, India, Ireland, Russia, The Netherlands,
and the UK.

Executive speakers tomorrow include:

• 
  Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President

• 
  Juan Carlos Soto, Vice President of Adoption Marketing and Technology Evangelism
  
  Talk Title: “Career Paths”

• 
  Ivan Sutherland, Sun Fellow and Vice President
  
  Talk Title: “On Leadership”

• 
  Leslie Lambert, VP & Chief Architect for Sun IT
  
  Talk Title: “What Sun IT is Looking for from Sun Engineering Leadership”

HR Director for the CTO Carol Gorski and I are also giving a repeat of our SEED
talk at the Grace Hopper Celebration of
Women in Computing 2006: “5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers”. Part of
each day is devoted to the SEED Showcase (brief presentations on current work
by SEED participants, past and present). The SEEDs will eat lunch together and then
go on afternoon tours.

For this event, Tanya Jankot has arranged these tours:

• Sun’s Menlo Park
  Enterprise Technology Center

• Sun’s Menlo Park
  Executive Briefing Center (EBC)

• Sun’s xDesign Menlo Park
  Usability Labs

• Computer History Museum
  in Mountain View

• Sun Labs in Menlo Park

This event is by invitation only. SEED program participants, their managers and
mentors from any term are invited.

All 82 of the SEED participants in the 2006-2007 Terms (Recent Hires,
September 2006-September 2007, and Established Staff, September
2006-March 2007) were matched with mentors as of 27 September.
77% of the mentors are executives: 16 Vice Presidents (including
5 VP/Fellows), 26 Directors, and 21 Distinguished Engineers.

Details:

4 SEED 2006-2007 participants were matched more than once due to
their mentor leaving Sun or being unable to serve.

5 SEED participants had to prepare more than one Mentor Wish List.

Location

• 55 mentoring pairs are at a distance (67%)
• 14 work in the same town (17%)
• 13 work in the same area but not the same town (16%)

Priority Patterns

• 38 of the SEED participants were matched with their
  1st or 2nd choice Mentor (46%)

• 16 were matched with their 3rd of 4th choice Mentor (20%)
• 11 were matched with their 5th or 6th choice Mentor (13%)
• 17 were matched with a Mentor lower down on their
  prioritized Mentor Wish List (21%)

Cycle Time

• Matching started on 14 July and ended 27 September:
  a 75 day cycle

• 49% were matched in the first week
  73% were matched in the first two weeks

• 90% were matched in the first month

Gender

• 20 Women Participants (24%)
• 62 Men Participants (76%)
• 16 Women Mentors (20%)
• 66 Men Mentors (80%)

Mentors

• 6 SEED Alumni Returning as Mentors
• 29 Mentors are serving for the 1st time with SEED
• 25 Mentors are in their 2nd time with SEED
• 19 Star Mentors are in their 3rd or 4th time with SEED
• 9 Superstar Mentors are in their 5th more with SEED

I have been re-matching SEED Engineering mentoring participants
whose mentors left Sun for one reason or another. The 2006-2007
world-wide term is almost fully matched and I hope to be done
very soon.

We have our annual in-person SEED event scheduled next
month with talks by Scott McNealy and other top executives,
the SEED Showcase presentations by SEED participants on their
current work, and tours of the local software usability lab, the
Enterprise Technology Center, the Executive Briefing Center,
Sun Labs, and the Computer History Museum. Signups for the event
by current and former program participants are brisk and some
tours already have a waiting list.