Category Archives: News & Reviews

April 8, 2013 · 9:54 am

8 Essays on Mentoring

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MentorCloud has been asked to contribute a chapter to a book being edited by one of our customers. As I did when writing “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009“, I am putting together chapter section drafts piece by piece, published in this blog and on the MentorCloud blog as they are developed. (By the way, Oracle is no longer distributing the Sun Microsystems Labs Technical Report: “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009″  by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot and Helen Gracon, but it is still available for free download on our family website and is also available for purchase from the ACM Digital Library.)  Here are the eight essays I have published so far:

Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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April 4, 2013 · 8:54 pm

“she++” Documentary Film

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Last night, some of the leaders of the Anita Borg Institute met for dinner and a movie. The premiere film was “she++ the documentary” shown at Stanford University.  This remarkable short film on the value of Computer Science, particularly to girls and women, was inspired by the popular 2012 she++ (“She Plus Plus”) conference. The documentary was directed by two impressive young women: Stanford undergraduates Ellora Israni and Ayna Agarwal.  ABI was in the audience to show our support for this notable effort.

Founded in January 2012, she++ was Stanford’s first conference on women in technology. In April 2012, we hosted a lineup of inspirational women in tech–from companies such as Google, Facebook, Dropbox, and Pinterest, among others–and 250+ attendees on Stanford’s campus. After positive feedback from attendees, mentors, and the press, we have decided to expand she++ into a full-fledged community that inspires women to empower computer science. Through a number of initiatives, we aim to create community and momentum for female technologists.

The 2013 she++ conference is already filling up.

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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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March 25, 2013 · 12:55 pm

Virtual Choir

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My daughter Jessica is the musician in our family: she sings folksongs and opera and frequently writes about music on her blog. In February 2013, during long bus trips through the Jordan mountains as part of the TechWomen delegation – to pass the time, Shahryan and I traded earbuds back and forth, each playing favorite songs stored on our smart phones. Although I am no musician, this blog entry is a gift of music for my friend Shahryan – who lives almost 9,000 miles away in Yemen.

American conductor Eric Whitacre is one of the most popular and performed composers of this generation. His Virtual Choir projects are both inspiring and amazing technically – and also present very good music. The projects are successful artistically and organizationally: for example, in 2012, Whitacre’s “Virtual Choir: Bliss” project was funded on Kickstarter at $122,555 (122% of asking).

In past projects, Eric Whitacre used a worldwide virtual choir singing recorded parts. For the just-released “Cloudburst”, he combined live and virtual choirs.

The lyrics are from “Cloudburst” by Mexican poet Octavio Paz. I hope you enjoy this music as much as I do.
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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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March 22, 2013 · 11:25 am

Women in the Global Economy: Leading Social Change

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Trish Tierney (Executive Director of the Institute of International Education in San Francisco) is the editor of a new IIE-published book called Women in the Global Economy: Leading Social Change. Many of the TechWomen mentors and program staff joined Trish with authors Nuket Kardam and Fredric Kopp (both from the Monterey Institute of International Studies) and social media expert Beth Kanter, to celebrate last night at IIE’s penthouse offices near the Lion Gate entrance to Chinatown.

My husband and I enjoyed hearing the authors speak about the book, seeing our IIE and 2011-2012 TechWomen colleagues and friends, discussing plans for the upcoming TechWomen-2013 program (selection of mentees from the Middle East and Africa is going on now), what I am doing at MentorCloud and John’s new job at EVault, and answering questions from potential TechWomen mentors. The rooftop view at sunset is lovely! Mimi Hills and my husband won the door prizes – a copy of the new book in an handmade bag. I look forward to reading it.

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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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March 18, 2013 · 12:06 pm

Sacred Threads Embroidery – Chairs

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Yesterday, the Sacred Threads group at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) displayed the first two of the chair seats they are replacing – which look very good! I wrote about the Sacred Threads embroidery ministry last year when they finished a set of beautiful kneelers for the sanctuary.

The current project is more ambitious: re-covering the many dozen chairs in both St. Andrew’s chapels. The original 50-year-old chairs were caned – but those seats are falling apart. After research, Sacred Threads group leaders found it would cost about US$300/chair to re-cane (lasts about 50 years) but only about US$250/chair to replace the old cane seats with embroidery (lasts about 200 years).  Caning has to be done professionally but church members can embroider once the materials are purchased.  This was an easy decision!  The new chair seat designs are inspired by the stained glass church windows by Mark Adams.

October 2012 – chair project presentation:
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Original chairs:
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Images Copyright 2012-2013 by Katy Dickinson

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March 12, 2013 · 11:00 am

Lions Environmental Photo Contest

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The Willow Glen Lions Club voted to submit my January 2013 backyard photograph of a California native Arboreal Salamander mother with eggs to the Lions Environmental Photo Contest.  WGL Club member Carol Worthington-Levy generously made a professional-quality print of the image. This is the first time I have submitted a picture to a national contest. Wish me luck!

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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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March 11, 2013 · 6:16 pm

TSA Afraid of Rocks

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Ever since I read “Why It’s Time To Break The Code Of Silence At The Airport” by Christopher Elliott (15 February 2013, TheHuffingtonPost) and my daughter’s TSA posts (including “TSA Touching Crosses The Line: Update”), I have been considering how much more invasive and offensive the TSA has become over time and how we enable this behavior by not objecting to it.

This weekend, I flew from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles for training (to renew my mentor certification with Education for Ministry, a program of the University of the South – School of Theology), and to visit my brother and family in La Crescenta. I used two small-ish airports, San Jose (SJC) and Burbank (BUR) for convenience.

This morning, I walked quickly to the head of the extremely short security check point line at Burbank, hoping to have time for a quiet coffee before boarding my flight home. However, I was pulled out of line in the nearly-empty security area not once but twice.

  1. The first time I was pulled from line was so that the security lady could feel my face – after her full-body scanner drew a little yellow box around my apparently-dangerous earring. As you can see from the picture below (and as she herself could clearly see), there wasn’t anything for her to find while she patted down my ear, cheek, and short hair.
  2. The second time I was pulled out a few minutes later was so that the security man could unpack my small roller bag, re-scan my toiletries, and try to take away my rock.  I was bringing home a small piece of granite as a souvenir of La Crescenta.  He said, after feeling my rock, that I had to get rid of it or check my bag because a rock could be a weapon.  It seems that there is a TSA rule saying that rocks over five pounds are dangerous.  I chose to keep my rock, so I was escorted out of the security area, then had to walk back to the airline counter (where the counter lady told me that she hears an unusual number of complaints about the Burbank TSA), check my carry-on bag, and go through security all over again.

I made my flight home, but no quiet coffee for me.  I object.

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Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson

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