KatysBlog

All legacy StorageTek staff applications to the SEED mentoring program
were due on Friday. The executive Selection Committee (1 Fellow/VP,
5 Distinguished Engineers/Directors, 2 Directors) started reviewing
application materials on Saturday morning. All web submission pages
are closed down now. The Selection Committee meets on 30 March and the
selection announcements will be that day.

35 people applied; 32 were qualified for consideration. That is, 3 only
sent in partial applications or did not get management approval to
participate. 1 additional person called and sent several emails but
never actually submitted anything.

The geographic patterns of this group
are different than what we usually get in SEED. All but one are working
in the USA. All but one of those is working in Colorado. Only 1/4 have
non-USA origin. In SEED’s last world-wide term, over half worked outside
of the USA and 3/4 had non-USA origin. It will be interesting to find out
what, if any, difference this makes in managing and matching this term.

As of now, we have 23 applications for the legacy StorageTek
SEED Engineering mentoring term. Of those 23, 11 have
all of the required materials: form, resume, and
manager’s letter of recommendation. That 11 is eligible
for consideration by the Selection Committee next week. The
deadline for all materials is this Friday, 24 March.

Tommorrow morning, we hold our final call-in meeting to let potential
participants and their managers ask questions. Even
though almost all of the applicants are based in Colorado, we
are noticing new cultural differences with this term that we have
not seen running SEED terms in India, China, Europe, and the
Middle East. Tanya Jankot has gotten email notes addressed
to “Dear Ms. Jankot” (a very un-Sun-like formality of address).
Many in this group seem to get everything ready before they send in
any piece of their application. That is, we are often receiving
the form, resume, and manager’s letter of recommendation all in
one day. More usually, SEED is sent the form and the rest of it
trickles in bit by bit over the following week.

I talked with one of the legacy StorageTek executives this
morning who said that submitting information through an internal
web page rather than on paper is new to them. All in all, I think this
term will provide good learning both for the legacy Sun and the newly
acquired StorageTek staff.

This morning the last two participants in our SEED Engineering mentoring
term for Israel and Russia were matched. This term had one of the shortest
cycle times ever for mentor matching: just 3 weeks to match 33 participants.
70% of the mentors are
executives: 6 Vice Presidents (including one VP/Fellow, one VP/DE,
and one Executive VP), and 17 Directors (including 5 DEs – Distinguished
Engineers).

SEED held a call in world-wide meeting on Wednesday and it was a delight to
hear the voices from St. Petersburg, Herzliya, Prague, Hamburg, Dublin,
Bangalore, two locations in France, and all over the USA. The talks by
Sun CTO
Greg Papadopoulos and Sun Fellow Bob Sproull
were excellent. Some of Greg’s content can be seen in the eWeek article

“Sun CTO: Open Services the Next Big Thing”.

SEED is in its first week of the application period for the term
to benefit legacy StorageTek staff. There are 11 applications so far.
We held our first call-in overview-and-question meeting on Thursday.
There is another scheduled for next week. We have set the date for
the Selection Committee to meet. All application materials are due
on 24 March. The selection announcement will be made on 30 March.

We have now matched 30 out of the 33 participants from Tel Aviv and
St. Petersburg. The remaining 3 are actively being considered
by potential mentors.

Our MidTerm event is tomorrow with
talks by Sun CTO
Greg Papadopoulos and Sun Fellow Bob Sproull.
Greg is SEED’s executive sponsor and Bob has served as a SEED mentor
more often than anyone else. This event is called “mid-term” because
the SEED year runs September to September (for the convenience of
new college grads joining SEED’s Recent Hire program).

We have also just announced and opened the application period for a
pilot mentoring term to benefit Engineering staff who came to Sun through StorageTek. Pilot SEED terms have somewhat different criteria and rules from
the program as a whole. SEED has run 4 location-specific pilots in the last few
years, but this will be our first professional-area-specific term.
It will be interesting to see what differences that mix of participants
makes, if any.

I just sent in our monthly report and realized that, counting the
pilot just announced, SEED is running 5 terms at the same time.