Since July 2012, I have walked over 1,250 miles, according to my FitBit activity tracker – that comes out to about 4 miles a day. On my long walks in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose, California, I often see fellow exercisers, such as the bumblebee pictured here. She seems to be doing calisthenics while collecting thistle pollen.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews
Yesterday, I published the remarkably high “TiE Mentoring Success Metrics” in the MentorCloud blog. Thanks to Andrina Chaffin (MentorCloud’s Marketing Analyst) for pulling together these encouraging numbers!
In writing “TiE Mentoring Success Metrics”, I was able to put more solid numbers behind a mentoring practice I have used for years:
The combination of MentorCloud’s web-based platform, reinforced by regular in-person group meetings, is powerful and effective – promoting growth in both community engagement and satisfaction. TiE Silicon Valley MentorConnect uses this combined structure for communication. There has been strong improvement in positive feedback from all participants, detailed below.
Both SEED Engineering Mentoring Program (2001-2010) and in TechWomen (2011-now) also used a combination of web-based communication and in-person meetings for success. Of course, SEED was created PT (pre-Twitter), so many of the web communications tools were more primitive then!
Nonetheless, in mentoring programs at Sun Microsystems (including SEED), mentoring pairs who worked at a distance (mostly communicating in email and by phone, with support from Sun’s intranet SEED program webpages) for many years reported the same satisfaction level as those working locally; however, Mentors and Mentees both reported that working at a distance is more time consuming. In a global workforce, Mentees may work in an area where there are few or no senior staff available to mentor them. In their case, being mentored “at a distance” is their only choice. Traveling to see their Mentor once or twice a year at a headquarters event made for a richer relationship.
SEED held twice-a-year events for Mentors, Mentees, and the Mentees’ Managers for education and to encourage different kinds of communication between them. Getting travel funding to go to those events was sometimes a challenge. See “Funding Professional Conference Travel” for some ways this was managed. Some mentees and mentors never met because of travel costs – and still reported being very satisfied with their mentoring relationship.
TechWomen also presents a variety of opportunities to connect in-person outside of the assigned mentoring relationships, including events such as the Kickoff held earlier this month for alumnae and prospective mentors, and the February 2013 delegation to Jordan. TechWomen also offers a heavily-used communication network for 2011 and 2012 participant alumnae through its private Facebook page, Google Group lists, and other electronic mechanisms.
May 2013 MentorConnect Metrics from TiEcon:
Responses from 138 of the 185 Mentees:
 |
1=Strongly Disagree 4=Neutral 7=Strongly Agree |
Responses from 30 of the 49 Mentors:
 |
1=Strongly Disagree 4=Neutral 7=Strongly Agree |
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews
Kickstarter just closed funding for a big successful project on the classic 1851 whaling novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. “Moby Dick, or the card game” was backed for $102,730 (410% of the amount requested!). The whaling card game is one of ten Moby Dick theme Kickstarter projects listed, five of which were funded (four over-funded) and five of which did not meet their funding target. 50% success is a good since an estimated 75% of startups fail. Overall, Kickstarter has had 100,600 projects, of which 44% were funded (as of 30 May 2013). In comparison, there have been 128 Kickstarter crowd-funded projects with a William Shakespeare theme, 43 of which were unfunded and three of which are still in process – at least a 66% success rate. Literature is good business!
The Kickstarter projects with a Moby Dick theme since 2010:
When I was studying English at the University of California at Berkeley, seniors could follow one of four teaching paths: Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, or a great author chosen for that year. Melville was the author for my year. I wrote my honors thesis (“Goneril as a Complete and Motivated Character in King Lear”) on Shakespeare under Dr. Hugh Richmond but I was so tempted to study Melville. Of course, I am one of the 2,583 Kickstarter funders for “Moby Dick, or the card game”. I look forward to receiving my game copies, postcards, and the other goodies in a few months.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Links updated 3 April 2014
Filed under News & Reviews
I just finished reading Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune by Mary Jo Ignoffo (2010). This biography of Sarah Winchester (1839-1922) was loaned to me by friend and neighbor Rev. Stephenie Cooper, who is also interested in local history.
As a native San Franciscan, I have seen freeway billboards for the “Winchester Mystery House” for decades. I have frequently walked by San Jose’s historic Victorian mansion – on my way to the Winchester movie theater next door or the Santana Row shopping district across the street. I was curious enough about this local legend to read the book and also watch “Winchester Mystery House Explored: Secrets of the Mansion” (1997), a twenty minute video-tour distributed through the attraction’s gift shop. The video seems typical of the spooky and suggestive patter fed to visitors on their $40 tour. Despite all of the spiritualist hype, the mansion is a genuine California Historical Landmark. It is also listed in the US National Register of Historic Places and is a San Jose Historic Landmark.
The detailed and documented history presented by Professor Ignoffo (History Department, De Anza College) is quite different from the wild story in “Secrets of the Mansion”:
Sadly, the “Mystery House” legend of obsessive continual construction is encapsulated in the formal California Historical Landmark property description:
NO. 868 WINCHESTER HOUSE – Built by Sarah Winchester, widow of rifle manufacturer William Winchester, this unique structure includes many outstanding elements of Victorian architecture and fine craftsmanship. Construction began in 1884 and continued without interruption until Mrs. Winchester’s death in 1922. The continual building and remodeling created a 160-room house covering an area of six acres.
Location: 525 S Winchester Blvd, San Jose
Professor Ignoffo’s history is of a very private woman who was deeply interested in landscape design, horticulture, agriculture, and woodworking and was rich enough to implement her taste in her own home. After the 1906 earthquake, Sarah Winchester turned her attention to management and expansion of her other properties in Atherton, Palo Alto, Burlingame, and Los Altos, and to generously endowing a medical facility to treate tuberculosis patients, in honor of her husband William Wirt Winchester who died of that disease in 1881.
 |
. |  |
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under News & Reviews
In 1999, I planted a bare-root Craig’s Crimson Cherry semi-dwarf fruit tree in our Willow Glen backyard. Our dog promptly bit it in half. Despite this rough start, the little tree is flourishing and just gave us a our annual large bowl of deliciously sweet red cherries.
The fruit a week ago – not quite ripe:
Cherry flowers in April 2013:
The tree tags:
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family
In Willow Glen, there is a block with four street names. Two of the names are official – meaning that if you sent a letter by US Mail to an address on “Alma” or “Minnesota”, it would arrive. The other names are associated with the large campus of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Yosip Parish which takes up most of one side of the block. Their internal driveway is “Mar Dinkha IV Blvd” but one exit is marked “Assyrian Ave” and the other is “Mar Yosip Way” – along what would otherwise be Alma/Minnesota. The Alma/Minnesota street sign pictured above is between the exits. Fortunately, people sending mail to the parish send it to a San Jose address on Minnesota, so the many designations probably cause little confusion.
Street names in America are not-quite-random but sometimes seem so. According to the 1993 US Census, the most common US street name is “Second” – with “Third” a close second. The street names used over 5,000 times are:
Willow Glen has at least one more many-named street. About half a mile from the Alma/Minesota sign is another campus driveway which is either “Delmas” or “Wabesco” – both are clearly marked.
 |
. |  |
 |
. |  |
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Church, News & Reviews
On walks around our Willow Glen neighborhood here in San Jose, California, I occasionally see paw prints in the sidewalk concrete, permanently recording the adventures of some curious animal. Recently, there was a news story about Cat Paw Prints Found on 15th-Century Manuscript. There is even a funny blog entry on how to achieve this cheaply. These prints are the more charming for being rare. The cat prints pictured above are two of four in an old sidewalk near our house.
I was surprised recently when visiting a Silicon Valley company headquarters to see many lines of crisp prints in a new sidewalk, with each pair too far away for a normal cat stride. I conclude that some hardscape designer is selling a paw print stamp option for walkways. Institutionalized whimsy.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
Filed under Home & Family
KatysBlog 