Katy Dickinson

Caboose Flooring Done

Today, I worked from home to keep an eye on the crew who were installing the new flooring in WP668, our backyard caboose. Wei, the craftsman from Armstrong Carpet & Linoleum, did an admirable job. I am so entirely glad I did not listen to the people who said that linoleum is easy to install yourself. I do not have the experience, skill, or patience Wei does. He used very precise and specialized tools and took great trouble to get the measurements on 390 square feet of floor correct to within 1/8" inch. Our new floor is square, flat, and perfectly fitted.

See yesterday's blog for WP668 history and photos of the subfloor going in. Here are pictures from today:

WP668 - May 2008

Caboose Cactus

Building Permit

1st Linoleum Roll

Starting Linoleum Installation

Linoleum Installation

100# Floor Roller

Rolling Linoleum

Linoleum Installation

Putting Down Glue

Making Template

Middle and Side Done

Putting Down Glue

Linoleum Mostly Done

Replacing Doors

Linoleum All Done!

Wei's Tools

Wei's Tools

Wei's Tools

Wei's Tools

Wei's Tools

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 10:31PM May 13, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |  Comments[2]

23 PreSEED Mentor Matches Confirmed

We are in the mentor matching cycle for the 52 PreSEED participants. I sent out the first mentor request emails on 5 May and I have 23 match confirmations so far this morning (44% done in the first 8 days). Last week was the 2nd OpenSolaris Developer Summit on the University of California at Santa Cruz campus, plus the CommunityOne event and JavaOne at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, so many potential mentors were too busy to reply. However, there has been a good response since then.

When the SEED program first started in 2001, it was limited to Sun Engineering staff working in the USA. Since then, the scope of the mentoring program has broadened. The current group of PreSEED mentors includes senior staff from: Bangalore, India; Dublin, Ireland; Grenoble, France; and Prague, Czech Republic; as well as those based in the USA.

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 10:28AM May 13, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

Caboose Roof Done, Floor Done Tomorrow

Today has been a busy day for WP668, our backyard caboose. After much preparation, the metal roof was installed (by Wildcat Metals) and the subfloor went in (by Armstrong Carpet & Linoleum). Tomorrow, the linoleum floor covering goes down. This is also a school day Paul, plus Jessica's first in-person work day at Stanford University Library (she has been programming for them part-time from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA). So, I drove the kids and worked in Menlo Park and John stayed home to work in San Jose and keep and eye on the two work crews in the backyard. The photos below show the progression of roof and floor development since January 2006 when we bought WP668.

Original Roof-January 2006 San Francisco

Original Roof-January 2006 San Francisco

Original Floor-January 2006 San Francisco

Roof Rebuild-September 2006 San Jose

Roof-Sept 2006 San Jose

Roof-September 2006 San Jose

Roof-Sept 2006 San Jose

Floor Rebuild-January 2008

Floor-January 2008

Floor-Jan 2008

Floor-Jan 2008

Metal Roof Install-May 2008

Metal Roof Install-May 2008

Metal Roof Install-May 2008

Cactus Garden from WP668 Roof

Metal Roof Install-May 2008

Metal Roof Done-May 2008

Subfloor Install-May 2008

Subfloor Install-May 2008

Subfloor Install

Subfloor Done

Images Copyright 2006-2008 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 09:19PM May 12, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |  Comments[0]

15 PreSEED Mentoring Participants Matched, So Far

We are in the mentor matching cycle for the 52 PreSEED participants. I sent out the first mentor request emails on 5 May and I have 15 match confirmations so far. I just sent out the "Last Chance" emails to those who have not yet responded to my first email. I also have about ten potential mentors who are actively in the process of deciding whether to accept the participant who requested them.

In addition to matching the PreSEED-2 term with mentors, Tanya Jankot and I have been redesigning SEED in preparation of the 2008-2009 terms which will open for applications on 21 May. Since the two PreSEED pilots have been successful so far, we integrated PreSEED as the third of now three mentoring groups offered by our program:

• Recent Hires (including newly acquired staff and recent college hires)
  This group provides promising recent Engineering hires and newly acquired staff with enriching and broadening experiences for their early years as Sun employees that make them more valuable to Sun and more satisfied with their careers at Sun.
  
• Established Staff
  This group provides Mentors to help develop, enrich, and broaden the experience and understanding of Sun Engineering staff who have been with the company for some time.
  
• PreSEED
  PreSEED is a new mentoring group aimed at helping Sun Engineering staff who have been getting almost all "Sun Standard" annual performance ratings onto a path which may lead them to higher engagement. One way to think of PreSEED is as a preliminary to the SEED Engineering mentoring program
  .

I sent email yesterday to the many thousands of Sun Engineering staff around the world telling them that the 2008-2009 Recent Hire and Established Staff terms are coming up. I also asked them to talk with their managers to see if SEED is a good opportunity for them.

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 03:14PM May 10, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

She's Home!

My daughter Jessica came home safe after finishing her Freshman year final exams at Carnegie Mellon. Hooray! We are all very happy to have her home. Of course, we have to share our talented and energetic girl. Her summer plans include:

• Contuining her job as a part time Java programmer for Stanford University Libraries in Palo Alto, CA
• Working as a part time intern for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco, CA
• Singing 26-29 June 2008 as one of the three genii (or three boys) in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote), at Saltnote Stageworks in Washington, D.C.
• Working for my mother (Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson) in San Francisco, CA
• Spending a week at the Lair of the Golden Bear - U.C. Berkeley family camp in the Sierras.
• Learning and teaching at the karate dojo.
• Working on the new Carnegie Mellon University Chapter for the Association for Computing Machinery. Jessi is their Webmonarch.
• Hanging out with Matt (The Boyfriend) and other friends home from college.

OK, so we will see her sometimes. But she has devoted this entire weekend to hanging out at home and we are very happy to have our wonderful girl back. When he heard Jessi happily singing German opera in the shower this morning, John got a big grin on his face and said: "She's home!".

Posted at 12:21PM May 10, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[0]

Women of Vision Event

Last night the amazing Women of Vision event was held in downtown San Jose. Sun Labs' Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, won the Anita Borg Institute 2008 WOV Award in the Social Impact category. Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos gave the welcome address at the Imperial Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel. Some photos from the inspiring event are below.

In a few days, videos of the 3 winners' acceptance speeches will be posted on YouTube. Those of us who are building the new MAGIC program for mentoring middle school girls are already planning how to use these videos in our program. All of the acceptance speeches were amazing but Helen Greiner (Co-founder and Chairman, iRobot, 2008 WOV winner for Innovation) was particularly moving when she spoke about never even once having been encouraged to consider Engineering as a career when she was a girl, despite her aptitude and fascination for math and computers, and our obligation not to let that kind of negligence continue into the new generation.

To make it easier to find the videos from the first two WOV events, here are links:

• Woman of Vision Radia Perlman Video 2005 WOV Winner for Innovation
  (Radia Perlman is Sun's first woman Fellow!)
  
• Woman of Vision Janie Tsao 2005 WOV Winner for Leadership
• Woman of Vision Pamela Samuelson Video 2005 WOV Winner for Social Impact
• Deborah Estrin, Women of Vision 2007 WOV Winner for Innovation
  Deborah Estrin, Acceptance Speech
  
• Duy-Loan Le, Women of Vision for Leadership 2007
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 1
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 2
  
• Leah Jamieson, Women of Vision for Social Impact 2007
  Leah Jamieson, Acceptance Speech
  

Greg Papadopoulos

Susan Landau

Program, Keychain, Badge

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:08PM May 09, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |  Comments[0]

Fondue - Melting Pot

We have a new favorite restaurant for special occasions: the Melting Pot fondue restaurant in downtown San Jose (72 South 1st Street). Three families went together to celebrate John's birthday dinner last month. We had a wonderful time. It was a long meal and wasn't cheap but the food and service were excellent. The little kids, teens, and adults all enjoyed themselves. The restaurant even had glow bracelets for the kids to take home (after John tried them on).

The dessert course was particularly well presented with the dark dipping chocolate being set on fire as it poured. We had such a good time, we are going back on Saturday to celebrate my daughter Jessica coming home after finishing her first year at Carnegie Mellon University.

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 03:49PM May 07, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[0]

Women of Vision

On 27 Febuary, I wrote a blog about Sun Labs' Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, winning the Anita Borg Institute 2008 Women of Vision Award in the Social Impact category. Sun has 58 executives, engineers, students, and interns attending tomorrow's WOV celebration event, with Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos giving the welcome address! We are all very proud of Dr. Susan Landau.

But, I am also proud of Sun's Engineering community which made this celebration possible:

• The women who applied for the award on Susan's behalf, put together the nomination package, including executive letters of recommendation from Sun's leadership, and nurtured it through the process.
• The executives who put up the funding to cover Sun's Gold sponsorship of the event. (The fee was split three ways between Software, Operations, and the CTO/Sun Labs group.)
• The Marketing staff who designed the program advertisement.
• The University Relations staff who invited 20 students and interns to sit at Sun's tables at the event.

Among Sun's 58 attendees, we have students and interns from a dozen schools and universities, plus Sun staff from Labs, Systems, Legal, Operations, Human Resources, SunIT, Marketing, Microelectronics, and Sales. Everyone wants to celebrate!

Posted at 11:57AM May 07, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |  Comments[0]

Silly Vehicles

Sometimes when John and I are feeling worried about yet another big bill for caboose restoration, we try to put things into perspective. In addition to having fun fixing up WP668 and bringing a historic railroad caboose back into (limited) service, we will end up with 390 square feet of comfortable, usable space at less than the going rate for new San Francisco Bay Area construction. Also, based on what we see driving around here, not even counting Ferraris and other high end sports cars, there are much sillier vehicles we could spend money on:

Here is a current photo of WP668:

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 08:32AM May 07, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |  Comments[0]

Caboose Work Update

Last weekend, John was wearing his OpenSolaris Governing Board hat at the 2nd OpenSolaris Developer Summit on the University of California at Santa Cruz campus. Today, he is at the CommunityOne event at The Moscone Center in San Francisco and JavaOne starts tomorrow, also at Moscone.

So, I have been gardening but we haven't gotten much done on WP668, our backyard caboose. However, four caboose projects which depend on other people's work are creeping toward completion:

• The metal roof should be installed on within a week - I am waiting for the exact date to be set.
• I ordered the Western Pacific Feather River Route replacement decal today (from the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, they had extras). The metal plate on which the decal will go is is 23-1/2" tall by 25-1/2" wide.
• The new subfloor and linoleum go in on 19-20 May.
• Vince Taylor may have the stained glass panels done this month. He came by on Saturday to show me the scale drawings and more glass samples. He would have been done sooner but had a big show at Filoli which changed his schedule.

Posted at 06:08PM May 05, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

PreSEED Mentor Matching Starts

The 52 PreSEED participants submitted their Mentor Wish Lists this morning, starting the mentor matching cycle for this term. Tanya Jankot spent the morning updating participants' web pages and learning goals from emails over the weekend. Once we were set to go, she and I went through the lists to find the highest priority potentially-available mentor. (Among this PreSEED term's lists, there were 9 potential mentors who had more than one request for them at #1 priority. There were 36 potential mentors requested by five or more participants. 191 unique mentors were requested.)

I just finished sending individual emails to all 52 first contact potential mentors. Now we wait for their responses... During the next two weeks, I expect to have a mentor match for at least 80% of the participants. I plan to match all of them within the next 45 days.

For the flow charts of this process, see "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 (5 pages, PDF format)

PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program. More information on SEED is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 05:28PM May 05, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

"Iron Man" movie

This weekend, John is wearing his OpenSolaris Governing Board hat at the 2nd OpenSolaris Developer Summit on the University of California at Santa Cruz campus, so Paul and I are on our own. Paul has homework and I am answering intermittent emails from the 52 new PreSEED Participants (who are working toward a 9 am Monday submission deadline for their Mentor Wish Lists), but we decided to take off yesterday night to go to the movies.

15-year-old Paul and I have different taste in movies. I have almost forgiven him for talking me into seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last year. Paul made an all-out pitch for the wonders of the just-opened movie Iron Man. He showed me the trailer on his laptop. He reminded me that Robert Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow have also been in Shakespeare movies. He looked at me with puppy eyes. OK, we went.

Surprisingly, it was both fun and good. The characters were interesting and sufficiently well developed. Jeff Bridges makes an excellent bad guy. Gwyneth Paltrow played the hero's almost-girlfriend without leaving her brains behind. The pace was bearable - not just explosions held together by quip interludes. Here in the Silicon Valley, I think many members of the theater audience wanted to go home afterwards and start designing their own hero suit. This is just the place to find a crowd who already believe that "Heroes aren’t born, they’re built." Be sure to sit through all of the credits to see a guest appearance teaser for the next in what promises to be an entertaining movie series.

Posted at 04:20PM May 03, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[2]

Because You're Here

I listened to KQED, our local public broadcasting radio station on my drive to work this morning. They just aired a story which included an interview with a Captain of Iraqui militia in Baghdad's Sadr City. His description of why he was fighting sounded familiar. I have been reading Shelby Foote's monumental 1958 history The Civil War: A Narrative and remembered the following passage from Volume One (Fort Sumter to Perryville, 1861-1862):

Perhaps the best definition of the conflict was given in conversation by a civilian, James M. Mason of Virginia: "I look upon it then, sir, as a war of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of society." No soldier would have argued with this; but few would have found it satisfactory. They wanted something more immediate and less comprehensive... Meanwhile, perhaps no soldier in either army gave a better answer -- one more readily understandable to his fellow soldiers, at any rate -- than a ragged Virginia private, pounced on by the Northerners in a retreat.
"What are you fighting for anyhow?" his captors asked, looking at him. They were genuinely puzzled, for he obviously owned no slaves and seemingly could have little interest in States Rights or even Independence.

"I'm fighting because you're down here," he said.

Posted at 08:49AM May 02, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

How to Survey, Part 2 (Best Practices)

In my 16 April blog entry How to Survey, I presented 3 sections: Key Questions, Tools and Services, and Reading. In this entry, I present some Best Practices based on my experience and the advice of two wise and capable women with whom I had the honor to work: Dr. Robin Jeffries and Dr. Kornelija Zgonc. All errors may be attributed to my misunderstanding, not their teaching!

The most recent survey completed by my department here in the Chief Technologist's Organization at Sun was the SEED* mentoring program quarterly report for April 2008. See Mentoring Success Metrics (April 30, 2008) for details. SEED has been collecting quarterly feedback from a web-based survey since 2002, so this is a mature example of a cyclic survey. The SEED survey is not anonymous. Most of the practices below are also appropriate for one-time surveys and for anonymous surveys.

Characteristics of a Good Web-based Survey (with examples from SEED):

• It is Short. The SEED survey consists of 14 questions. One way to shorten surveys: don't ask for information that can easily be mined from another source.
• It is Easy to Use and Understand. Use pull down menus wherever possible to provide clear options. When a range of answers is possible, offer the same one-to-seven range, with "1" being low, "4" neutral, and "7" being high. State questions as simply as possible and test for clarity (if it is possible to misunderstand, someone will). Avoid jargon, abbreviations, and local slang.
• It is Easy to Analyze the Responses. Use very few open text fields. Use a seven point range so that there is a clear low, neutral, and high (more on this below). "Does Not Apply" and "No Response" are always options. "No Response" is the default option (that is, the respondent must make an active change to answer).
• For Cyclic Surveys - Prior and Future Versions are Comparable. Questions do not change much over time.
• It is Trustworthy. Send a survey copy immediately in email to the respondent. Make survey analysis results available to respondents promptly. Actively protect private and anonymous information. Say in the survey introduction what will happen with the results (then, do what you say). Remember Robin Jeffries' First Law of Surveys: "Don't ask questions unless you are prepared to act on the results!"

The following Attributes of Poor Surveys list is material developed by Kornelija Zgonc, former Sun Chief Master Black Belt, and my Six Sigma mentor:

What's Wrong? Survey goals unclear No forethought about your processes Lots of yes/no questions Lots of written questions Focus on symptoms

Why it's a Problem: Take-aways unclear Don't know how to implement changes Limited analytics; need big sample sizes Unclear or unfocused questions Get more questions, not answers!

The following Attributes of Great Surveys is also material developed by Kornelija Zgonc:

• Goals, processes, and possible cause/effect relationships are analyzed up front
• Widely-scaled numerical questions allow lots of analytics and keep sample sizes low
• Only need a few written questions to address unforeseen situations or problems
• Survey has action-oriented focus to generate solutions, not more questions

Why a 1 to 7 Range? Multiple choice options make it easier to statistically analyze survey results. One of the common and energetic "discussions" among those who design surveys is what range to allow for numerical questions. Simply put: how many number choices should the respondent be offered? Too short a range (like: 1=bad, 2=neutral, 3=good) may not reflect an accurate subtlety of opinion. However, too many options can give a false confidence in the value and gradation of the answer. Don't ask for more precision than your users are likely to know!

A range of seven is the best choice. When seven or more numbers are offered in a scale (like: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=disagree, 4=neutral, 5=agree, 6=agree, 7=strongly agree), the data collected behaves and can be analyzed like continuous variables. (Data are discrete if there are a limited number of values possible. Example: number of legs on a cat, number of letter grades possible on a test. Data are continuous when the measurements can have any value. Examples: time, weight.) This allows tremendous analysis flexibility because there are many more statistical tools for continuous data analysis than for discrete data analysis.

Why Statistics Don't Matter (sometimes) With all deference to my colleagues who are statisticians and Six Sigma Master Black Belts, sometimes statistics don't matter.

• The survey itself is a form of communication, regardless of whether it is answered, analyzed, or acted on. The survey may change the nature of the audience's awareness.
• If you don't ask the right audience or collect enough responses, the answer does not matter.
• Some people will never give a top or bottom score under any circumstances.
• Refine, reduce, remove:
• Too many surveys make people hate or ignore you.
• Too many questions will cause your audience to abandon the survey part way through.
• If your questions are too personal or respondents are embarrassed to tell the truth (for example: admitting they don't know the answer), answers will be worthless.

* More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 02:04PM May 01, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Mentoring Success Metrics

Every quarter, the SEED (and PreSEED) mentoring program announces a web-based survey for current participants (mentees), mentors, and managers. Tanya Jankot just finished her analysis of the April 2008 reports. The results and comments are very similar to previous quarters. Satisfaction remains high, and the most frequent request from participants is for more opportunity (and financial support) for face-to-face contact with their mentor and other participants. Once again, there was no significant difference in satisfaction between participants co-located with their mentor and those working at-a-distance.

The purpose of SEED's quarterly report is to measure the success of the program. It also gives participants, and their mentors and managers, a chance to voice their opinion of the program and share their thoughts and experiences with fellow participants and the SEED program team. These reports are published with the full knowledge of the participants; we encourage participants to submit more private comments in a separate email. We measure the program's success through participants' reported satisfaction and learning, plus the more objective annual measures of promotions, retention, performance rating, etc. The success of the individual participant is due to their own capabilities and hard work (plus available opportunities and good management!). Increased success of the participants as a group may be attributable in part to the SEED program.

Here are some of report highlights:

• This quarterly report was for 4 terms (3 SEED terms, plus 1 PreSEED term).
• 92 people responded to the survey: 53 participants, 29 mentors, and 10 managers answered. There were 149 eligible participants (36% response rate).
• Participant respondents report that participation in the program positively influenced the following:
• Better career direction: 58% of respondents
• Greater understanding of Sun's overall architecture, strategy, or business direction: 55% of respondents
• Broader network of contacts (peer or executive): 45% of respondents
• Increased visibility, within or outside work group: 42% of respondents
• Participant satisfaction with the program:
• 92% reported being satisfied
• 98% thought that the meetings with their mentor were worthwhile
• Mentor satisfaction with the program:
• 79% believe their Mentee's participation has made them more valuable to Sun
• 89% would want to be a mentor again in the SEED program in the future
• Several Mentors noted that their partnership had just begun and they were not yet able to assess the program's impact.
• As with past quarterly 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. A full 76% of participants who responded to this quarterly report were at-a-distance from their mentor. 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.

For information on some of SEED's survey techniques, see my 16 April 2008 blog How to Survey and my 1 May 2008 blog How to Survey, Part 2 (Best Practices).

PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program. More information on SEED is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 05:33PM Apr 30, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |