Katy Dickinson

3 Historic Photos of WP668 Caboose

Earlier this month, I published two Historic Photos of WP668 Caboose. Below are three more pictures of our backyard caboose just before her retirement from active service. Dave Stanley wrote me: "I probably have better shots of it on that train as, if I recall, I followed it all the way back to West Sacramento. There may be others in my files as well." So, more pictures may be coming once he has time to look.

#3 - WP668, July 1974

#3 - Photo by E. Chambers, in Oakland, California. Purchased from from John C. La Rue, Jr. Used with permission of John C. La Rue, Jr.

#4 - WP668, July 1973

#4 - Photo by Dave Stanley on p. 8: "The Self-Propelled Era on the Sacramento Northern" by Tom Irion, "Western Pacific Headlight" Issue #29, Spring 2006, Publisher: Feather River Rail Society and WPRRHS. The caption is: "WP's wooden bay-window cabs, long bumped from mainline service, continued to earn their keep on the rear of SN trains well into the 1970s. Number 668 was assigned to the Woodland branch melon extra on July 16, 1973. - Dave Stanley photo" Used with permission of Dave Stanley

#5 - WP668 in train, July 1973

#5 - Photo by Dave Stanley on p. 3: "Western Pacific Headlight" Issue #29, Spring 2006, Publisher: Feather River Rail Society and WPRRHS. Used with permission of Dave Stanley

Posted at 11:40PM Oct 31, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Big Quake Just Now - No Caboose Movement!

The USGS "Map for San Francisco" says the earthquake we felt just now was at least 5.6 magnitude. It seems to be centered within a few miles of where I sit. Of course, WP668 our backyard caboose, did not move at all. We lost some glassware and our pets are upset but we are fine. Waiting for aftershocks...

Posted at 08:45PM Oct 30, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Mentoring Program Models

I haven't been writing much about mentoring in my blog because we are in the process of designing a new pilot mentoring program and are still in discussions. However, today I made a presentation about SEED (Sun's world-wide Engineering mentoring program) to another company. As often happens, in answering questions in a different context, I understood what I was explaining in a new way. This is to try to explain SEED's model in the new way again so I don't forget what I said...

One of the problems of the SEED program is that is does not scale. SEED relies on hand-matching of each pair rather than on an automated system. This means that SEED can handle only 200 to 250 participants (or mentees or proteges) in about six terms a year. There are two reasons why SEED has chosen hand-matching:

• About 3/4 of SEED's mentors are senior executives (Directors, Distinguished Engineers, Fellows, Vice Presidents) who are likely to have remarkable accomplishments and better-than-average communication skills but also require individualized support to be able to participate. The program is run to ensure ease of participation and convenience of Mentors. Mentors who are happy with their experience recommend SEED to others. Also, SEED has found that the source of the request for an executive to become a mentor matters. A trusted source seems to return a higher number of acceptances to mentor match requests.
• Participants are asked to add names to their SEED Mentor Wish List primarily because of the potential mentors' accomplishments, experience, personality, capabilities, or skills. In creating their Mentor Wish List, each SEED participant needs to make two hard decisions:
  1. What they want to learn
  2. Who has already accomplished the kind of things they want to do (that is, who is already down the path that they see themselves walking)
  That is, SEED encourages participants to pick based on the mentee's review and analysis of what potential mentors have already done rather than on self-identified lists of capabilities provided by a mentor.

Other mentoring programs do use self-identified lists of capabilities. Such lists allow automated mentor-mentee matching on a large scale. One popular program creates an average of 2,000 mentoring relationships a year. However, not everyone is good at knowing what they are good at. For more, read: Justin Kruger and David Dunning (Cornell University), "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (from the APA - American Psychological Association): December 1999, Vol. 77, No.6, 1121-1134.

By preferring executive mentors who have remarkable accomplishments and then asking mentees to request mentors based what they have already demonstrated, SEED seeks to avoid the problems of mistaken self-identified competencies. However, this also means that the SEED program does not scale.

More information on SEED is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 04:29PM Oct 30, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Caboose Work List Update

In between other life and job responsibilities, John and I are working through our current list of Caboose To Do items. Yesterday, John put up the ceiling trim (really basic crown molding) and baseboards inside WP668. The final internal electrical outlets and switches will run along the top of the baseboards. He also printed out 8x10" copies of the four Historic Photos we have so far of our backyard caboose. I put those along with some more current pictures in one big frame under glass. We now have all of our old reference photos in one place so we can check them when making restoration choices.

Other work still in progress or planned before WP668 is usable:

• Installing electrical plugs and switches inside
• Installing lights outside
• Building 7 step stairway with banisters and handrails (includes concrete pad installation)
• Anchoring the steps (and tie downs) to the ground
• Step and electrical inspections and sign off
• Recreating the back bay window (includes welding, wood work, paint)
• Installing the metal roof covering
• Painting the inside
• Fixing the base floor inside (1/3 of it is damaged, 2/3 of it is solid)
• Covering the floor inside (probably with linoleum)

I am still looking for more and older photos of WP668. We were recently able to buy one dated 1973 from John C. La Rue, Jr. With regard to why we have found four photos of WP668 from 1973-1974 but none so far from 1943-1973, he wrote:

[In 1973, WP668] was probably one of the last of its design and would have attracted more attention than ordinary from photographers. It was one of many cabooses converted from boxcars during World War II to make up for a shortage that had developed during the Depression, when most railroads had sold everything for scrap that they could in a desperate attempt to remain solvent. The sudden upsurge of war traffic caught them short of rolling stock, especially cabooses, and because the War Production Board would not allot steel for new cabooses, the railroads grabbed every old boxcar still on wheels and turned it into a caboose.

John C. La Rue, Jr. sells "Black-and-white prints, made to order, of mainly railroad cabooses and nonrevenue equipment of all types, dating from the 1940s on (with a few earlier). There are also some freight cars, a few passenger cars, and many locomotives, mainly steam."

Posted at 03:31PM Oct 29, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Diocesan Convention - 2nd Day (Salinas, CA)

Today was the second and last day of the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real (ECR) at Sherwood Hall in Salinas, California. I am a convention delegate but this is also my last day as Convener of DIEM, the Department of Intercultural Evangelism and Mission (diocesan Department of Missions). I have served as DIEM Convener since 2003.

Today, we approved the budget and voted in the new diocesan officers and committee members. Since ECR has just finished several years of restructuring (resulting in new boards which had to be filled for the first time), the voting and ballot counting took most of the day. Bishop-Elect Mary Gray-Reeves, who came to us from Florida, kept making jokes about how voting was done there.

This was a joyous day for me because two of the 13 missions with which I have been working for the last five years were promoted. St. Stephen's in the Field of San Jose was promoted to parish status. Cristo Rey of Watsonville was promoted to Mission status. I am very proud of both! I was honored to process with the banner for Cristo Rey around the convention hall.

In between votes, we heard reports on a variety of topics:

• Ms. Robin Denney (of the Episcopal Young Adult Service) told us about her experience being a missionary in Liberia.
• Bruce Friesen, Parish Administrator for St. Andrew's in Saratoga, gave us an update on Episcopal Relief and Development with which he has been working for 5 years. ERD provides emergency assistance in times of disaster; rebuilds devastated communities and offers long-term program development solutions to fight poverty. Bruce said that ERD gave 97% of its funding to programs. He also recommended that we consider giving presents from the ERD "Gifts for Life" catalog. He said: "There is no greater look of joy on the face of your loved one when on Christmas morning they find that you have given them a pig."
• Rev. Mary Morrison of St. Luke's Los Gatos spoke of arrangements for Bishop Mary's ordination at St. Andrew's in two weeks. She said in passing that Anglicanism was a system of salvation by haberdashery and told the clergy the dress code and colors for the day.
• Rev. Lorenzo Robles of Santa Maria Urban Ministry (the official diocesan charity) spoke about their current programs and needs. SMUM provides basic services in the inner city of San Jose, CA: both short-term needs such as food, clothing and transportation, and long-term transformation through education, counseling, and after-school and seasonal programs.

In her ending remarks, Bishop Mary asked us to make our first year together a Year of Wonder. Sherwood Hall was a good meeting space. I particularly enjoyed its artwork. On the landing of the stairs is a huge tapestry illustrating the words: "To Plow is to Pray - To Plant is to Prophesy - And the Harvest Answers - And Fulfills". Good sentiments for both an agricultural town and a diocese starting a new life with a new Bishop. Here are some of John's and my photos from the convention:

Bishop-elect Mary Gray-Reeves:

Bishop Ernest Shalita Muhabura, Uganda speaks:

Living Waters band:

Cristo Rey's promotion:

Cristo Rey's banner:

St. Stephen's banner:

Resolution on the Year of Wonder:

Roby's "Field Workers" Sherwood Hall painting:

Sherwood Hall tapestry:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 11:21PM Oct 27, 2007 by katysblog in Church  | 

Diocesan Convention - 1st Day (Salinas, CA)

I am a convention delegate for the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real (ECR) and today is the first day of our annual convention here in Salinas, California. This is ECR's first convention since we elected our new Bishop, Mary Gray-Reeves. Bishop-Elect Mary will be ordained next month but she is acting as President of this convention.

My husband John is an Alternate Delegate and I am a Delegate from All Saints' Parish in Palo Alto. Our family is in the process of transferring to St. Andrew's Parish in Saratoga, which is closer to where we live in San Jose. We are finishing up our duties as delegates to our former parish this weekend.

There are about 250 of us at the convention today. Probably more will join us tomorrow when they are not working. So far, we have celebrated communion together (in both English and Spanish), passed the revised Constitution and Canons, and passed Resolutions 1 and 2 (supporting funding for the Millenium Development Goals and increased base clergy pay). Bishop Ernest Shalita, from the Diocese of Muhabura, Uganda who is visiting Calvary Parish in Santa Cruz briefly addressed the convention and talked about his work with education and youth. Most of today has been taken up with untangling the parliamentary procedure of multiple amendments (friendly and unfriendly) to resolutions. There will be more of the same tomorrow when we will consider the budget.

Each parish delegation sits at one or two tables and chats while we are waiting for vote counts and for amendments to be written up. It can be dry work but the people are wonderful.

Posted at 06:25PM Oct 26, 2007 by katysblog in Church  | 

Nikon CoolPix S500 Camera

New Camera!

Last week, I gave the old Pentax camera to my daughter Jessica so that she can record CMU college life and illustrate her blog. I bought a new Nikon CoolPix S500 Camera for myself (with advice from Danek Duvall and John Plocher, two of my favorite camera geeks). I like it very much. I have been taking many photos to get to know the new camera and improve my picture taking abilities.

The Good

The old Pentax had these horrible dials that spun and reset every time I took it out of my pocket (making it very hard to take a quick picture without fixing all the settings). The new Nikon has one dial which is inactive unless the camera is on. Much better! The Nikon also has Scene settings which allow me to take good pictures in a variety of tricky situations: sunset, fireworks, night portrait, etc. I like the quick-recharge battery.

The Bad

The Nikon pictures often seem a little yellow. We bought an extra 2 GB SD card and it stuck - would not download more than 108 photos. Keeble & Shuchat were able to get the rest of the photos off the disk (for $10). We bought a backup battery but it did not fit right so we traded it for another which is working better.

Sunrise over Highway 87:

Palo Alto CalTrain station window:

CONFORM on CalTrain Palo Alto tracks:

Unappreciative photo subjects:

San Jose Tamien CalTrain station:

Partial Rainbow Over Highway 101:

Sun Santa Clara: Agnews Auditorium Door:

Sunset in Santa Clara:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 03:02PM Oct 25, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

GHC Photos - Images from the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

Here are some of the photos I took at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (17-20 October 2007, Orlando, Florida). Sun was a Platinum Sponsor: we had 24 women attend, 10 of us were on panels or running BOFs, 3 of us were GHC Community: Official Bloggers. My daughter Jessica was on the "Girl Geeks" panel which I moderated and she was also an official conference blogger.

Robin Jeffries cuts Systers 20th Birthday cake:

Poster Session and 1st night reception:

Gender and Social Networking Sites Poster:

Efficiently Handling Wildcard Queries in XML Poster:

Determining Scribble Intention in Musical Notes Poster:

Hardware Security Protocols for IP Protection Poster:

Jeanette Wing speaks at 1st Keynote Session:

Sun's Recruiting Table:

Sun's Recruiting Table:

Sun's Recruiting Table:

Sun's Recruiting Table:

Official Bloggers and Notetakers:

Girl Geeks Panel Members:

Girl Geeks Panel in Session:

Girl Geeks Panel Afterwards:

Hopper Conference Badges and Ribbons:

Fran Allen and Jessica:

Robin Jeffries and Jessica at Awards Banquet:

Sun Table 1 at Awards Banquet:

Sun Table 2 at Awards Banquet:

Dancing at Awards Banquet:

Sun in Green Room at Sponsors' Night:

Sun in Green Room at Sponsors' Night:

Sun in Green Room at Sponsors' Night:

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 05:39PM Oct 22, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Caboose Marker Lights

We have been hunting for caboose marker lights for WP668, our 1916 backyard caboose. Marker lights were portable status lights which fit into permanent brackets on the side of the end of a caboose. We found and bought two matching lights last week on eBay! They need to have modern bulbs and wiring installed but are otherwise complete. The lights were listed in the eBay category "Collectibles > Transportation > Railroadiana, Trains > Hardware > Lanterns, Lamps".

I have been at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing here in Orlando, Florida, since Wednesday. However, the lights arrived in the mail yesterday so John sent me these pictures:

Images Copyright 2007 by John Plocher

Posted at 09:05PM Oct 19, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

GHC Panel: Workplace Mentoring

I attended the "Workplace Mentoring" panel this last afternoon of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. On the panel were representatives from HP, Clarke University, Intel, MentorNet, and Google. Mostly, they told war stories and gave best practices advice. Resources recommended were:

• http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw, CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing research (CRA-W), look for mentoring workshop information
• In Action: Creating Mentoring and Coaching Programs by Linda Stromei, 2001 (ISBN-10: 1562862847 and ISBN-13: 978-1562862848)
• http://www.ncwit.org/practices.box.mentoring.html "Mentoring-in-a-Box: Technical Women at Work"
• Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton, 2001 (ISBN-10: 0743201140 and ISBN-13: 978-0743201148
• http://research.sun.com/SEED/ Engineering Mentoring: SEED Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development program, data and flowcharts

There were a variety of experiences and programs described at many levels of maturity and success. Other program representatives were identified in the audience. Some of the topics discussed in detail were the difference between mentoring and patronage, the three-way complex relationship between mentors, mentees, and the mentee's manager, cultural influences and differing expectations of mentoring, and how "mentoring" was translated.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 08:18PM Oct 19, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

GHC Panel: Invited Change Agents

The "Invited Change Agents" panel at this second day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing features the three women who won this year's 2007 Anita Borg Change Agent Awards:

• Wafa Abdul Rahman AlMansoori (Bahrain)
• Zeinab Safar (Egypt)
• Irina Khomeriki (Georgia)

This award was created by Turing Award and inaugural Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award winner, Fran Allen (IBM Fellow, retired). Fran was in today's audience. Change agents work in their community to attract and support women in technology. Recipients are recognized for their technical leadership and advocacy work. The Hopper Conference is remarkable for the geographic diversity of its participants (and for its lack of gender diversity, being almost all women); so, these three are not the only women here from their areas of the world. However, they are remarkable for their accomplishments and vision.

Dr. Safar talked about some of the barriers she faces in Egypt:

• 30% women illiterate, 20% men illiterate
• Language, social, and cultural barriers for girls and women
• Lack of access to computers for girls (boys have more access if there are computers available)
• Encouragement and permission is needed for girls to become educated (fathers need to make opportunity for women to be trained). However, once girls are in the school system, they can continue and succeed. IT is popular and women succeed in the field professionally and represent 30% of the IT sector.

Dr. Khomeriki and Dr. AlMansoori said that their countries shared many of these same problems. They each added that there was a generation difference, with the younger people being more computer capable. Dr. AlMansoori said that Bahrain literacy is 98% in the under-50 age group. She said that men needed to be mentors for women so that women could learn to do more than keep the home and take care of children.

Dr. Safar said that she hoped women would do something for women, to help women in Egypt to learn more about Information Technology. She looks to NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and private donors (like industry and the Anita Borg Institute) for support. Dr. Khomeriki talked about internet use in Georgia (3.75 users per 100 people, often by way of a smokey cyber cafe) and how important it was to have quick information access. Dr. AlMansoori said it was hard to get program funding in Bahrain because everyone knows her country is rich. Also, Bahrain is a small country and only boys can work out of the country, so women have fewer job opportunities.

The moderator asked a question from one of last year's Change Agent Award winners: what had the three learned by attending Hopper 2007, and what would they do differently?

• Dr. Safar said that she should have brought a student, and also since the Hopper Conference includes about half students, that she should get more students to participate in her conferences in Egypt.
• Dr. Khomeriki said she had a new point of view.
• Dr. AlMansoori said she would have looked for a mentor to enrich her experience. She plans to establish a mentoring program in Bahrain for students, Engineers, and fresh graduates to bring out their best. A mentoring program will encourage people to seek help from others who know how to do things better. She wants them to know that seeking improvement is not admitting inability. She is looking for help to set up this new mentoring program.

I gave Dr. AlMansoori the 2006 "Mentoring for Employee Development" 2-page handout from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), a reference to Sun's http://research.sun.com/SEED/ web site about the SEED Engineering mentoring program which I manage, and my card. I hope she will follow up with me! It would be very interesting to follow up on today's discussion.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 01:50PM Oct 19, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

GHC Speaker: Maria Klawe (Harvey Mudd College)

I am up early this morning after dancing late at last night's banquet for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing because Maria Klawe is speaking. Maria Klawe is amazing - she is now President, Harvey Mudd College, after serving as Dean of Engineering at Princeton.

Maria's wants Engineers to do great technical work but also have a full life and make a difference in the world too. Having seen Maria dancing last night, I know she lives what she recommends.

The paradox which Maria highlighted in today's keynote talk is that there are increasing percentages of women in Computer Science Faculty, grad students, and leadership positions in industry and academia; however, undergraduate CS women student numbers continue to decrease. Right now, 20% of Computer Science PhD students in the USA and Canada are women, while only 14% of CS undergrads are women. Yet, the worldwide demand for workers with CS degrees is higher now than ever before (she believes that trend will probably continue for the next 10 years).

Maria encouraged outreach to schools, parents, and teachers to help. She said if each of the 1,400 women at Hopper 2007 could convince 3 girls to go into CS, the problem would start to reverse. She advises finding opportunities to talk to any organization (about leadership or whatever) and then insert truths about CS as an aside. To talk with girls, go where they are: to art classes or camp rather than to High School CS classes. Craft messages for High School math, bio, chem, art and other classes. Maria asked the audience to raise their hands if they would commit to talk with at least one (preferably 20!) High School girls. Most of us did!

Maria Klawe's advice on how to attract female college students to Computer Science:

• Fabulous CS intro (and later) classes
• Get some CS required, have Dean advise all students to take CS classes
• Bring frosh to Hopper
• Post-frosh summer research experiences
• Make it easy to switch into CS (and offer CS in the summer)
• Provide CS double major option and flexibility
• Make a digital pre-med program

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 07:31AM Oct 19, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

GHC Panel: Girl Geeks in High School

"Girl Geeks in High School: Technical Experiences of Future Inventors" was the panel I moderated this afternoon at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing here in Orlando, Florida. See my 3 August 2007 blog entry for a full panel description. My daughter Jessica and I worked on developing this panel for over six months. She and three High School girls from the Silicon Valley joined me on the stage today. Both she and I are blogging about it. (I haven't read Jessica's blog entry yet but you can read it at Feeling Elephants.)

I think the panel went well, both for the girls and for the audience. In our hour, we covered both questions the girls and I had discussed in advance plus new questions from the audience. We talked about how the girls use technology in school and for fun and what was working best for them. There was some range of opinions but the girls agreed on many points:

• There were some differences between male and female teachers of science, math, and technology but the gender of the teacher generally didn't matter.
• The gender of mentors mattered - females were much preferred.
• Laptops could be of great benefit in class but there was also temptation to misuse them during less interesting classes.
• No one used tablets nor had they seen them used effectively.
• Hands-on and interactive projects teach better and are more interesting.
• Many of their peers and adults also did not understand their interest in Engineering. However, their teachers and parents had encouraged and supported them.
• All of them came from families in which technology was used comfortably.

A very interesting question from the audience was whether the four girls saw themselves as users or creators of technology. They said they saw themselves "using to create" (being somewhere in-between using and creating). However, their examples of how they used technology were very sophisticated - far beyond the abilities of a passive simple user.

I agree with one of the audience members who told me later that she would be fascinated to see what these very talented and charming young women did in the next twenty years. I do look forward to watching their progress.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 08:32PM Oct 18, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

GHC Presentation: Introducing the Computing Community Consortium

"Introducing the Computing Community Consortium - Facilitating Visions for Our Future" was a presentation I attended this first afternoon of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing here in Orlando, Florida. Susan Graham of U.C. Berkeley presented information about the newly-created Computing Community Consortium (CCC) which is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and was established by the Computing Research Association (CRA). CCC is to create venues for community participation in developing research visions and stimulating new research activities. The CCC website says:

Under an agreement with the National Science Foundation, CRA will establish a consortium of computing experts that will provide scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects. Under the three-year, $6 million agreement, CRA will create the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) to identify major research opportunities and establish “grand challenges” for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation for developing visions and creating new research activities.

It is interesting (if confusing) to listen to unfamiliar professional jargon. Although I helped to teach a class at U.C. Berkeley Engineering for many years, I have never formally been a part of a university. I have also never worked for the government. So, the steady flow of new acronyms and organization/funding assumptions used in describing CCC took some immediate mental translation. In fact, because of these language barriers, I am not entirely sure I understand how CCC works, so this is a hard blog entry to write.

As an example of the kind of research CCC supports, Jen Rexford of Princeton talked about Geni (Global Environment for Network Innovations), a project with the goal of creating an academic grass-roots community to improve Information Technology infrastructure. Creating a new Internet, thinking from scratch to create a new long-term vision, seems to be at least part of Geni's work. More on the Geni initial design and science plan is available. Dr. Rexford said that the research community needs to think big to play a lead role in how the Internet will evolve.

I asked about the relationship of this academic research community with the open source community as well as with industry. I wanted to know if CCC's visionary work was mostly to be done by academic researchers or would include a larger technical community. In my question, I used the example of Sun's OpenSolaris open source community to illustrate the kind of work and complex communication that goes into creating technology collaboratively. From Dr. Graham's answer, I think that CCC will mostly focus on academic work but individual CCC projects will get some input from industry. Dr. Graham said that industry had a shorter term vision while the academic research community developed visions more than 5 years out. In my experience, industry does create longer-term visions. We talked after the presentation and I hope to discuss the question further.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Solaris and OpenSolaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

Posted at 07:41PM Oct 18, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

GHC Panel: Invited CTOs

"Invited CTOs" was the second panel I attended at this first morning of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing here in Orlando, Florida. Represented are Chief Technology Officers from Mayfield, Intel, Symantec, Thoughtworks, and Network Appliance. I was pleased to see Mark Bregman (CTO of Symantec), with whom I worked on the Silicon Valley Heart Walk last month. I was sorry to see just one woman on the panel, but that is reality.

One of the first themes discussed by this panel was how a CTO is different from a most-senior Engineer or most-senior Manager or Executive. From what the panelists say, this is also a regular topic of conversation both inside and outside of companies. "CTO" may stand for Chief Talking Officer or Chief Travelling Officer. Justin Rattner of Intel said: "My job is about communication - talking about our technologies. The ability to communicate effectively across a broad range of technical subjects is very important. Influence directions, nudge people, guide people - get them to make crucial decisions. Cultivate technical workforce and then communicate with them." Another panelist said that being a CTO is being a technology influencer rather than being a technology innovator. (I am sitting in the way back of a big room because that is where the electrical outlet for my laptop is so I can't see who is talking...)

The most fascinating topic for me was: What does it take for a woman to become a CTO or Fellow? Why does the population of women in technology companies drop dramatically in the mid-grades and higher? The first answer when this topic was raised was that persistence and determination matter - you can't get promoted if you leave. Maria Klawe (President, Harvey Mudd College) then asked an applauded question - "Do women choose to leave or get driven out?" The panelists discussed management track vs. technical track and how they often saw talented women encouraged to shift to the management track (that is, discouraged from staying on the technical job ladder).

In answer to my question about how they had worked against the problem that many women lack confidence in their own ideas and get lured away into non-technical executive jobs because they don't think they will ever get promoted to Fellow, Mark pointed out that this could be a cultural problem as well as a problem for women. He then said that mentoring could help: a one-on-one encouraging relationship with a very senior person promotes persistence and success. (The benefits of mentoring was a regular theme and favored remedy mentioned by all of the panelists.) Rebecca Parsons (CTO of Thoughtworks) said that each of us needs to take responsibility to push back when arrogance or agressiveness shut down questions or new ideas. Being shut down in public will make many people stop trying and leave. None of us can condone or sit silently listening to this kind of bad behavior if we want to support the flow of diverse ideas and people in technical leadership.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 10:04AM Oct 18, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |