Katy Dickinson

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  | 

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  |