Katy Dickinson

Palo Alto High School

My son just finished his Sophomore year final exams at Palo Alto High School or "Paly". This was a tough year for Paul academically and we are all glad he is done and has the summer to recover. Paul has done homework and studied 4 to 6 hours a day after school (more on weekends) since September. He is one tired boy.

Paly is a large school (over 1,600 students) originally built in 1898. Here are some of the pictures I have taken there this year:

Paly Front Door

Main hallway

Oak outside window

Stained glass

100 Years of Graduates

Paly Alley Sign

Columned walkway

Reluctant Photo Subject (Paul)

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:19PM Jun 13, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

SEED 2008-2009 mentoring terms status

Since the 9 June deadline, Tanya Jankot and I have worked with Sun's Human Resources records to review the 169 SEED applications which were submitted on time. 121 of the 169 were complete and verified by HR. Yesterday, I passed the 27 eligible Recent Hire (RH) applications to the 2008-2009 executive Selection Committee for review. The Recent Hire and Established Staff selections will be made and announced on 18 June.

There is a wide seniority range among the RH applicants: from Sun Grade 5 (Member of the Technical Staff 2) through Grade 13 (Director). This term, SEED has modified is scope and welcomed acquired staff as RH candidates within 9 months of their acquisition date.

The job of the RH Selection Committee is to sort the applications assigned to each of them into L-Low, M-Medium, or H-High buckets. Giving someone a H-High rating means that in the Selection Committee member's opinion, that person has a good potential over time to rise to the top of Sun Engineering's individual contributor or management ranks.

Why not accept them all? Because we have unfortunately found in prior terms that just meeting the basic SEED criteria does not mean an applicant can be expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering's individual contributor or management ranks. If I am going to ask senior or executive Sun staff to accept a SEED mentee and spend a year coaching them, the mentee should be a rising star with potential for notable success in Sun Engineering.

Each SEED application is read independently by at least two Selection Committee members. Each member ends up reading about the same number of applications. The discussions are often around differences of interpretation (usually for an Applicant rated High by one and Low by another) and around how many Medium/Mediums to include to achieve an appropriate level of diversity among the Participants. Diversity is considered in terms of demographics, geographic work location, and professional area within Engineering (software, microelectronics, labs, storage, etc.). So long as they have one or more Medium/Medium (or higher) ranked Applicants, every Sun division gets at least one Applicant accepted.

After the selections are announced on 18 June, I will not tell RH applicants what rating they got (H, M, or L). However, I will tell their managers their staff member's rating if the manager calls to talk about it. I will not tell anyone who on the Selection Committee gave which rating. Some terms, 30 or more managers call to get specific information on the case of their staff members. I will not refer any managers to the Selection Committee.

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

Posted at 05:45PM Jun 13, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |