Katy Dickinson

Tufte, Euclid, and Galileo

My husband, John Plocher, and I attended Dr. Edward Tufte's "Presenting Data and Information" class last week. Also with us was Dr. Danny Cohen of Sun Labs. Tufte is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence, information design, and interface design.

I first took Tufte's excellent touring class around 1990, after he had published his second book. Now, there are four in his self-published Graphics Press series:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition, 2001
• Envisioning Information 1990
• Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, 1997
• Beautiful Evidence, 2006

One of the highlights of the one-day class was Tufte walking around showing ancient printed first editions of works by Euclid (c. 300 BC) and Galileo (1564-1642) to demonstrate good design and production. Tufte is the rock star of visual information design. I highly recommend his class to anyone for whom graphic display of quantitative information is important. Photos:

Katy and Danny

Tufte and Euclid

Tufte talking with the audience

John with Galileo on the screen

Tufte and Galileo

Tufte and Galileo

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 04:05PM Dec 17, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

SEED Matching Update, SEED LinkedIn Group

We are 13 days into the SEED mentor matching cycle for the two January-June 2009 terms. So far, 61 program participants are matched (that's 56% of the 109 total participants). The remaining 48 are under consideration by potential mentors from their Mentor Wish Lists. My December email file for SEED already has 1,235 emails in it.

Matching has been slower than for a usual term. By the second week of a normal SEED mentor matching cycle, we usually have 75% of participants matched. This slowed matching is probably due to two causes: 1) We have about double the number of participants than are usually matched at this time of year; 2) I decided to ask all but the most senior and experienced mentors to have a pre-match discussion with their potential mentee before I declare the match. The restructuring that Sun announced last month will be starting soon. In these stressful times, I want to be sure that these mentoring pairs are a particularly good fit for each other. Only about 1/3 of the participants in these terms are based in the USA, so pre-match discussions take a while to set up.

Yesterday, I started an experiment which I hope will improve SEED communications. I set up a group for SEED Engineering Mentoring mentees, mentors, and managers on LinkedIn. I announced the group to the SEEDs last night and in less than a day, I have approved 163 requests to join.

Why do this? Year after year, the most frequent request from SEED applicants and participants is for more information about potential SEED mentors. Keeping good records on the 445 SEED potential mentors is time-consuming, and the resulting list is always incomplete and a little out of date, despite our best efforts.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site which can be used as a self-updating professional address book. By creating the new SEED group on LinkedIn, SEED and PreSEED mentees, mentors, and managers can link to each other, find out about, and keep track of each other more easily. The new SEED Engineering Mentoring group is open to current and alumni SEED program mentees, mentors, and managers. That is, staff who are current and former Sun employees associated with the SEED Engineering Mentoring program.

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

Posted at 07:45PM Dec 16, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

SEED and PreSEED Matching Update

We are six days into the SEED mentor matching cycle for the January-June 2009 terms. So far, 18 program participants are matched. The remaining 91 are under consideration by potential mentors from their Mentor Wish Lists. I have already heard some response ("Yes", "No", or "I am Thinking About It") from 63 potential mentors. I just sent out 46 "Last Call" emails to the potential mentors who did not reply - telling them that they just have a day or two until their week of consideration is over and I go on to the next potentially available mentor. As usual, the "Last Call" emails generated a large number of responses of one kind or another. My December email file for SEED already has 681 emails in it.

This early in the cycle, almost all of the matches are for mentors who were #1 or #2 in priority on the 10-name Mentor Wish Lists. However, I have already had to reach down to #6 or lower for some as-yet-unmatched participants. Despite all of the information available, some participants were confused. There were many lists which included names of mentors who are too junior or too senior to serve, or who are known to be unavailable. I skip those names when looking for the next highest priority potentially available mentor on a list.

As usual, Sun's senior executives are being very generous with their time, often accepting a second mentee or queuing up their next mentee to start right after they finish working with their mentee whose term ends in March 2009. It is an honor and a pleasure to work with such a big hearted group of talented people.

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

Posted at 03:36PM Dec 09, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Neon Jesus and Other Interpretations

While Christmas shopping in the San Francisco Bay Area in recent weeks, I have noticed that representations of Jesus are even more popular than usual. Some are serious, some are silly, some are very strange. All were in regular stores mixed in with non-religious items. The first picture in my collection is Neon Jesus. It is taken from a children's illustrated Bible dated 1962 that I bought from a used book sale for the SMUM Studio 17 (Santa Maria Urban Ministry) book shelf. Jesus' Neon-yellow hair in the illustrations is unique and memorable, if probably unrealistic for someone born in Israel two thousand years ago. That book started me noticing...

Photos:

Neon-yellow hair Jesus

Jesus Action Figure

Jesus Nodder

Dashboard Jesus

Pile of crucifixes

Crucifix selection

Deluxe Miracle Jesus, Glow Hands

Jesus Flashlights

Buddy Christ

Plastic Pieta

Micracle Eyes Jesus

Snow Globe Nativity

Jesus Saves Bank

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 02:09PM Dec 09, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

WP668 and the Conductor Ducks

Our backyard caboose, WP668, looked good for Saturday's Silicon Valley Lines (SVL) model train club Christmas party. John put up the Western Pacific herald on the new metal plate he welded to WP668's side, then added Christmas lights too.

I bought train-theme party supplies from the Oriental Trading company, including small plastic Conductor Ducks for giveaways. One of our Christmas traditions is to set up my G-scale railway track in the living room. (I am collecting G-scale rolling stock and track for when I build my garden railway next to WP668.) The Conductor Ducks were a popular party favor and were given many G-scale train rides during the SVL party.

Photos:

WP668 with new WP herald

Conductor Ducks

Western Pacific decal

John mounting decal

John mounting decal

John mounting decal

WP668 new herald

WP668 Christmas lights

Hank vs. the train

Hank helping Dad

Ladybug engine, Conductor Ducks

Little John with ducks

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 11:43PM Dec 07, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Western Pacific Herald Going on Caboose

For the third year, our home will soon be hosting the Silicon Valley Lines model train club Christmas party. To prepare for the event, I have finished painting the bay window markings on WP668, our backyard caboose. Tomorrow, John is going to mount the Western Pacific herald on the metal plate on the side of WP668. John wants to preserve the etched shadow of the original WP logo on the original herald plate, so he lacquered it. Today, he had a 21-1/2" x 23-1/2" steel plate cut (the size of the WP decal we bought from the Portola Railroad Museum), then painted the new plate black. Tomorrow, John will tack weld the new plate over the old and then mount the decal. WP668 will once again display the Western Pacific herald!

Here a small size reproduction of the WP logo and a current photo of WP668:

Images Copyright 2007-2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:51PM Dec 04, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

SEED Mentor Matching Cycle Starts

Yesterday, all 109 SEED and PreSEED Engineering mentoring program participants turned in the final versions of their 10-name Mentor Wish Lists. Also yesterday, Tanya Jankot cleaned up the data, then she and I decided on who was the top priority potentially available mentor for each new program participant, then I sent out the first 65 personal email requests to potential mentors. Today, I sent out the remaining 44 email requests. I have been getting many enthusiastic responses from potential mentors. Four have already accepted mentees (2 GSS SEEDs and 2 PreSEEDs).

Mentor request metrics:

• There were 442 unique potential mentors requested on the 109 Mentor Wish Lists.
• 14 potential mentors had more than one request at #1 priority.
• 65 potential mentors had 5 or more participants request them.
• 6 had more than ten requests.
• 14 was the highest number of requests for any potential mentor.

Unless the mentor is very experienced or says they already know the mentee well, I ask them to have a pre-match discussion by phone or in person to be sure it is a good fit. I expect many more matches soon. If experience holds true, it will take three to six weeks to match everyone in both terms. There will be very few matches toward the end of this month because of Sun's winter break.

Mentor matching metrics:

• In most terms since SEED started in 2001, about 80% of participants were matched with one of their top four priority choices. The remainder were matched with a Mentor lower down on their Mentor Wish List.
• About 70% of SEED mentors are executives (Directors, Principal Engineers, Fellows, or Vice Presidents) in any term. More senior mentees tend to be matched with more senior mentors. For example, in the 2008-2009 terms, the Recent Hire term had 65% executive mentors but the Established Staff term had 84% executive mentors.
• In the 2008-2009 terms, 77% of mentor-mentee pairs were working at a distance, another state or country from each other.
• Over 90% of SEED participants indicate satisfaction or strong satisfaction with the program in their quarterly reports.
• 100% of participants get matched with a mentor they requested.

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

Posted at 09:24PM Dec 04, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |