Katy Dickinson

Portable Typewriter, Thinking Inside the Box, New Cockatiels

I am still learning the best arrangement for posts on my new other KatysBlog on Wordpress. I put up three posts there recently, with what I think is better use of photos than in my first efforts:

• Remington Portable Typewriter (28 August)
• Thinking Inside the Box funny cat pictures (31 August)
• Adopted Cockatiels – Simon & Garfunkel (31 August)

I like the blog stats and other tools Wordpress offers.

Posted at 07:14PM Aug 31, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

"Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Published Today

Publication
I hope you will want to read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon, published this morning. You can see the spotlight announcement on Sun Labs' public home page at http://research.sun.com.

The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html,
Report # TR-2009-185

Announcement
August 28, 2009- Sun Microsystems has benefited from a long-term successful culture of mentoring, especially in its worldwide engineering divisions. About 7,300 mentoring pairs have participated in one of Sun's formal mentoring programs since 1996. Sun has developed several internal formal worldwide mentoring programs, three of which are still offered. To create this report, the authors analyzed Sun's 1996-2009 mentoring program data, plus Sunwide data, plus information from a Gartner report on Sun mentoring which focused on the ROI of Sun's mentoring programs.

Mentoring has paid off for Sun in increased productivity, efficiency, and greater satisfaction among participants. This report presents what Sun did and how Sun did it to allow others to take advantage of the company's extensive and successful experience with this remarkably effective and versatile business method. So far as is known, this report is unique: no other company has published a long-term detailed analysis about its corporate mentoring program.

Abstract
This paper provides a summary of mentoring information, best practices, metrics, and recommendations developed during 1996-2009 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and services. The company has a strong corporate culture that values and promotes mentoring. Sun has offered several internally-developed formal mentoring programs, including:

• SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development),
  Katy Dickinson has been SEED's Director since 2001
• Mentoring@Sun, managed by Helen Gracon since 1996
• New Sun Vice Presidents, managed by Helen Gracon since 2004

Mentoring increases effectiveness and efficiency to achieve business results by doing real work, real time. Developing a corporate culture of mentoring is a good way to establish a network of communication across organizational silos, promote a wide variety of talents, and broaden the diversity of ideas and innovation available to the company. The ROI on Sun mentoring has been calculated to be 1,000% or greater.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities. These benefits are of special interest to engineering companies and are in addition to more objective productivity measures of mentoring success such as increased performance ratings, higher retention, and more promotions. SEED has been sponsored since 2001 by Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development.

The home page for SEED is http://research.sun.com/SEED.

Posted at 02:06PM Aug 28, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Summer Stuff

My daughter Jessica had a successful summer being the web intern for the World Organization for Human Rights USA in Washington, D.C. She also worked in a bike shop.

This is the season for roses, resurrection lilies, yarrow, cactus and other heat-loving plants to bloom in my garden.

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church sent a hundred campers off to Camp Oskie (which for that week becomes Camp St. Andrew's) at the Lair of the Golden Bear, the University of California at Berkeley Alumni family camp in Pinecrest, California. On Scarf Sunday, everyone comes to church to show off their new St. Andrew's Camp scarves, tell camp stories, and sing. This year's theme was Safari, so the altar was flanked by a life-sized cardboard tiger and lion. Leopard print was the fashion for the day.

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Cross-posted from my new blog at http://katysblog.wordpress.com

Posted at 11:37PM Aug 14, 2009 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

"Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Technical Report

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

Lately I have spent most of my time writing, revising, and editing the soon-to-be-published 107-page-long Sun Labs Technical Report titled "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009". Tanya Jankot, Helen Gracon, and I pooled our knowledge about all of Sun's mentoring programs and the 7,300 mentoring pairs with whom we have worked. Thanks to the many who helped in collecting the information and reviewing the document.

Sample SEED Data

• 93% of mentees who sent in quarterly reports thought meetings with their mentor were worthwhile.
• SEED mentees received 1-Superior performance ratings at an average annual rate of 40%, twice that of the general Sun employee population.
• SEED mentees were promoted at an average annual rate of 33%, more than twice that of the general Sun employee population rate.
• Promotions fell by 38% during the 2007-2009 Economic Bust period.
• Men and women mentees report the same program satisfaction (90% average), regardless of their mentor's gender.
• SEED (and Mentoring@Sun) mentoring pairs who work at a distance have for many years reported the same satisfaction level as those working locally; however, mentors and mentees both report that working at a distance is more time consuming.

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of mentoring information, best practices, metrics, and recommendations developed during 1996- 2009 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and services. The company has a strong corporate culture that values and promotes mentoring. Sun has offered several internally-developed formal mentoring programs, including:

• SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development),
  Katy Dickinson has been SEED's Director since 2001
• Mentoring@Sun, managed by Helen Gracon since 1996
• New Sun Vice Presidents, managed by Helen Gracon since 2004

Mentoring increases effectiveness and efficiency to achieve business results by doing real work, real time. Developing a corporate culture of mentoring is a good way to establish a network of communication across organizational silos, promote a wide variety of talents, and broaden the diversity of ideas and innovation available to the company. The ROI on Sun mentoring has been calculated to be 1,000% or greater.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities. These benefits are of special interest to engineering companies and are in addition to more objective productivity measures of mentoring success such as increased performance ratings, higher retention, and more promotions. SEED has been sponsored since 2001 by Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development.

Table of Contents

The report includes the following sections, some of which were published in earlier drafts in this blog:

1. Introduction
2. Summary of Sun's Mentoring Programs
3. Mentoring in Engineering and Computer Science
4. Formal vs. Informal Mentoring
5. Internal or External Mentoring Program?
6. Mentor Selection Systems
7. Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee
8. Best Practices for Mentors
9. Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process
10. Mentoring in Good Times and Bad
11. Sun Mentoring: 1996 to 2009 - Conclusions

These sections are followed by 33 pages of appendices, including an extensive set of metrics charts on selection rates, executive participation, demographics, satisfaction, performance, promotions, attrition, meeting length and frequency, etc.

Cross-posted from my new blog at http://katysblog.wordpress.com

Posted at 07:09PM Aug 14, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

New Cockatiels

Two new cockatiels	Two new cockatiels
New cage	John and new cockatiels

After our beloved 15-year-old pet Princess Birdie died earlier this summer, we started working with Mickaboo to adopt two cockatiels. Mickaboo is an all-volunteer organization in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to rescuing companion birds who have been neglected, abused, injured or surrendered. Or, as their home page says, they are “bird-loving people who want to change the world – one bird at a time.”

After sending-in-the-application and going-to-the-class and being-interviewed-by-phone and being-visited-at-home, Mickaboo approved us to adopt. As a result of what we learned during this extensive pre-adoption process, we bought a bigger bird cage, better bird toys, and different food. We then sent emails to several Mickaboo homes fostering cockatiel pairs to find out about their birds. Last weekend, we went to San Francisco to visit two birds we saw on Mickaboo’s web site and we fell in love. Our two new guys are great singers of duets and will be named Simon & Garfunkel. We are very excited that they will be coming home soon!

Cross-posted from my new blog at http://katysblog.wordpress.com

Posted at 05:53PM Aug 14, 2009 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]