Engineering Mentoring: SEED

Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development

SEED is Sun Engineering's world wide employee mentoring program. SEED program participants are expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering's individual contributor or management ranks. Greg Papadopoulos (Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development) is SEED's executive sponsor. SEED is managed by Katy Dickinson Director, Business Process Architecture, in the Chief Technologist's Office.

In more than 30 terms, there have been over 1,000 SEED participants and over 500 mentors World-wide. Over 70% of SEED mentors are Vice Presidents, Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, or Directors. Since 2001, the SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall.

SEED Program Priorities are:

• Increase the value, satisfaction, and retention of program participants and their mentors.
• Build Sun's Engineering community by making and strengthening connections between its members and with the rest of Sun.
• Work to balance the diversity of participants in terms of demographics, professional area, and geographic location.

External candidates will apply for a Sun job in research, design, development engineering, advanced development, or a related discipline. Once candidates have a job offer, they can apply for the SEED program or work with their Sun recruiter to make the application. The acceptance decisions on the Sun job and SEED participation will be made by different groups; however, all SEED participants must work in Sun Engineering.

SEED runs seven terms a year. The Recent Hire term runs September to September (with applications in June), other types of terms (for Established Staff, PreSEED, and special pilots) each run for six months. The SEED participant reports to their home organization while participating in the program; it is not a rotation program.

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List of Publications About SEED:

• "5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers" by Katy Dickinson, presented at the October 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing (30 pages, PDF format)
• Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) Program (Case Study 1): Mentoring Technical Women at Work National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Social Scientists picked SEED among Promising Practices as the Case Study in this report, 2006 (2 pages, PDF format)

• Maria Klawe (President, Harvey Mudd College), Telle Whitney (President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute or ABI), and Caroline Simard (Director for Research at ABI): "Women in Computing - Take 2" February 2009 issue, Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery): "Some of the successful approaches that companies may use for recruiting, retaining, and advancing more women in computing, as well as in other technical professions, include:... Implement a mentoring program. Indeed, make mentoring which positively impacts career advancement and satisfaction, a basic part of the organizational culture. Sun Microsystems' SEED program, for example, is regarded as a major step in this direction."
• Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI) "Mentoring Lessons Shared" panel member, 16 January 2009, Mountain View, CA. See "News - CAHSI: Developing Leaders Through Mentoring" By BJ Wishinsky, Communities Program Manager, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, January 2009

• Ida Abbott Consulting Management Solutions Issue 17, Winter 2007 "Best Practices - Proving the Value of Mentoring" profiles SEED

• Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) Program (Case Study 1): Mentoring Technical Women at Work National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Social Scientists picked SEED among Promising Practices as the Case Study in this report, 2006 (2 pages, PDF format)
• "Mentors can help women shatter glass ceiling - Senior colleagues can toot your horn, bringing you money and power" by Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC contributor, Nov 19, 2006 (mentoring quote on the 2nd page)
• "20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry - If you agree that there's no such thing as an IT project, you may already be on your way up the ladder" by Dan Tynan, October 16, 2006, InfoWorld (SEED is part of "10. Find Your Yoda")
• "5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers" 4-7 October 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, San Diego Program Schedule for GHC Session 1 - Thursday, October 5, 2006 "5 Years of Executive Mentoring", TechLeaders - Building and Sustaining Change in Technology Cultures: Showcasing What Works (October 4, 2006, San Diego, CA)
• Information Week in Israel, 28 Feb 2006 (in Hebrew, with a photo)

• "Outsourcing is essential for survival of companies" (SEED is mentioned), interview with Crawford W Beveridge, Executive Vice President (People & Places) and Chief Human Resource Officer interview, Deccan Herald > Economy & Business > Detailed Story, April 11, 2005

• "Bit by Bit: Mentoring & Practical Approaches to Advancing Women in High Tech" Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing ("GHC 2004") Moderator: Katy Dickinson, 7 October 2004
• Rhonda Holt (VP of Grid Engineering Program Office) interview, DiversitySearch - Up Close & Virtual Interviews, 2004 (mentions SEED)
• "SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development" Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic Publication Date : 17 May 2004 (5 pages, PDF format)
• "Nurturing a Culture of Innovation" Express Computer May 2004 article on SEED program and participants in Sun's India Engineering Center (IEC) in Bangalore
• "Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters Growth New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior Staff Mentors" Paragon Pinnacles > Volume 73 > Issue 3 > Sun Features > (March 15, 2004, Article #12480, Volume 73, Issue 3)
• "Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters Growth - New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior Staff Mentors" Sun System News, March 15, 2004, Article #12480, Volume 73, Issue 3
• "Tapping into the Knowledge Network" www.sun.com article on SEED, 18 Feb 2004 [was featured on both the www.sun.com and research.sun.com home pages]
• "Sun (SEED) program pairs college recruits with senior engineering mentors, 23 Feb 2004 link to "Tapping into the Knowledge Network" www.sun.com article from LSTN (Learning & Teaching Support Network for Engineering section on "UK & World Media News"- now called The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre)
• "Mentoring and Being Mentored on the Technology Track" by Carla King, published on "developers.sun.com - The Source for Developers", 2003 [Now called Sun Developer Network or SDN]
• Bit by Bit: Catalyst's Guide to Advancing Women in High Tech Companies, SEED is the featured case study in the "Use Mentoring and Networks to Win" section (page 106), book published by Catalyst (Catalyst document #16146), 2003, ISBN 0-89584-243-2