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Kudos

Kind comments I have received, upon occasion.

Comments from Sun Performance Reviews

These comments came from folks I had worked with as an employee at Sun, and recorded by manager. (The process required that names be withheld, so they could speak freely.)

General: "A very real, genuine person, Eric is always honest and forthright in his work and always looks at the good of the whole and the big picture. It is a pleasure working with Eric, because he demonstrates much integrity!

"Eric is particularly adept in the SMI values of collaboration and innovation, and his performance is a great example of how these values can combine for an invaluable employee contribution to our company. Always ready and willing to work with others and to find ways to continually improve technical communications processes, Eric is a key member of (shall we call it) the unofficial leadership team of TechPubs specialists at Sun.

"Thoughtful, extremely hard-working, and considerate in his approach to new tools, concepts, and processes, Eric often leads efforts and discussions in regards to tools and processes, but he also listens to good ideas and incorporates them into his own thinking, which makes him an even stronger contributor. Having worked with Eric on the DITA@Sun team, I know first-hand that he is gung-ho about finding better ways to do work that enhances Sun's ROI and he is strong enough to yield the floor to others in voicing opinions and ideas to make us all stronger and more efficient. I find him to be encouraging and warm and honest, and I am so delighted he is at Sun! It gives me strength to know there are other information architects like Eric whom I can work with so we all win, Sun wins, and all our stock goes up.

"Some of Eric's strengths are vision, kindness, thoroughness, research and investigation, and an attitude of openness that invites others to think outside the box and consider opportunities to improve current processes.

"I have found Eric to be super creative and innovative. His ideas on how we might progress in the CCP area were far-reaching and would open IPG up to future cool stuff, but were grounded enough to be workable and doable in phases. It's great to be ground-breaking and innovative, but Eric also has a pragmatic approach that will allow the process to grow creatively in the real world.

Technical Acumen: "Eric is very bright technically and, more importantly, tenacious. Most companies doing DITA devote real resources to investigating it and in supporting those people who are early adopters. Eric and the other folks doing DITA in SUN seem to be receiving no technical or logistical support, so Eric's significant progress with his pilot writing is directly attributable to his tenaciousness and technical acumen as an individual. I respect that tremendously. He has come up to speed on DITA quickly and deeply.

Communications: "Eric communicates effectively with groups and individuals. Eric's commitment to and support for the DITA interest group in Sun is indicative of his technical leadership. If he has new information or discoveries of note, he shares them with everyone and listens (an important quality) to what people say in response. Even when he is very frustrated with weirdness in the DITA technical environment, his communications manage to stay on topic and not go off into rants (as some of mine do from time to time).

Commitment: "There's an old joke, "You can always tell a pioneer by the number of arrows in his/her back." Eric perseveres in leading the DITA charge in his quadrant of the company because (I believe) he actually believes in the long-term viability and relevance of Sun as a company and as a community. I am quite certain that Eric could take his new-found knowledge of DITA and cash it in with some other Silicon Valley company seeking technical leadership with DITA--but he seems to want to hang in there with Sun and make it happen here. I admire that.

Integrity and Courage: "Deals with others in a straightforward and honest manner, is accountable for actions, maintains confidentiality, supports company values, conveys good news and bad.

Creativity/Innovation: "Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, takes risks, supports change, encourages innovation, solves problems creatively. He's constantly challenging our current technology, trying to find a more modern solution to our processes, writing the glue that makes it easier to get things done.

Customer Focus: "Builds customer confidence, is committed to increasing customer satisfaction, sets achievable customer expectations, assumes responsibility for solving customer problems, ensures commitments to customers are met, solicits opinions and deas from customers, responds to internal customers.

Teamwork: "Meets all team deadlines and responsibilities, listens to others and values opinions, helps team leader to meet goals, welcomes newcomers and promotes a team atmosphere.

Delivering Results: "Targets and achieves results, sets challenging goals, prioritizes tasks, overcomes obstacles, accepts accountability, sets team standards and responsibilities, provides leadership/motivation.