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Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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Entries Tagged as 'Fear'

Everybody Is Chattering (not)

May 25th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s curb our enthusiasm about these chatbots and large language models multiplying productivity and costing jobs. I just saw another article about how ChatGPT and the like are being used in yet another field of endeavor with giant gains in productivity. We won’t need half the people we have in the office […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Breathe · Change · Chaos · Fear · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Learning

Omission

January 2nd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips No one lied, they just omitted some information. There are ways to find the omissions and those things are some of the more important pieces of information we need. No one lied, they just omitted a few bits and pieces of information. And, oh, if we had those bits and pieces of […]

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Tags: Appearances · Communication · Ethics · Fear · Honesty · Information · Questions · Talk

The Uninvested Assistant

March 18th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When problems occur in complex online presentations, those involved struggle to fix the problems. They are invested in the presentation. That investment inhibits thinking. Always bring along an uninvested assistant. I have participated in countless ZoomerTeamer meetings in the past year. Some were simple—a daily chat with a small team of colleagues. […]

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Tags: Breathe · Fear · Judgment · Problems · Thinking

Skimming and Diving

December 28th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we skim the surface to gather an overview. Sometimes we dive in deep to discover the details. I like an overview. I like the nitty gritty details. Which do we like? On which day? For me, the overview is easier. I learn the general idea. I tell people that “all I […]

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Tags: Concepts · Energy · Fear · Ideas · Technology

Let’s Not Tell Them…

December 12th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When we say, “Let’s not tell them (this yet)…” We have learned exactly what we should tell “them” first. There are the hushed tones. “In this meeting, we want to get across these things, but let’s all keep in mind that we don’t want to tell them about…” This is one variation […]

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Tags: Breathe · Communication · Fear

Don’t Try This at Home

August 19th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I know what I’m doing. You don’t. I can have fun. You can’t. As a kid, I used to see wild stunts on television. They always prefaced them with, “Don’t try this at home.” Why not? Why could they do things, but I couldn’t? Of course they had years of this and […]

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Tags: Change · Education · Fear · Learning · Permission

Whispers at Work

April 1st, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Hushed voices in the workplace and what they tell us about our workplace. It happens around me—too often. Several persons near me in the great cubicle farm are talking in a “normal tone of voice.” Then the tone changes. They voices become hushed—almost whispers. My “colleagues” have something to say and they […]

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Tags: Adults · Childhood · Failure · Fear · Management

In Praise of the Sticky Note

June 11th, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The Sticky Note exemplifies the temporary idea. Nothing is a useful and, at the same time, as benign as a temporary idea. I guess you aren’t supposed to write about Sticky Notes. They are temporary by nature. Hmm, temporary. Temporary things seem to ease the fears of many even though these many […]

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Tags: Change · Fear · Ideas

The Fill-in-the-Blank Registry

January 5th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If elected leaders want it, of course someone will build the fill-in-the-blank registry (if it doesn’t already exist). Big news lately about how large numbers of programmers have pledged not to build a fill-in-the-blank registry. (It is pretty easy to make such a pledge when you are employed and have enough work […]

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Tags: Communication · Fear · Government

They Want You to Fail

September 22nd, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes people give you a task they know you will fail. That is because they want you to fail. Sometimes we are all dysfunctional. In government and business and everything else, sometimes, some persons give tasks to other persons while wanting them to fail. The giver of the impossible task puts the […]

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Tags: Communication · Customer · Failure · Fear