Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips If you want time alone to think, do something distasteful to your colleagues. They will leave you alone. A few years ago I was in a job where we had a small refrigerator of soft drinks in the office. One thing that comes from such is that someone has to refill the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It is easy to let other people control your day and make it a big waste of time. Here is a story, a true story. I was at work. Later in the day I was to brief a roomful of important people. But for now, and the next few hours, I had […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, projects and the people working on them lose their way. This is an expression I heard many times over the years. They’ve lost their way. I didn’t understand the expression. I suppose it was one of those grand mistakes that I never assumed people would make, but time showed me over […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Science, and just about everything else, continues to advance with the number of eyeballs on every problem. Linus Torvalds is credited with saying: Given enough eyeballs, are bugs (problems) are shallow It is a simple concept: if many people are staring at a problem, at least one is likely to see the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When you consider it, systems engineers do something that everyone already does. Right? Systems Engineers do a simple task: they ensure that all customer requirements are built, tested, and delivered. They keep lists and tables and all sorts of things that trace all work back to every customer requirement. So why do […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have three adult sons. They are a study in delving into the sharing economy. I have three adult sons. One has a traditional paid job. He leaves his home five mornings a week, drives to an office, works, and receives a paycheck that is 100% of his income. A second son […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the key to doing something better is really quite simple. Over the years I have improved various things in my life. People ask me, How did I improve my handwriting from awful to neat? How did I improve my grammar and punctuation? How did I improve my fiction writing? How did […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Privacy is gone. Prevent terrible things happening as a result of an inevitable mistake by earning the benefit of the doubt. Donald Sterling was recorded in a private phone conversation. Boom. The end. No one gave him a break; no one gave him the benefit of the doubt. Why not? Because he […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Automation is replacing human jobs. Sorry. That is bad news for people who want to work, and there is no way around it. Such is the nature of today’s new technologies. In recent centuries, new technology arrives and displaces workers. Those unemployed eventually find jobs in new industries that build and maintain […]

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