Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Pulling information involves asking questions. It means you receive information other than what the holder of information volunteers. Ask with care. Pulling information makes an information meeting much longer than the presenter planned. The audience asks questions to learn information that wasn’t presented. But what about this? Why say what you said? […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Angst and polarization during the pandemic could have been greatly reduced with the use of a few magic words. Magic words: Please and Thank you. Some of us were taught these magic words at a young age. Somehow, we forgot them through the years. Their absence increased the angst and polarization of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips “Omit needless words,” still holds true. Sometimes in a different form. I just listened to a 30-minute talk. The context isn’t important. What is important is there were 20 minutes of excellent talking in those 30 mediocre minutes. Cut this, cut that, don’t repeat that. Omit needless words. This is one of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Once again, its not the event, its our reaction to the event. Here is an exercise in reading news headlines. Read the headlines (these are paraphrased from the Washington Post on one day): Virus tied to increased risk of neurological and psychiatric illness The pandemic has caused parents to slow down Expanding […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Candid comments from someone on the inside. It can be ugly in here. For a while, I worked on a project where I would teach persons how to use the software that was produced. We had good intentions. When the software worked as advertised and taught, it allowed the users to do […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is perhaps the once piece of writing advice that has more return per ounce of effort there is. How many words do you have in a sentence? Here is an example of the first sentence of an article in a nationally famous newspaper (The Washington Post, 1 April 2021, and it […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A basic principle in writing non-fiction is Don’t Repeat Yourself. Write it once and point to it. DRY means “Don’t Repeat Yourself.” This is simple, but not often used, and that causes us lots of headaches and heartaches. I have a background in computer programming. A fundamental part of computer programming is […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A simple method for writing a short story (I mean really simple). I like to write short stories. Perhaps that is because I think I have so much to tell, but not enough persons to sit and listen. Anyways, here is one method to writing a short story: Remember an event in […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The weekend tends to erase all prior history. That is a bad thing in endeavors that are worth our time. Monday morning. A good weekend behind me. Okay, now what? Well, what’s interesting in the tech and culture news? Oh, look at that. I’ll spend some time exploring it. Problem: I am […]

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