Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips I can introduce problems by asking others to consider a specific example. Often, a general example works better. Years ago, author and consultant Jerry Weinberg was leading a session on how to lead sessions. Jerry began with, “feel the sand between your toes on the exotic beach with the surf gently sounding […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is a practice I recommend for non-fiction writing—especially writing where the writer is attempting to teach good practices. I have written books and dozens of articles and other things recommending good practices. If you want to accomplish such and such, do this and that and the other thing. And then I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Are we spending too much time and effort on making AI systems “safe?” Perhaps we should allow adults to be adults and move on. Consider an LLM or whatever that creates text promoting: Those people, those philosophies are horrible! Okay, are you an adult? If so, you can easily reject those horrible […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The first rule of consulting involves how much improvement a consultant can suggest at a time. Recent news highlights this rule and the peril caused by ignoring it. There is an unwritten rule among smart consultants that you only suggest things that improve a situation by about 10%—no more. If you suggest […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Here is a suggestion to those folks who can make these augmented reality (AR) glasses that would help me as a writer and reader. Last year I provided the world with a suggestion for a pencil that would link to a spelling checker and AI. And here is another AI-related suggestion for […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes some person has a significant achievement, but the resources weren’t approved, so it was all quite embarrassing. This is a true story that occurred in the last century. A person at work had a neighbor who worked at a different government agency. The other agency had a colossal failure with some […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I find it good to be specific. There are, however, times when being specific limits thinking, and that is not good. Precise, concrete, and specific: three concepts that are good for writing and communication. I try to remember these things that were burned into me in my first semester of college way […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We store more information on computers. And we FIND it all. Back in ’07 (2007 for those who don’t know an old old way of writing the dates in the first decade of a century), I had a conversation with a senior manager of a government agency. Like 98.6% of senior managers, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Every generation seems to have its magic technology just about to burst on the scene and doing something wonderful and financially rewarding. Most of the time, nothing happens. Back in the early years of this century, carbon nanotubes were the thing to discuss. We were to build computers thinner than a piece […]

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