Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the better choice among two alternatives is neither, nor. We have two alternatives—this, that. The most well known choice is either this or that One of them must be better than the other. Let’s decide which is better and go with it. Aha, but we grow smarter with the years and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Knowing, ahead of time, when to change the design of a technology system. Consider: We have software running on different computers. We don’t have much electrical power available for computers “out in the field,” i.e., they probably run on batteries. Hence, we move heavy computations to lab computers where electrical power is […]

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by Dwayne Phillips My customer pays me for a product or a service. I provide it. I do not, however, have to allow my customer to be my teacher. My customer is my customer. They pay me for a product or a service, and I provide that. However, I don’t have to: act like they […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we are stuck with a bad customer. We still choose how we live and work. Alright, our customer is bad. They gripe all the time, show no appreciation for our efforts. They are, however, our customer and they pay our bills. So now what? We will: work everyday work smart have […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Life is much easier when I distinguish myself from things that I produce. I write. I write blog posts, books, magazine articles, and lots of documents at work. People tear up some of the things I write. That can hurt, if I don’t know the difference between me and something I wrote. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Given a choice made for us or us making our own choice, we choose the default. A recent experiment showed that people will eat fruit instead of french fries if fruit is the default choice. This experiment was not done on sophisticated, health-conscious adults but on kids. Uh, well, there must be […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Don’t do anything that you can’t explain to the paramedics. I learned this rule at a workshop held by author and consultant Jerry Weinberg. We were learning how to do simulations or exercises in seminars. You didn’t want to do anything that would accidentally break any bones or cause other things that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we should assign one person. We already know that, so why don’t we do it? There is some old cliche about too many cooks in the kitchen or too many cooks stirring the pot or something. There is a a current cliche about too many people in the room I head […]

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by Dwayne Phillips People are free to choose their reactions to events. I am included in “people.” We all are. I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase that is the title of this post. There are countless variations: You tell him that! That’s easy to say when s/he isn’t around. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Things that are similar tend to be near one another. The same seems to hold for people. I am sure someone has already named and explained this law. Oh look, here is an actual definition. Oh well, I won’t get credit for inventing this. It is a shame that few persons understand […]

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