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

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Entries Tagged as 'Customer'

The Luxury (Electric) Vehicle

November 16th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Electric vehicles have some good qualities. They are still, however, not practical as the mass consumer market shows. Darn. Don’t you hate it when facts mug a good idea? Sitting here in a coffee shop, typing blogs, sipping coffee and looking out the picture window at a clear sky, I note a […]

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Tags: Customer · Economics · Jobs · Money · Technology

Verification and Validation

December 15th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is yet another fundamental to providing systems that delight users. Have we validated that we verified before vacation? Or is it the other way around? There was a time when verification and validation were so commonly used that we called it “V&V.” Then we wanted independent persons to perform V&V so […]

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Tags: Customer · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Systems · Testing · User

Caution: Piece Purchase

August 22nd, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I only want to pay for what I use. Caution. While that sounds fine at first, there are implications. Technology has enabled us to go in that perilous direction. I only want to pay for what I use. I have this cable TV package (Yes, I am one of those old folks […]

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Tags: Agreement · Choose · Customer · Economics · Remote Work · Work

The General Store (as a Service)

January 13th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have XaaS or EaaS. We have returned to the day of the general store. We have almost everything as a service. Some call this XaaS. I call it EaaS (Everything as a Service or maybe AEaaS Almost Everything as a Service). Examples, IaaS, DHaaS, SaaS, PaaS, etc. (how many letters are […]

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Tags: America · Computing · Customer · Technology

We Don’t Need an XX on the Team

November 29th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We don’t need an expert in this or that to build better systems. We need a desire to learn and a desire to please. We don’t need a User Experience (UX) person on the team. We don’t need a Customer Experience (CX) expert on the team. We don’t need an XX (fill-in-the-blank […]

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Tags: Customer · Experiment · Expertise · Learning · Resources · Systems · Work

Fat Finger the Database (misadventures in data entry)

October 11th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Data entry, one of the lower-paid professions, is prone to errors, and some can be fatal. During the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Ida, a person close to me needed an essential service. By “essential” I mean if the service did not arrive, someone would die. I repeatedly called the service provider. […]

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Tags: Competence · Customer · Error · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Mistakes · People · Testing

The Denial of Service Attack

August 30th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What we saw with gas stations is known as a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Flood a business with customers and the business fails. The scary part is that someone learned from the situation. Back in May of 2021 (boy, that seems like a long time ago), a pipeline was closed due […]

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Tags: Concepts · Customer · Failure · General Systems Thinking · Observation · People · Reaction

Please Remove Your Sticker from My Car

January 31st, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to allow others to use us freely. A simple example. About every ten years I buy a new automobile. Yes, I am “cheap,” and yes, today’s automobiles are built well enough to drive efficiently for ten years or more. After buying my last automobile, I arrived at home and noticed […]

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Tags: Analysis · Choose · Communication · Customer

Favor of the Rich

October 11th, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Times change, but not all things. We still want to be friends with the rich. I guess things don’t change much with us through the centuries. We want to be friends with the rich. See, e.g., all the places that want Amazon to come and sit for a while. The richest person […]

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Tags: Customer · People

Here is How We Will Make this Right

June 21st, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Customers don’t want long—or any—explanations. Simply tell the customer how we will make the situation right. Another month, another bad experience with customer service. The details are not important. I paid for a service, the provider made a mess of things, I heard dozens of reasons why the situation went wrong. I […]

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Tags: Accountability · Customer · Excuses · Problems