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Entries Tagged as 'Economics'

Water Flows Downhill

October 7th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the mountains of the east coast reminds us of a basic. Hurricane Helene hit the Gulf Coast of Florida recently. It hit the coast hard. The worst damage and the most deaths, however, occurred in the mountains up the east coast of the US. This is […]

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Tags: Adapting · Economics · Management · People · Planning

Sharing Risk: What Do You Have to Lose?

January 25th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In our personal lives, we often take all the risk without asking others to share it. The basic, but rarely asked, question is, “What does each person have to lose?” I am sitting here sipping coffee pondering what to do. Someone is asking me to wait, and wait, and wait. Perhaps they […]

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Tags: Accountability · Alternatives · Conversation · Differences · Economics · Respect · Risk

Work From Home, Work at the Office (And Commute)

January 4th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are many aspects to working from home or at the office. One is simply the time wasted commuting. Folks are returning to the office after the pandemic. They are? Are they saying they are, but not really? One simple aspect of the question is commuting. I live in he Virginia suburbs […]

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Tags: Accountability · America · Economics · Employment · Meaning · Measure · Remote Work · Work

Please Consider

November 30th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Bad things happen in the lives of employees. Other employees are asked to show consideration. This works for a short while. Managers need to act properly and quickly. Many years ago, I went to a fellow employee to retrieve some information from an equipment inventory. It was a mess. The guy didn’t […]

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Tags: Accountability · Economics · Employment · Help · Leadership · Management

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

In Praise of the Table

May 11th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider what is the ultimate purchase for the home, family, and home business: the table. Consider the humble flat horizontal surface. Narrow the consideration to the kitchen table with four chairs. A quick search shows plenty of choices from $100 on up. Let’s settle for $150. A family eats […]

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Tags: Adults · Authentic · Concepts · Conversation · Economics · Family · General Systems Thinking

The Crowd Wins Again

October 20th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Folks out there in the crowd are clobbering the high-tech giants and everyone else they want to clobber. Yet another essay appears about how open-source software projects appear faster than systems produced by high-tech giants full of experts. Computing power is so inexpensive that there are many, many, many folks out there […]

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Tags: Economics · General Systems Thinking · Influence · People · Technology

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

Where are We Going? (Linear Regression)

December 6th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Linear Regression is an old, basic technique to predict the future given the past. It seems that its utility has been forgotten by many. How did we get here? Why didn’t anyone see this coming? These are a couple questions I heard recently when groups of persons gathered to discuss … well, […]

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Tags: Accountability · Analysis · Change · Data Science · Economics · Estimation · Hope · Planning

Researchers and Paying for Research

February 8th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Research is expensive. Someone pays the bills. Sorry about the lesson in economics. The future of companies is often in the research they perform in the back rooms. Not glamorous, but often necessary. And those smart folks in the back rooms cost lots of money. The company has to be making enough […]

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Tags: Economics · Research · Technical Debt · Technology