Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Stretching the mind is generally a good thing. There are many ways to do this, so just do it. Over the years, I have spent hours playing the guitar. If I spend half-an-hour a day playing day after day, what I play starts to resemble jazz. I have some sort of lifetime […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to have many meetings—”many” being subjective. Since we do this so often, let try to do it better. I worked for the Federal government for several decades. Government employees meet in groups several times every day. I have also worked for companies on government contracts. We met with the government […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we simply have to lower expectations when it comes to what other people will do. Too bad. We can do better. It happened again the other day at work. I needed signatures on paper, or at least the digital equivalent of them. It was all set. Go to this building on […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Learning is good as it leads to better performance and other beneficial things. There are tools available that accelerate learning. Let’s use those. I try to learn. Sometimes I forget to learn. Yes, fatigue clobbers my mind and I simply forget to notice things, store them, and use them. There are tools […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips We have tools that multiply our productivity. Every age seems to have such tools. Will we have the sense of urgency to use these tools this time around? From what I can find, the screwdriver was invented in the late 1400s. It was created to, of course, turn screws. The screws were […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Considering DevSecOps—nothing to see here folks. It is just what computer programmers do. Everybody in the software-creating world is doing DevSecOps (development, security, operations). Well, if you are anybody in the everybody, you are doing DevSecOps. If you aren’t doing it, you are a nobody in the everybody. What is DevSecOps? It’s […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips It helps to have someone standing next to you. This is a simple, old, and often overlooked aid to working better. A buddy is someone standing next to you whom you assume knows what they are doing. Often, a few moments later, you both realize that you both assumed the other is […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips Every now and then, someone shows how well you can do something. In rare situations, everyone else improves. Most of the time, however, not so much. I like to watch TED talks. They are so goooooood. Twenty minutes. Every sentence full of content. Just enough visuals, but not too many. Relevant topics. […]

[Read more →]

by Dwayne Phillips The flat, horizontal surface is a natural. Home architects know their value. The designers of automobile interiors, however, seem to be living on another planet. In automobiles, the dash (the area above the displays) is curved and sloped. Flat surfaces don’t exist. So where do I set something that I want to […]

[Read more →]