Working Up

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

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Entries Tagged as 'Learning'

The End of Credentials

June 28th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips No journalism degree? Not needed to blog and break news. Not a pro photographer? Not needed to publish world-wide on Flickr. No computer science degree? Not needed to learn programming and work. I believe these things to be true. I believe that you don’t have to have a credential from an organization […]

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Tags: Change · Employment · Learning

The Weak and Powerful

May 17th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips People make mistakes. Some mistakes lead to a complete collapse of groups of people. When large, well connected groups fail, others suffer. This happens in national and international economies. It also happens on projects involving only a few persons. There are things that project managers can do to contain the damage from […]

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Tags: Learning · Management

Cheating in Computer Science

April 21st, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Universities report that cheating is prevalent in computer science classes. A closer look shows me that the universities are cheating the students by teaching them bad work habits. Computer science enrollment is high this year in universities. Cheating in universities is also on the rise. Universities are proclaiming that the cheating is […]

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Tags: Learning · Programming

Meeting Good People

April 19th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A recent peek into the world of grad students in engineering and related fields reveals a group of people with a strong desire to work for the benefit of others. I have been working with grad students on writing. This took many months to arrange, but for the past couple of weeks […]

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Tags: Communication · Learning · People · Technology · Volunteer · Work · Writing

Learning Some Java

March 22nd, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Old guys should keep learning. I like to write computer programs, so one of the things I am (re)learning is programming in Java. I am spending some time each day studying the Java programming language. Some of my background: I have written thousands of lines of FORTRAN code I have written thousands […]

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Tags: Java · Learning · Programming · Technology

The Minimum Expectation

March 8th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I have always been driven by setting and achieving goals – big goals. Recently, however, I have learned the value of setting a minimum expectation for any endeavor. That minimum removes much of the stress that I have imposed on myself for much of my life. Back in December, we were attempting […]

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Tags: Expectations · Learning

Windows 7 and HP Printers

March 2nd, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I now have a computer in the kitchen that runs Windows 7 and Fedora. If HP would just update their printer driver… I have finally upgraded my kitchen computer to Windows 7. This machine now is dual boot-able with Windows 7 and Fedora 11 (see this old post for the background). I […]

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Tags: Learning · OS X · Technology

Engineers and Their Babies

March 1st, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Engineers create wonderful things now and then. Oblivious users turn the creations upside down and use them backwards. Such oblivious use teaches great lessons that smart organizations use before going to production. Engineers have their babies. Not the human kind of baby, though some engineers have those, too, but the system-that-they-create kind […]

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Tags: Design · Learning · Lifecycle · Systems

Difficult Just Got a Lot Easier … Part 2

February 18th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Events in life and work can be separated widely by time and space. They can also be two parts of the same story. Connected separated events grows valuable knowledge as long as we can make the connection. My family and I were caught in a snow storm in December on Interstate 81. […]

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Tags: Learning · Observation

Paying the Tuition and (Maybe) Getting the Education

January 6th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Life is full of bad experiences. There is always something that can be learned in each experience. The bad experience is a form of tuition. The learning is a form of education. Nothing guarantees we get the education with the tuition. The education, however, is there for our choosing. College is pretty […]

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Tags: Change · Choose · General Systems Thinking · Learning