Working Up

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

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Entries Tagged as 'Word'

Okay, Write Those Words

December 20th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips For some reason, we often run away from the words that we want most to convey. I work with persons who are trying to write. They show me their draft, we talk, we walk through the words, and I ask questions. The questions usually lead to grimaces and twisted expressions, struggled breathing, […]

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Tags: Adults · Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Word · Writing

Chimney, Orange, and Odd Connections

July 19th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The words “chimney” and “orange” rhyme, well, sort of, maybe not, but they are certainly connected. In English, there is no word that rhymes with “orange.” At least that is what I have read. I’m not sure about that. I have heard the same about the word “chimney,” but once again I […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Observation · Reality · Systems · Thinking · Word

20 Excellent Minutes Inside 30 Mediocre Minutes

May 24th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips “Omit needless words,” still holds true. Sometimes in a different form. I just listened to a 30-minute talk. The context isn’t important. What is important is there were 20 minutes of excellent talking in those 30 mediocre minutes. Cut this, cut that, don’t repeat that. Omit needless words. This is one of […]

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Tags: Communication · Time · Word · Writing

Why We Can’t Hire Enough Data Scientists

April 15th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Another variation of Lewis Carroll’s “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” This time we apply it to hiring data scientists. “We can’t hire enough data scientists.” At least I read that almost everyday out there on the Internet. Well, why can’t we? Here are […]

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Tags: Agreement · Certification · Data Science · Jobs · Mathematics · Thinking · Word

Just do It! Are You Kidding?

November 19th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We “just” … Nothing is easy. We might as well describe the situation as it is. Everything is easy if someone else is supposed to do it. When I have to do it, not so easy. Yet, we describe things as easy. We’ll just do this and that and be done with […]

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Tags: Authentic · Competence · Conversation · Expectations · Humility · Word

The Knowledge-to-Opinion Ratio

July 13th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Similar to the signal-to-noise ratio is the knowledge-to-opinion ratio. Watch for it. sig·nal-to-noise ra·tio noun the ratio of the strength of an electrical or other signal carrying information to that of interference, generally expressed in decibels. The signal-to-noise ratio used to be important to most of us. While riding in a car, […]

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Tags: Communication · Knowledge · Word

Abuse and Abusers and Other Parts of the English Language

March 23rd, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some of life’s more complicated moral issues are fairly simple when we use words per their meanings. Want to stop abuse at fill-in-the-blank? Don’t bring in abusive persons, i.e., abusers. Want to stop lying? Don’t bring in lying persons, i.e., liars. Funny how the English language works and answers our own questions.

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Tags: Ethics · Language · Word

Getting There from Here

March 16th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We are here, we want to be there. The words we use to describe these places has much to do with the journey. We have a massive project. I have to write just ten lines of Python code. It’s the same. We start at one point and want to reach another point. […]

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Tags: Communication · General Systems Thinking · Word

Organics versus Mechanics

September 9th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes it is as simple as one word instead of another that can change everything. Do we manage or cultivate? Do we transfer or transplant? Do we tell or till? We could go on. Is the workplace a machine or a garden? Are our colleagues living, breathing humans or interchangeable cogs? Persons […]

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Tags: Communication · People · Word · Work

Something I would Like to See: Building a Neural Network

August 29th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is just a “figure of speech,” but perhaps we would understand better if we used the correct words in the field of artificial intelligence. Here is yet another article about “building” a neural network. It is a good article that explain neural networks well. It shows some sample source code to […]

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Tags: Communication · Neural Network · Science · Technology · Word