Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Kickstarter campaigns raise more money than presidential candidates. Who, if anyone, should be ashamed?

Some Kickstarter campaigns for little gadgets are raising more money than some presidential candidates.

Americans should be ashamed for putting more time and money into silly little gadgets than they do into who will be the next leader of the free world.

Well, maybe not.

Perhaps the shame should fall on those career politicians who have shaped the public’s view of politics and political campaigns.

Then again, perhaps this is just the way it is and shame is not a valid response from anyone. Perhaps realism is the best reply.

by Dwayne Phillips

Why did the worlds of entertainment and advertising decide to ruin the month of October?

I really like some things that come with October. Where I live, the trees turn orange and red and yellow. The temperatures drop to a point where I wear a light jacket in the morning. I love these things.

October ends with Halloween. That is nice, too. I like kids wearing costumes and coming to my door. A piece or two of candy is a very little charge for seeing child-like glee. I love it.

Nevertheless, I hate October. All the movie channels show “horror” movies or anything that slightly resembles horror. Most of it is just crummy. The advertisers slant all the commercials to horror theme of ghouls and goblins and such. This lasts for the entire month. I hate it.

Asking “why” does not good. Just bare it for a month. November will come one day.

by Dwayne Phillips

I earn a ITIL Foundation-level certification.

For the past six or eight years I have heard of ITIL  certification. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I wasn’t an Enterprise IT person and did see a way that I could qualify for it. A recent look at it changed my mind. I was surprised to learn that the vast majority of ITIL, at least at the lowest or Foundation level, was basic management of the delivery of services. I could do that.

I looked about on the Internet for what would be a good study guide for the exam. I went with “ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide” by Liz Gallacher and Helen Morris. The book started with an assessment quiz of 30 questions. I answered 17 of them correctly with no study. I felt good at the start.

The book is a good study guide. Each chapter ends with a ten-question quiz. I was scoring 8 to 10 out of ten on each chapter. At the end of the book is a 40-question practice test. I scored about 35 of 40 on the test or a rate of 7 of 8 questions correct.

Next came the exam. ITIL allows for online proctored exams. If you have a computer with a webcam, an Internet connection, and such you can take the exam at home pretty much when you want.

I signed on with ThoughtRock.com. $250 brought me more study materials and one exam. If you fail the exam, you have to pay $185 to take it again. I skipped the study materials and took another practice exam on ThoughtRock.

I took the exam from my dining room table on a Saturday morning. I passed with 34 of 40 correct—still at the 7 of 8 questions correct pace. The hardest part of the proctored exam was staring at the computer screen. I have a bad habit of looking up at the ceiling when I try to remember something. The exam proctor asked that I stare at the screen. I understand the request and struggled through it.

The exam itself is about what I expected—40 questions, multiple choice, one hour allowed, half hour needed. In all their materials, ITIL emphasizes that there are no trick questions on the exam. I guess that depends on what you consider a “trick” question as I found at least ten trick questions. I suppose if they just asked you to show you know the ITIL definitions and concepts too many people would pass the test.

The study and exam are much easier than the PMI PMP study and exam. ITIL, nonetheless, isn’t “easy” as some people have told me. There are 40–50 pages of definitions to memorize. You need to know these well enough to work your way through the trick questions.

I am glad I did this as I did learn a few things about how Enterprise IT people view the world. Now I have some more letters to put on my resume.

by Dwayne Phillips

Too often, some of us take on the role of caretaker of everyone around us, i.e., we try to e everyone’s dad. Such is folly.

Sometimes, people are struggling at work. No problem. I will step in and H E L P them. I will take care of the problems that seem to be beyond the ability of the other people. They need just a little assist, and I am the guy to provide it.

I am a caring, loving person. I am here to help. Helping those who need help is a good thing.

The previous paragraph holds truth. So what is the problem?

I can identify at least two problems with me being everyone’s dad.

(1) They don’t want me to be their dad.

(2) I’m not very good at it.

Oooops.

(1) Their ego prevents them from realizing they need help and I can provide it. Then again, my ego prevent me from realizing that they don’t want me to help them.

(2) I am good at my profession. My profession is not being a caregiver. Well, if I am good at one thing, I should be good at other things, right? Ahem, well, maybe not.

Let’s go back to the old cliche:

Inflict as much advice as is requested and no more.

by Dwayne Phillips

In an attempt to go back to reality, adults are returning to coloring books.

Everyone has a smartphone, a tablet, a computer, or all of these. You move the mouse, the cursor moves, and lines and colors and all that appear on the screen. Press control-P and the printer produces the paper with the art.

Golly, that is neat. Gosh, that is sterile.

Well, now we have the return of the coloring books.

The move to computers and tablets and smartphones and all that stuff has pushed away from the feel of crayons in our hands as we drag them across paper. So we go back to the crayons as much as we can.

Perhaps that is one reason I write in a journal everyday. I hold a pen in my hands and drag it across paper. I feel the friction and the bumps on the paper.

It is wonderful.

My grandchildren like to color. I color with them. Everyone else thinks I am being so nice to sacrifice my time and waste it coloring. Little do they know.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we should assign one person. We already know that, so why don’t we do it?

There is some old cliche about

too many cooks in the kitchen

or too many cooks stirring the pot or something. There is a a current cliche about

too many people in the room

I head the one about too many people just last week at work.

Now we do out of cliche and into management. There are many tasks where a group of people can reach a consensus on a topic. They express the consensus in bullets. Then the group leaves the room and leaves on writer or creator or artist to create the product.

Looking back at the above cliches, it is evident that we know this. So I have to ask,

Why don’t we leave the room and let the one person work?

Now I come to the bad part of this post. We won’t leave the room because we think we are the exception. We won’t succumb to the failings of the too many wisdom.

Our ego beats us.

Walking out the door and letting one person finish the work is the most difficult part of the task.

Now that we realize the challenge, let’s get to it.

by Dwayne Phillips

What is the real activity, the real attraction at work?

They sell food at McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. Is food, however, the real point of the place? They sell coffee at Starbucks, but is coffee the real point of the place?

I don’t think food and coffee are the real attractions at those places. There is something else happening there.

Related question: at work, is work the real attraction, the real activity? If not, might it possibly be things like:

• a place to get away from the family
• a place where my friends are
• better screens to look at the Internet
• better bandwidth to look at the Internet

What is the real attraction, the real activity at your location? Is the real attraction the same as the stated attraction? Are we better because sometimes those two things differ?

by Dwayne Phillips

There are many testing strategies available. There is some benefit to letting close friends do the testing.

I don’t advise this in all cases, but sometimes it is good to let your close friends test your work. This can hold for:

• software
• writing
• presentations
• singing
• clothing (what I choose to wear)

One advantage of having a close friend test your work is that if they dislike your, you are less likely to dismiss them as a fill-in-the-blank-with-a-derogatory-term.

by Dwayne Phillips

People are free to choose their reactions to events. I am included in “people.” We all are.

I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase that is the title of this post. There are countless variations:

• You tell him that!
• That’s easy to say when s/he isn’t around.
• The last person to say something like that to him…
• and so on.

Okay, so I or we say something to someone and they “get mad.” That person is an adult and they are free to react to an event as they wish with whatever emotion they wish. As an aside, they are not free to do anything they want to do, e.g., hit people, etc.

If “s/he” wants to react by being angry, so be it.

But you don’t know what it’s like to be around him when he is angry.

True statement. I don’t know what that is like. I can guess, but I don’t know.

I am also an adult. I choose how I will react to him being angry. I can:

• laugh
• roll my eyes
• yawn
• leave the room for a few minutes

You can’t do that!

Yes, I can, and I have reacted to anger in all of these and more ways.

Allow me to repeat this:

I am also an adult. I choose how I will react.

The same is true of you if your birth certificate indicates you are of age.

by Dwayne Phillips

America has plenty of problems. Still, America must be good enough as people risk imprisonment to come here.

SAT scores are at the lowest  in ten years.

American WiFi is slower than the rest of the world.

The same is true with our broadband.

Our bridges are collapsing.

Yet we innovate more than anyone else and invent commerce that other countries happily copy. I guess with all our problems we are good enough to do all these things that seem to be good. And people rush to enter here ahead of the bureaucracy, i.e., illegally.

Yes, we must be good enough.