Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We each get one chance to share an idea with others. I cannot overemphasize the need to be ready for that chance.

I have been working with a colleague for several years now. This colleague has an idea he wants to present to others. He has been talking about the one idea to others for several years now. He is finally reducing the one idea to a set of clear statements.

Now that he has the clear statements, no one is listening.

Why not? Because he has exhausted the audience. Now that he is ready to share his one idea, the audience turns off at his first statement. They have heard it all before. Actually, the have heard lots of murmuring before. They have never heard the clear statements that my colleague has. And they never will hear them. They are exhausted.

We each get one chance to share an idea with others. We should present that idea to ourselves and friendly advisers a dozen times first. We should pound the fluff out of the idea until we have reduced it to a minimal set of words in a minimal set of points.

After we have worked the idea to death, we are ready to present it to others—not a second earlier than that boring, beat-it-to-death point in time.

by Dwayne Phillips

Contrary to management theory, meetings are not about (1) information or (2) decision. They are about nice people in a nice setting.

I had always been taught that there are two types of meetings:

1. ones in which the group decided something
2. ones in which information was provided to the group

Hearing those items over and over again confused me for years. The vast majority of meetings I attended fell into neither of those two categories. I needed years of confusing experiences to notice that most meetings—probably 90%—served another purpose:

the meeting allowed nice people to spend some nice time together in a nice setting

The person presiding over the meeting needed a break from the slings and arrows of outrage that filled the day. The person wanted to have a nice time—a nice chat with nice people.

Why not take the meeting across the street to McDonald’s?

You just didn’t do something like that. Meeting at McDonald’s, or some other favorite place of nice-ness, would be too obvious. The facade of the meeting being one of the only two official reasons to have a meeting would be shattered, and we all know that shattering time-honored facades is against all rules of decent behavior.

Too bad.

by Dwayne Phillips

Life is full of challenges and frustrations. Some of these are normal. When encountering normal with a person who has not encountered it before, explain to them that it is normal.

I once tutored a young man through a frustrating process at work. In the middle of the pull-out-your-hair and smash-your-head-through-the-wall day, I told him, “This is normal. Expect it every time you do this. No one is picking on you.”

I have found many frustrating experiences in life. Most of these are normal. No one was picking on me personally. They treated everyone badly all the time. Normal.

It is so helpful to know that the situation is normal.

Tell people,

• the first draft being lousy IS NORMAL
• several heartbreaks before you find a spouse IS NORMAL
• most of life’s disappointments and run-arounds and frustrating situations and people IS NORMAL

Work your way through the norm and keep going. That is easier on some days than it is on others, but that, too, IS NORMAL.

by Dwayne Phillips

I try hard at everything. Sometimes I try hard too much.

<start advice>

Slow down.

Back away.

Breathe.

Drink a cup of coffee.

Relax.

Take a nap.

Find your own little zen thing that helps you to not try so hard.

<end advice>

by Dwayne Phillips

What else would a person manage other than resources?

I continue to be unemployed. Hence, I look at a large quantity of help wanted ads. Some of the job titles are absurd. One that sticks with me is:

Resource Manager

What else would a person manage. Managers manage resources—the end. Resources include:

• time
• money
• material goods

What else is there? Of course there are people, but I don’t use the words “manage people.” I prefer the old adage,

manage things, lead people

Of course, I am still unemployed, so it is obvious that I don’t understand all this works, so heed my advice at your peril.

by Dwayne Phillips

Online education may one day make it, but for now, we have excellent online learning. You must, however, prove you learned something. Enter the portfolio.

A parchment is another name for a diploma. We get a diploma from some education organization that says we spent time and money at that organization. Everyone assumes that we learned something while in the education organization, but, well, you know. Sometimes that doesn’t happen.

There are many online education organizations now. The MOOC is here or about to be here or something like that. I tired an online education outfit this year with bad results. I learned  a few things, mostly that the outfit was far more interested in money than educating.

There is another way. That other way is not new. It is called Google. Actually, Google is the doorway. Search a topic on Google (or any equivalent), read everything, and practice.

The practice is the key. Otherwise, you can’t show anyone that you learned anything.

Learn a new technology or technique? Learn a new programming language? Learn how to use an application? Do something, and put the result in an online portfolio.

The online portfolio demonstrates to persons that you have learned something and can practice it. The online portfolio can replace the parchment.

by Dwayne Phillips

One thing teachers today have to realize is that the learners can read it all at home at their leisure.

The title of this post will haunt educators of all types. It has haunted college professors for decades.

They can read it at home

So why “lecture?”

I remember the TV show “Room 222.” The cool teachers didn’t teach like my teachers. Their students read the boring stuff from the textbooks at home. Classes were all free-wheeling discussions—F U N! Well, it was just a TV show, and we all knew that TV and reality just weren’t the same.

Fast forward from 1969 to today. All the knowledge in the world is online—free to read at your leisure.

So what does a “teacher” do “in class?” That is for each teacher to figure out as an exercise on their own (I hated to hear that assignment; I love to assign it.).

by Dwayne Phillips

I go to a coffee shop every morning. Why? I guess there is a community there.

I go to a coffee shop every morning at seven o’clock. My hashtag is #coffeeandwifi. I do the 21st century equivalent of reading the morning paper and I put notes and links on a blog.

I like the coffee shop. I like the people who work here (see some of their happy faces here), and I like the interaction with the other customers.

For example, one morning:

I hear a woman exclaim, “Oh look, how cute!” I expected to see a small child come in the door with a parent. That happens often here. That, however, wasn’t the case this time.

I see a woman staring into a laptop screen show an expression of horror on her face.

I see an elderly woman smiling broadly as she drinks coffee with an elderly man.

What was so cute? What was so horrifying? What brought such broad smiles? What indeed is influencing the lives of strangers brought into a common place? What creates community.

Perhaps this is a sentimental tribute from a naive older man to a place a like where people gather and show emotions of life.

by Dwayne Phillips

When we turn an adjective that describes a person into a noun, well, we make a big mistake.

We describe persons with adjectives:

• tall man
• short woman
• active boy
• new employee

Sometimes, we use the adjective-person pair so often that we transform the adjective-person pair into a noun. One silly example is:

• “new user” to “new-bie” to “noob”

Another, sometimes silly, but sometimes discriminatory example:

• “gray bearded person” to “graybeard”

Now we delve into the mistake area:

• “bitterly hard use of strength person” to “bitterly hard use of strength” or “coolie”

In America, “coolie” is what whites called imported Chinese laborers in the 19th century. Instead of people who worked hard, they were coolies. Today, “coolie” is a bitter racial slur in some parts of the world.

Now we go into deeper mistakes:

• “a dark-skinned person” to “darkie”

I could go on with more examples of how adjectives describing persons became nouns attached to persons. It becomes ugly quickly.

The “noob” example is a recent short-hand method of describing a person. No harm intended and no harm taken. I suppose, but then I have not been called “noob” so often that it irritates me. One day, perhaps, “noob” will shoot poison arrows at some persons.

It all started innocently without harm intended or taken.

Don’t shorten adjective-person to noun.

by Dwayne Phillips

The iPad gets even better with a no-cost version of MS Word.

This iPad device, wow, I have to give Apple credit for constantly improving it. Now it comes with MS Word (and Excel and other MS stuff). What a great addition Apple has made.

Well, maybe Apple didn’t make this no-cost addition to the tablet. I guess Microsoft had something to do with it, but still, the tablet is so neat. And along with MS Word comes this OneDrive online storage for all those Word documents I can create and edit.

I guess Apple has something to do with this MS Word application. The iPad infrastructure—all that technology and interface and such—enables Microsoft to connect OneDrive and Word and such to the tablet.

I still can’t type worth a darn on that virtual keyboard that shows up on the screen. I have to use an external bluetooth keyboard, but I can deal with that.