Working Up

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 a new type of fastener. People adopted them to hold pieces of metal together. The primary use was building suits of armor, i.e., weapons of war. These fasteners and the tools to fasten them were adopted by people who wanted to do a better job faster. They had a sense of urgency, i.e., win wars.

Today we have new tools. One set of tools creates what is called a DevSecOps pipeline. This helps software developers produce more faster. Another new set of tools is ChatGPT and all these other chatbots. They help people write hundreds of words in less than a minute.

Wow! A leap in productivity much like the screw and the screwdriver.

But… this time around, most people aren’t using these new tools. And some folks who claim to use them are just piddling around and boasting about something they really don’t do. A sense of urgency is missing.

In some respects, we are in a full-employment economy. There are plenty of unemployed people, but more unfilled jobs than unemployed people. The unemployed have little sense of urgency to take an open job.

So, here we are—little urgency to take an open job and little urgency to be more productive when in a job. We are an odd lot. If history predicts the future, there will come a time when a group of persons has a sense of urgency and leaps ahead. The rest will sort of follow in their own time at their own pace.

by Dwayne Phillips

It is often best to leave the conversations of another profession to those other professionals.

I am an engineer. There, got that out of the way. And I have a Doctor of Philosophy or PhD in engineering. I have not idea why they call the degree by that name. Oh well, got that out of the way as well.

Recently, engineers have discussed some of the software they engineered. We use words like “hallucinate,” “bias,” and such. Sounds like philosophic terms, but we apply these to the machines we have built.

As an engineer, ever hear two philosophers talk about engineering? Oh my gosh! What a joke.

Ever hear two philosophers discuss the conversation of two engineers when the topic is philosophy? Oh no, us engineers understand philosophy just fine, right? We couldn’t possibly sound as silly as …

Yes, we can; yes, we do. Stick to engineering or philosophy or whatever is my field. Let the other folks discuss their field. Don’t borrow adjectives from their field and misapply it to my field. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

One basic way to think through to the end is to ask the next question.

“And then what happens,” a four-year-old child’s question that is asked repeatedly.

Yes, some four-year-old children have endless curiosity. That is wonderful. That is learning. Let it flourish.

Adults? Sometimes we just want the meeting to end so we can go piddle with something else. We have questions, but, hey, if no one else is asking the question, everyone else must know everything else, and let’s go.

Sorry. If the question is in my mind, I cannot assume it is in anyone else’s. I should ask. Then I should ask the next question, and the next, and the next until we reach the end. At that point, we have thought it through to the end.

Why? Because is we can think of a way to reach the end, perhaps we can reach the end. There are times when we just cannot think all the way through. That is life, but let’s try. Thinking and talking in a room full of people is expensive. Projects that fail a year later are much more expensive.

Think. Ask the next question. Learn.

by Dwayne Phillips

The infamous question in the title might as well be, “What can we do to kill this good idea?”

We found something that works well for. We have used it several times. We intend to keep using it.

Then someone asks the deadly question, “Will it scale?”

They want to know when they can spread the good idea to everyone in the corporation or government agency. They want to get famous for spreading the idea.

What they are doing is killing the idea. The big place is not the same as the little place. The people aren’t the same. The relationships among the people aren’t the same.

How about something simpler, less ambitious, and more human? Those folks over there found something that works for them. Good for them. They aren’t us. There isn’t here. Still, let’s talk to them and learn a few things. Maybe we can try some of what they did and find what works here, with us, at this place, in this time.

Scale? Maybe. That, however, isn’t the big goal. Having a pleasant and productive workplace is a better goal. At least I think so.

by Dwayne Phillips

Learning is a good thing. There are things I can do to prevent learning. Those are not so good.

I don’t know it all.

I do know how to learn.

I do know how to recognize that I am clueless and I need to learn.

Pride in knowing it all keeps me from doing any of the above. That is a bad thing.

Let’s do better. It is a matter of humility. Funny how admitting weakness brings a strength.

And that is not good

by Dwayne Phillips

This is something we need. Shopping centers, please read.

I’ve seen it many times. An adult steps out of their car in the shopping center parking lot. They have two or more small children with them. All the children are strapped into car seats. Let’s see, unbuckle the oldest child first, or is it last, let’s go with oldest first. Tell that child to stay still in their seat. Move to the next oldest. At the youngest, pick up the child and hold it. Now in ascending order, have the next child exit the car and stand still in a safe place. All the kids are out. Oh wait, is their a purse or something? How about the keys? Are all the doors closed? Where is the key fob to lock the doors? Okay, settled?

After shopping, repeat the process in reverse order. There are, however, all the grocery bags to put in the car. Kids first. Youngest to oldest or is it the other order?

And then you are wary of pickpockets or whatever we call folks who grab and run in the parking lot.

How about a parking lot concierge? This is someone in uniform who helps the adult in the parking lot before and after shopping. Perhaps the concierge can hold a child. Perhaps not. We can be touch less. The concierge can stand watch and prevent children from wandering into traffic and prevent theft.

However it works, the concierge is there to assist. Once in practice, adults will start to recognize the concierge and trust grows.

We can do this. Shopping centers with parking lot concierges will have more business. It will become an expected service. Please. Read and heed.

by Dwayne Phillips

Back to a basic: write with nouns and verbs. It brings us closer to brevity and clarity. Those are pretty good places to be.

I was reminded of this short and powerful writing tip this past week. And yes, it was from Strunk and White. They used the title of the post in their essential handbook.

A couple of colleagues were debating about keeping or dropping an adverb. One felt that the verb by itself was too weak. The other felt brevity was better. Both were right; both were wrong.

The better way is to find the right verb. There are plenty of verbs in the English language. For example, instead of “walk quickly” we could write “dash.” If we wanted a longer and more picturesque phrase, we could write, “he moved from his desk to the exit like a man seeking a hundred-dollar bill transiting a parking lot.”

Then again, sometimes we just want to put something on paper, check the “done” box, and move on. Oh wait, “move one” is worse than adding an adverb—it is a verb-preposition in place of the right verb. Sigh.

We can do better. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we get a bit carried away with this idea of being a data-centric organization or data centricity or data driven or whatever.

It seems that everyone wants a data-centric organization (and I don’t like that term because the computer marks it as a misspelled word). We need to have data centricity (another word marked as misspelled). We should base all decisions on data!

Wow. Cutting edge.

Not.

When I was a kid, my mother would drag my brothers and me to the grocery store. That was a necessity for her, not a choice. She would pick up one can of pork and beans. 39¢. She would pick up the next can of pork and beans with a different label on it. 49¢. She bought the 39¢ can based on data. She was running a data-centric family.

Now come the “yeah but.” That was a silly example. Yeah, but that was how it was. For a few years my mother was really data driven as she carried a little clicker that kept a running total cost of the what was in the grocery cart. Aha! Cumulative data.

My mother was far ahead of her time in this data stuff.

There are organizations out there that are run by the seat-of-the-pants or some other cliche meaning they feel their way through everything and never consider any numbers. Being in engineering, I have always worked with measurable quantities (6 volts, not 8 volts), calculations, and results.

Data can be important. It was important to my mother as she didn’t have much money. People have used data daily to decide which way to go. Data-driven decisions are not new. Let’s not get carried away with this as a new driver that drives us in some great direction.

by Dwayne Phillips

Are you not a writer? Really. Just type the words you say.

“You must understand, Dwayne, you are a writer,” several people over the years.

Yes, I am cursed or blessed to be “a writer.” What do I do? I put my fingers on the keyboard and type the words that come mind. That’s about all there is to it as I sit here in Starbucks sipping coffee and thinking about stuff. Tap the keys. There, I wrote.

I encourage others to “write.” I suppose I am not a good encourage-er as few of the folks I encourage go on and write.

Still not encouraged? Try this one: dictate to the computer. The computer types the words onto the screen. Not good grammar and punctuation and such? Paste the dictated stuff into ChatGPT or Bard or something and let it fix up the words.

There, you talked about what you thought and the computer made it look like you wrote it. That’s about it anyways, words that you thought.

Try it. You will probably help the rest of us with your words.

by Dwayne Phillips

Let’s not get carried away with things like “data visualization.” We’ve been looking at data for a long time.

I have heard a lot lately about data visualization. This blog post should indicate that I have heard far too much lately about data visualization.

The folly hit me recently as we were discussing a timeline or graphic to show a set of events in a project. The graphic would be simple. It would show a line with dates. Here and there would be major events on the line. Wow! Upper managers would love this. They love to “see” something instead of reading the words. I didn’t mention it, but when we read we are seeing data and that is data visualization, too.

The timeline graphic would be … yes, data visualization. And that brings us to the calendar. It is data visualization. We put data on a piece of paper that has a grid showing dates. We can stand back and look at the visual. Amazing, right?

Some research shows that some researchers believe than humans have used calendars to visualize data for about 4,000 years. Pretty good data visualization, huh?

I always think of my mother-in-law. Each year, she would buy a calendar that showed all twelve months on one long piece of paper laminated in plastic. She would write the birthdays of several dozen family members and friends on this year’s calendar. That was an annual ritual she never missed. Data visualization at its finest.

Silly notion? Maybe. Nevertheless, let’s not get carried away with this notion that we today have created data visualization and utilize it more than anyone in history. We have been putting information on something that we can see with our eyes for a long time. It works. That is why we still do it.