Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes some person has a significant achievement, but the resources weren’t approved, so it was all quite embarrassing.

This is a true story that occurred in the last century. A person at work had a neighbor who worked at a different government agency. The other agency had a colossal failure with some data recordings. The recordings were ruined as was all the data collected from the field in a year. A year wasted!

The person who worked at my agency told his neighbor to give him a recording. He brought the recording in to work (not allowed) and worked on recovering the data from it. He invented a method to recover the data from the ruined recordings. The neighbor gave him all the recordings from the year, he recovered all the data from a year’s worth of ruined recordings, and saved the other agency a year’s budget. Wow! Amazing! SIGNIFICANT!

Months later, a memorandum of thanks appeared on the desk of our agency’s director. It was personally from the director of the agency whose data had been rescued.

What was this? What rescue? What recovery? Who did this? What? Where? How? How much did it cost?

A month or two of digging, and the culprit was found. Someone performed unauthorized work for another agency and sneaked data in and out of a building (another unauthorized no no).

Yet, the director of our agency was lauded for great work. Well, you cannot refuse such adoration and thanks. You cannot fire and jail a hero. And you cannot reward such an unauthorized hero. If the word gets out, everyone will try to do good regardless of authorization and we just can’t have that. After all, there are legal restrictions.

I could tell several other stories of significant achievements that were, nonetheless, quite embarrassing. You can’t fire heroes. You can’t reward unauthorized heroes too visibly.

At this point, I am supposed to provide some lessons learned and words of wisdom. After all these years, I am still stumped. Sometimes persons achieve something significant that embarrasses many other persons. That’s life, and us smart folks shrug.

by Dwayne Phillips

I find it good to be specific. There are, however, times when being specific limits thinking, and that is not good.

Precise, concrete, and specific: three concepts that are good for writing and communication. I try to remember these things that were burned into me in my first semester of college way back when we wrote on cave walls with rocks.

There are, however, times when being specific limits thinking, and that is not good.

• Focus on the topic at hand.
• No distractions.
• List specifically the traits of the person we want to hire!

The bullets can go on and on. Consider the last one. Let’s be specific about who we want to hire! Wait. What about other traits? What about other types of persons? What about completely different roles of a new person?

Focus. Be specific. But, what about this, that, and the other thing? What about taking a few moments to NOT be specific? What about taking a few moments to think?

Create an amount of time to think out of focus and be ambiguous. Set a timer if that helps. Create time for thinking. Think. Think of all sorts of crazy things. Scribble them on the white board or wall or computer screen. When the timer dings, go back to the specific.

Go back to the specific after thinking. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

We store more information on computers. And we FIND it all.

Back in ’07 (2007 for those who don’t know an old old way of writing the dates in the first decade of a century), I had a conversation with a senior manager of a government agency. Like 98.6% of senior managers, he was not aware of a major yet simple change happening in front of him.

“Yes, we can remember everything,” I told him.

New things were happening: Web 2.0, blogs, wikis, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and ever less expensive computer hardware and networks. And ever more folks willing to type a few words and do some copying and pasting.

And along with all this stuff was the idea of search. Searching changed from searching to FINDING. Knowledge was right in front of us. Finding was practical. We could remember and recall everything.

Old news. Today, however, multiply that finding by 1,000 or 1,000 times 1,000 times whatever. Events of January and February 2025 show that some folks who can write a few lines of code can have the computer crawl through a computer network and highlight where money was spent. The famous cases show where the taxpayers’ money was spent. Yikes! And senior government agency managers are still clueless about such. Yes, folks can FIND where folks spend money.

We can remember everything. Sometimes that is embarrassing to some persons. Often, however, it is enlightening. We can remember everything. Let’s do so and use what we remember.

by Dwayne Phillips

Every generation seems to have its magic technology just about to burst on the scene and doing something wonderful and financially rewarding. Most of the time, nothing happens.

Back in the early years of this century, carbon nanotubes were the thing to discuss. We were to build computers thinner than a piece of paper. One excited engineer told a seminar that she was nervous every time someone handed her a piece of paper as she wasn’t sure what electronics were hidden inside that piece of paper. Carbon nanotubes where thinner than the carbon trace left on paper after writing with a pencil. Why, who knew what would happen in the next ten years.

Some of us had a pretty good guess about what would happen: nothing. And time showed that we were correct. Yes, some researchers are still researching carbon nanotubes and some researchers are actually doing a few real things with them. Still, the marketers ruined the topic by hyperventilating over it and hoping they would receive huge commissions on the sales of pretty much nothing.

Not many younger engineers today remember carbon nanotubes. That hype came and went 20 years ago.

Now, artificial general intelligence is right around the corner. Here is my prediction: it will be like carbon nanotubes. Great marketing material, but not really anything real.

Sorry, most of the time nothing happens. That is a general principle of general principles or general systems thinking or something that is almost universally true.

Pessimism? Realism? Wisdom borne of age? Or am I just a bit lazy? We can do better in the combination of science, engineering, and marketing. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Writing is a type of thinking. Thinking often leads us to discover something. Writing (thinking) is worth the effort.

Writers often divide their methods into two camps: outlining and “pantsing” (seat of the pants). Those who use outlines think ahead, plan, create detailed outlines, then write by filling in the outlines. Those who write by the “seat of their pants” start writing and see where it takes them.

Replace “pantsing” by discovery writing. I found this in “Hungry Authors” Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry. I like the term “discovery” much better than “pantsing.” The writer is searching for that idea, that story, that whatever that is…so start writing. Write write write, you may discover what that whatever that is while writing as writing is one way in which some people think some of the time.

I believe that writing is a form of thinking. Thinking often leads to discovering something worthwhile. Writing (thinking) is worth the time and effort.

I keep a piece of paper and pencil on the table next to my computer keyboard. I bang away on the keyboard writing something. I discover ideas. I pause banging the keyboard just long enough to scribble a note with pencil and paper. The paper holds all the discoveries. It works for me.

by Dwayne Phillips

Integrity is doing what you say you will do. Sometimes things happen that block intentions. This becomes tricky quickly.

Day 1: We will release our information to you on day 15.

Day 30: We intended to release our information to you on day 15, but, ya’ know, uh. We will release our information on day 45.

Day 60: Well, ya’ know, things happen, and …

We had the best of intentions to do something as we promised to do. Well, sometimes things happen and what we intend to do…well, we sort of, ya’ know, can’t do, so we’ll promise something else and, well, ya’ know…well things happen.

Nope. Integrity is doing what we say we will do. If necessary, state what might interrupt intentions before stating intentions. Do what we say we will do. If we don’t, we lack integrity and are no better than liars and thieves. Yes, not doing what we say robs someone of something. Thievery.

We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Other persons are not obligated to do things for me (as much as I wish). I am not obligated to do things for other persons (as much as they wish).

I wish people would fulfill their obligations to me. I mean, look at what I have done for them. Surely, they will repay me or something in kind. What is wrong with them?

I guess some people feel the same way about me. Why don’t I fulfill my obligations to them? I mean, look at what they have done for me. Surely, I will repay them or something in kind. What is wrong with me?

Sigh. I guess we all aren’t as obliged to one another as we wish sometimes in some situations.

Here is something to try. Ask, “Is there something I should be doing?” When the reply is some gesture like, “Oh, no.” Ask again with more force, “Are you sure? Really, is there something I should be doing?”

Take notes. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we hold popular ceremonies without thought. Doing just about anything without thought can be fraught with peril.

There are many popular ceremonies among those of use who build systems. One of those is the daily standup meeting. I could go on with a long list of these.

Are we using these activities wisely or simply because a wise person once advocated them? Oh, that. Hmm. Well, I think someone told us we had to do this to fulfill something or other. So they must be good, right?

There is a point to repeating an action that at first doesn’t seem worth the resources. After a while, we learn why we were eating broccoli or brushing our teeth. It comes to us eventually.

There is also a point where repeating a popular ceremony is just a show. “Look, we do this and that. We must be good (in one way or another).”

Actions without thought are fraught with peril. Let’s think. Let’s ask someone who has seen the benefit of ceremonies to advise us. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Should we be having this meeting? Here is another test that would eliminate many meetings.

Should we be having this meeting? Should all of us be sitting around a table or standing in a circle (stand up meetings are supposed to be short and necessary, right?)?

Here is one type of meeting that should never occur:

A 45-minute staff meeting in which the designated leader blabbs about how miserable his life is all the while hoping the rest of us will be sympathetic.

Sigh. Yes, I have attended thousands of these. No, none of them were necessary.

The designated leader is “above” everyone else in the room. Everyone else feels pressure to agree with the designated leader. After all, the designated leader can say bad things about us on that day when salary increases are discussed.

The designated leader has a captive audience. Here comes the misery and woe. Grin and bear it. This will all be over after the designated hour has elapsed.

This fails yet another meeting test. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the reasons to use these chattering bot word generators is simply to stop wasting time.

A typist is a professional who specializes in accurately and efficiently converting information into digital format. This may involve transcribing handwritten notes, audio recordings, or printed documents into electronic files. They also possess strong data entry skills, proficiently inputting information into various computer systems. Additionally, typists may be responsible for formatting and preparing documents such as letters, reports, and presentations, ensuring accuracy in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.—Google’s Gemini wrote this

The above is a pretty good description of a typist. That is a worthy profession. Are you, however, paying your scientists, lawyers, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers to be typists? Nope. We want them thinking, butchering, baking, and making candlesticks.

Prompt, copy, paste, edit (and continue editing). Let the AI thing spit out the hundred words and do all the typing. Let the person do the thinking.

Of course we can abuse and misuse this notion. Still, we are paying you to think, not to be a typist clacking away on the keyboard. Let’s do better.