Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Someone will take the next great solution and turn it into the next great problem.

I am pretty sure that today someone will arrive with the next great solution. That will solve some great problem that has plagued us far longer than plaguing should have plagued us.

Then, some time after now, someone will find the next great problem in today’s next great solution. It is only a matter of time and some amount of plaguing. These next great solutions are never perfect.

These giant windmills that generate renewable electricity are great. Oh, after a few years, some of those incredible giant blades have problems. We replace the blades, restore operations, and then try to figure out what to do with the old blades. The next great invention of those blades means they are made from wonder materials that are a composite compositions of composable synthetic materials that won’t degrade in the ground for a few thousand long times into the unforeseen future. Hmmm. Now we have the next great problem. How do we decompose uncomposable composite materials?

Those electric cars are great. The next great solution to air pollution works. Then in a few years, the batteries won’t recharge and we have to do something with them, right? We have the next great problem. What do we do with all those chemicals?

Enough energy and environmental problems. We recently learned that some folks have implants in their eyes that allow them to see. That was the next great solution. Now we have the next great problem. That company went out of business. No one can maintain those implants. Those folks will be blind again and stuck with things in their eyes. What are we to do?

If someone merely had the foresight to understand the next great solution so that it wouldn’t bring the next great problem, we wouldn’t need the next great solution. I guess the next great solution we really need is a training program that provides the foresight to ensure the next great problem doesn’t arrive. Still, there is probably a next great problem lurking in that next great solution training program. I just haven’t thought of it, yet.

by Dwayne Phillips

Pandemic, hybrid, remote—it is still about people.

“Nobody quits companies. They quit managers.”—Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

How do you manage distributed or remote teams? Same way you manage in any situation.

(1) You don’t manage people. You manage work. You lead people.

(2) You lead people who are remote the same way you lead people who are in the same room with you.

Explain: This is what we are doing. This is why we are doing it. I am going in this direction.

If others choose to go in that direction as well, they are following and you are leading. They will follow if following you is better than going in some other direction. Hence, to lead, pick a good direction to go.

Of course it is all more complicated and complex and convoluted than what I wrote above. If it were so simple, everyone would be doing it. If it were so simple, I wouldn’t be writing little pieces like this for 13 years. I would have written one or two pieces and been done with it.

Still, it is about people. If you cannot explain something to the people who are with you. Give up and do something else. If you cannot understand the people who are with you. Same.

by Dwayne Phillips

Hiring managers and job applicants are often poor with words. We all seem to be pretty good with numbers—especially the numbers that have a dollar sign in front of them.

The week I wrote this post I applied for a bunch of jobs and talked to an equal number of hiring managers. I am probably the world’s worst job-description reader. Am I a junior, mid, or expert butcher, baker, or candlestick maker? I just can’t tell by reading the description.

I can’t tell the difference between “intuitive” and “highly intuitive.” I guess I am just plain dense.

There is, however, one thing I can understand: salary. The salary for this job is $small number, $medium number, $big number. Aha! Now we are talking!

The problem is, no one wants to talk about numbers with dollar signs. There is something taboo about that. It is especially inappropriate for the job applicant to ask about salary. It implies that money is dirty and not the reason to work for an employer. I am tempted to say, “This is my monthly mortgage note. Will the take home pay for this job be less than, equal to, or greater than four times my note?”

At some point in the conversation—perhaps at the end of the third or fourth conversation—the hiring group will reveal the salary for the position. Yikes! That low? We could have saved a lot of time if you had said that last week before all this talking. Yikes! That high? I would have signed on the dotted line last week had you said that.

Funny thing about numbers with dollar signs. We all seem to understand those better than all the adjectives that are in (and many should not be in) the dictionary—and the job description.

by Dwayne Phillips

Expediting the fall of the nation state are the hacktivists or activist hackers.

We have had mercenaries for many centuries. These were soldiers hired by governments to fight battles for them. Sometimes nations hired the armies of other nations to do this. Sometimes nations hired individuals. And we have had Internet mercenaries. These are groups and individuals hired by governments to hack and disrupt other governments.

Now we have the hacktivist. These are individuals and small groups that are not hired by anyone. They simply hack governments for fun. Sometimes they hack their own government and sometimes they hack another government.

Is it illegal to hack a foreign government? I don’t know international law.

Anyways, these small groups decide that some government or other somewhere on the planet is doing wrong. The hacktivist pokes around the Internet to find a weak point and hacks in to disrupt something or just plain give someone a lot of extra headaches.

These are not nations foiling other nations. These are guys and gals still living in their parents’ basements who grew bored playing Grand Theft Auto and stealing BitCoins and are seeking some other thrill. Is that an exaggerated stereotype? Maybe, but maybe not.

The nation state seems to be in its last days or centuries. These hacktivist is speeding that decline.

by Dwayne Phillips

This bothers me—this bothers me often and deeply. We abbreviate or shorten descriptions of individual persons. We “lump them together” so as not to name individuals or describe them. Such removes accountability. This bothers me.

Here is a news story about the Congress of the United States. There are hundreds of such stories everyday. Someone is informing Congress about spending this or spending that or whatever.

How about instead of writing “Congress,” we write “persons elected to represent voters in their home districts and states.” Hmmm. That provides a different perspective, huh?

Simple response, “Well, that is too many words and everyone knows what Congress is and we sort of shortened that to one word and it has the same meaning and you know. Right?”

Well, this bothers me. I prefer writing the long version at the top of the news story and maybe using the shorter or abbreviated version in the rest of the news story. That way we are all reminded of whom we speak, how they appear, their homes, and their primary duties.

“Congress” is vague. I prefer precise, concrete, specific, and clear over vague.

And then we come to accountability. How about naming the specific elected representatives who were addressed by the group in this news story? How about we inform the reader about the origin of these individuals and something of their personal interest in the topic of discussion. Now we can hold these individuals responsible for their actions in this news story.

Well, that is all too long, too many words, too much space on the page, too expensive, too tiring, and all sorts of good excuses. Despite the goodness of the reasons, they are still excuses.

How about some clarity and accountability instead? Please.

by Dwayne Phillips

The Great Resignation? The Great what-do-we-call-it? How about the embarrassing realization that we have been grossly inefficient in much of what we have been doing the last 20 years?

We are in the midst of the Great Resignation. Record numbers of us are quitting our jobs and moving on to something better. At least we hope it is “better” in one way or another. Otherwise, why are we going to so much trouble?

Simple, “I don’t want to spend my day commuting. I can do my job from home.” Some persons are doing two “full-time jobs” from home.

Uh, wait. Let’s move away from fantasy and back to reality. Many of us have office jobs. We go to the office; we work, and we return home. Repeat daily.

And now, we have all these fancy pants folks telling us that they can do all the work from home in three or four hours instead of in eight “at the office.” And the embarrassing thing is, they are not stretching the truth. They can do it all from home in half the time and not commute.

Now comes the great embarrassment.

1. No one had to build all those expensive office buildings
2. No one had to hire all those managers to ensure people were motivated and working
3. No one had to live in an expensive urban center
4. And, the embarrassment that hits all us “workers,” no one had to spend all that time commuting

We are all embarrassed at how inefficient we all were. Why did we all waste so much time and money? Why did we all fail to realize that the tools for greater efficiency and greater productivity were right in front of us? Why did we all do these foolish things for so long?

Quick, find a scapegoat! Find someone to blame for all this. Gosh, this is embarrassing.

by Dwayne Phillips

Forty years ago I saw what Augmented Reality could do. I’m still waiting for it.

Back in 1980, I spent much of my workdays repairing electronic equipment (yes, I am that old). Pull a piece of equipment out of the rack, put it on the workbench, remove the cover, and trace through the circuit boards trying to find what failed and replace it.

One company (I cannot recall which) made this much easier on some of their equipment. They put a clear plastic board over the circuit board and held it in place with little supports. The plastic board had holes in it above test points and adjustment points (variable resisters). The plastic board also had words and arrows and other helpful things printed on it. “Test here,” “Adjust here,” and so on.

Looking down at the circuit board with this clear plastic board was augmented reality (AR) in 1980. Aha! Look at the object of your work and see helpful things hovering in the air above it. This was wonderful!

And here we are 40+ years later. Where are those glasses I can wear that show me these things. Look at the object of my work and see helpful tips floating above the work. This is just what everyone who does any sort of maintenance on just about anything needs.

Examples:

• Auto repair
• surgeons
• dentists
• air conditioner repair
• plumbers
• and the list goes on to include editors of essays

And then we can extend this to those who teach. A coach can look through AR glasses at a player who is attempting a skill. The glasses point to flaws in technique Aha! That is it. And therapists who are trying to help patients recover their skills.

What do we have? Advertisements on playing fields on TV. That’s it?

Come on folks. We can certainly do better some 40 years later. Huh?

by Dwayne Phillips

Data seems to be opposite of everything else when it comes to saving it, using it, and producing value.

When we use things, they lose value. Drive a car a thousand miles and its loses value, i.e., no one will pay as much for a car with 1,000 miles as they will for a car with 10 miles. Hit nails with a hammer for ten years, the hammer is worn and not as valuable. There are exceptions like houses that gain value after time, but there are other economic forces in play.

Then we consider data. Store data and don’t use it. That costs money as we have to buy computers and disk drives and turn them on and pay the utility bills and pay people to administer them. The data loses value when not used.

Use data. Employ it to decide on what to buy and sell and when and where and that data produces value.

Hmmm, using data multiplies its value. Not using data reduces its value. Doesn’t make sense in light of many other things, but it makes dollars and cents when used.

Not in the business of business and making money? Consider a non-profit organization that connects people. Whenever someone says “data,” substitute “people.” Employing people increases their value. Connecting people increases their value. Having people sit and do nothing decreases their value.

I often read the cliche’ “data is the new oil.” Perhaps “data is like people” is more apt as well as “data use means value.”

I’ll have to think about this a little more.

by Dwayne Phillips

We don’t want to be slow. Stop all slow processes; be quick. There are, however, slowing processes—things that cause pause for thinking. And thinking is almost always a good thing.

“This is slow. This is too slow. Let’s stop doing this,” said a frustrated person who has a good idea (or in most cases this is a good idea).

We don’t want to be slow at work. Others will “get there first” and take market share or this or that or something that we want. There is no need for slow procedures where we have to have 12 different people sign a piece of paper and with vacations and sickness and all that it takes a month to find each of those 12 people and … you know.

There are, however, slowing procedures and processes. “We won’t do this until everyone looks at it, thinks, and says to go ahead.” We can do this in an hour or half an hour; fast enough? And everyone thinks about it.

That is too slow for some people. Some people are in “too much of a hurry.” Let’s think first. Thinking is good. Right?

One of the problems is that these are all subjective terms and sentences. My opinion, your opinion, their opinion, etc.

Still, let’s pause and think. Even for five minutes, let’s think. That is a slowing process. It isn’t slow, but slowing. I think that is good.

by Dwayne Phillips

Many of today’s data scientists are similar to man of the web designers of the 1990s. I think this is a good thing.

A recent conversation with a colleague helped me to realized something about data science in today’s world. I thought data scientists were computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who knew programming and a field of specialty in addition to their STEM background. (I think I read that description somewhere.)

“Oh no,” said my colleague. “Most of them I work with have a liberal arts degree, a feel for numbers and logic, and enough smarts and initiative to have learned how to string together ten lines of Python to call the right packages and do something.”

What these data scientists lacked was a feel for science, repeatable experiments, rational thought, and such. They were basically parroting things they saw online.

Hmmm, that sounds familiar. In the 1990s in the days of Web 1.0 we had “web designers.” A successful web designer I knew had a bachelor’s degree in English. He had an appreciation for art and what looked good on the screen. He could read and write. He had enough smarts and initiative to learn HTML and a little about cascading style sheets and the like.

Then the dot com boom crashed in the late 1990s and he went to grad school to work on a Masters of Fine Arts.

Will we have a data science boom crash ka-bang or something and all our current stuff crumble to the abyss? I don’t know. I hope not.

I liked the idea in the 1990s of liberal arts majors working in the tech field. They brought a lot with them to the rooms full of techies. They made us and the industry better.

I like the idea of liberal arts majors being data scientists. They bring a lot with them to the ZoomerTeams meetings of full of techies. They make us and the industry better.

They also demonstrate the idea of “democratization.” I hate the term, but like the idea. We have built tools that people can use. These liberal artists are smart. They can learn these tools and use them (often better than us techies who built the tools). Sure, they take missteps along the way and have experiments that aren’t repeatable and don’t know what configuration management is (come to think of it, most STEMmers don’t know what configuration management is either, but that is the topic for another day).

Still, these tools bring more people into the room, and we are all better because of that.