Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

There are many good reasons for starting small. One is that it allows room for growth, and growth brings with it optimism, hope, and other good tidings.

Start small.

There are good reasons to start small. If I do it all wrong, I have only invested small resources like time, money, equipment, emotion, etc. Small things can bring quick benefits like a few inquiries or even one paying customer (or two). Starting small teaches me if there is something “there” that I want. (Maybe that chinchilla farm wasn’t for me after all.) I could go on.

One of the benefits of starting small is that there is room for growth. I am doing more and better today than yesterday. Hmmm, I like the sound of that. I like the feel of that. I like that.

Growth shows that I can still grow. It can still learn. Learning, for me, brings hope and optimism. Those things push me forward.

I guess this is a variation of the old adage about having small expectations so I won’t be disappointed. It is better than that, though. Learning is invigorating. I can do this. I am moving. I am not retired in place.

There is a lot of “rah rah rah” pep rally stuff in this post. Sometimes that is a good thing. I hope this post was a little cheering to you as well.

by Dwayne Phillips

The words we use most often provide some indication of our selves. Try some experiments. Learn. Adjust.

Try this: right now, write ten words on whatever is in front of you. Napkin. Table cloth. Back of your hand. How many of those ten are nouns? How many are verbs?

This one is a little more difficult: listen to yourself talk for the next few minutes. Do you say more nouns or more verbs?

Verbs are action words: use, provide, try, learn, adjust, write, talk, say (from above).

Nouns are person, place, thing: words, we, indication, selves, experiments, words, whatever, you, napkin, cloth, hand, nouns, verbs, one, yourself, talk, minutes (from above).

Hmmm, I used more nouns than verbs so far in this post. Am I focusing on things more than on actions? What might that mean?

Actions are do this, do that, do the next thing. If I use more verbs, I am focusing on doing and doing and doing. Is that what I want?

Things are things. If I use more nouns, I am focusing on things and things and things. Is that what I want?

Maybe things or actions means something significant. Maybe they don’t.

Experiment. Learn. Adjust. Try it.

by Dwayne Phillips

The prolonged year of the virus is slowly moving towards an end. It will never end, but I hope we have learned a few things that we can all do.

The pandemic is declining. It is like a math function that tends to but never reaches zero. The limit as time approaches infinity is zero, but time never reaches infinity, so the pandemic never reaches zero. Enough math.

Lessons I hope we learn. There are two general categories: (1) our own health and (2) the health of others.

Our Own Health

We learned that being unhealthy greatly increased the chances of severe illness or death. Let us move from the unhealthy end of the spectrum to the health end.

Obesity: Lose weight. You don’t have to be 300 pounds to lose weight. Most men can lose 40 or 50 pounds and be significantly healthier. If you are a weight lifter, this doesn’t apply as you have muscle mass. The vast majority of us are not weight lifters. Losing weight will make us healthier. That leads to many other benefits.

Immunity: Get off prescription drugs that weaken our immune systems. This is not easy for many of us. Get healthier (see obesity) and the need for prescription drugs lessens. Don’t take prescription drugs that weaken the immune system. We have seen that oooops here comes something that requires a good immune system.

Diabetes: Do what you can to avoid this. Again, get healthier while you can.

The Health of Others

Many of us wore masks and were vaccinated because we didn’t want to spread the virus to others. We were concerned about others. Good! Let’s keep that up.

Driving: Be nice on the road. Consider other drivers.

Alcohol and Driving: They don’t mix. Stop it. Just because you are below some “legal limit,” don’t drive with alcohol ANY ALCOHOL in your system.

Protest and Property: When we break a window, we break people. Property is not life, but it is life threatening. Medical practitioners take great care when people return to see their homes after a natural disaster. People have strokes and heart attacks when they see their damaged homes. If you protest, do so peacefully with great regard towards the property of others.

General Regard: Let’s be nicer to everyone else. It doesn’t cost anything and it goes a long way.

Pollyanna

Okay, a lot of this is naive pollyanna stuff. So be it. We paid the cost of the pandemic. Let’s accept the education.

by Dwayne Phillips

Data is money. Information is money. Here is a precise, concrete, and specific example.

Data is money. Information is money. Yeah, we hear that all the time. Really? What are you trying to sell me?

A few years ago (dates and names withheld to protect the guilty) I worked in a job where we shared information about what our company did. One engineer wrote a one page of words describing how we did something (again, specifics withheld for proprietary information). I put that one page of words into a larger document that brought our company more business.

Consider that one page of words. It costs the company $1,000 to produce. It was worth a hundred times its costs in new business.

That one page of words was worth $100,000. That is data; that is information, and that is money.

In vain, I pleaded with those managing the company to save that one page of words in a place where we could use it again and again. Would we buy set of computers, use them one day, and throw them away? Of course not. We were, however, doing the same with this one page of words. We needed to put it into a system where it was easy to find and reuse.

The answer? “Mr. Smith knows where we keep everything.” We were going back to “warmware.” Need an answer? Find a warm body. What happens if Mr. Smith isn’t here? No answer.

Data and information are money sitting on the table. We can use the money or let it evaporate. One page of words is data and information. We can use the money or let it evaporate. We choose.

If you can, put the one page of words somewhere you can search, find, and use.

by Dwayne Phillips

Working from home? Ship. End of questions about working from home.

Fourteen months into the pandemic, many of us are still working from home. We are about to go back to the office building. I think. I am not sure.

There are still questions about this telecommuting, telework, work from home, and all the things we call it. Is it really working? Are those people at home really working?

How can anyone tell? Shipping.

I worked from home yesterday. Was I working? Look at the place on the network where we put finished products. There was nothing there Monday at 9 a.m. There are products there Tuesday at 9 a.m. Hmmm. Someone put them there. Oh, it was me. I shipped product on Monday.

I ship product on Tuesday and the next day and the next and the next.

Telecommuting? Ship. Shipping is more important than ever.

“But shipping product is not my job!”

That is a legitimate claim for some persons in some jobs. You can still ship. Create a list of, “I worked with so-and-so on their product. So-and-so shipped. Hence, I am part of many shipped products everyday.”

I think all this “if you work from home you have to prove yourself more than those who are ‘working’ in the office” is bologna. It is not fair. It is not right. It is reality.

If you are telecommuting, you should be shipping.

by Dwayne Phillips

Pulling information involves asking questions. It means you receive information other than what the holder of information volunteers. Ask with care.

Pulling information makes an information meeting much longer than the presenter planned. The audience asks questions to learn information that wasn’t presented. But what about this? Why say what you said? How is it that … and so on.

When you pull information over and over, presenters start to show up for the meeting with the information in hand.

When they have the information in hand, success tends to follow.

Ask the questions, daily, respectfully.

by Dwayne Phillips

Angst and polarization during the pandemic could have been greatly reduced with the use of a few magic words.

Magic words: Please and Thank you.

Some of us were taught these magic words at a young age. Somehow, we forgot them through the years. Their absence increased the angst and polarization of the pandemic.

Consider:

Please, as in, “Please wear a mask. I have this condition that makes me likely to become ill or I have a child who would become ill if I carried a virus home or…”

Thank you, as in, “I realize your situation is different from mine. You are not likely to become ill or your family members are not likely to become ill. Thank you for wearing a mask and standing back from me.”

This seems much simpler and more effective than what we did. Perhaps next time we will use the magic words.

by Dwayne Phillips

“Omit needless words,” still holds true. Sometimes in a different form.

I just listened to a 30-minute talk. The context isn’t important. What is important is there were 20 minutes of excellent talking in those 30 mediocre minutes. Cut this, cut that, don’t repeat that. Omit needless words.

This is one of the reason for the excellence in the TED talks. There are editors behind the scenes. They listen to the speakers practice. They cut, cut, and cut more. They omit the needless words. They are pleasant folks, these editors, but the are ruthless when it comes to words and minutes.

“You have to understand,” says the speaker after 30 mediocre minutes. “I get so excited and I want to say so much and I…”

The speaker’s enthusiasm and good will are wonderful. The words that flow are merely extra words that fill extra minutes and surround the excellent words. It’s sort of like a five-paragraph blog post that should be three paragraphs. Yikes.

by Dwayne Phillips

Once again, its not the event, its our reaction to the event. Here is an exercise in reading news headlines.

Read the headlines (these are paraphrased from the Washington Post on one day):

• Virus tied to increased risk of neurological and psychiatric illness
• The pandemic has caused parents to slow down
• Expanding the Supreme Court could erode trust
• AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine shortfall hobbles Australia’s rollout

Insert the words, “Our reaction to” in front of these headlines:

• Our reaction to virus tied to increased risk of neurological and psychiatric illness
• Our reaction to the pandemic has caused parents to slow down
• Our reaction to expanding the Supreme Court could erode trust
• Our reaction to AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine shortfall hobbles Australia’s rollout

Hmmm. The change is we have assigned responsibility of some thing to US. We chose to do one thing or another in reaction to one event or thing or another.

Sometimes we don’t want to assigned responsibility to US. That makes US look bad. Perhaps we would choose differently next time if we wrote tomorrow’s headline about our reaction to some thing instead of about some thing.

by Dwayne Phillips

Candid comments from someone on the inside. It can be ugly in here.

For a while, I worked on a project where I would teach persons how to use the software that was produced. We had good intentions. When the software worked as advertised and taught, it allowed the users to do things in minutes instead of days. It had a sky-high return on investment.

There were times, however, when the software didn’t work. You have to “kick it” now and then or restart everything or some such thing. I was on the inside. I saw all the problems. Yikes. How did any of it work at all?

Candor, “Folks, I work in the project. I see everything. All human endeavors are conducted by fallible persons. This one is not an exception.”

That can be said by just about everyone who is working on just about every project there is. We have lots of problems. No one should be surprised by any of this.