Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We just cannot resist applying the latest technology to something.

This is the second in my series on the “Technology Imperative.” (I have learned that there are books and papers with this title elsewhere.) The first part in the “series” was blogged in the year 2010. Oooops, not much continuity, but here goes.

Our American government scans faces at border entry points to find imposters, those folks whose desire to enter America leads them to break the rules. We find this story of how 23 million faces were scanned in 2020. All this technology resulted in the arrest of, well, uh, er—nobody.

One could claim that this is a tremendous success as the use of this technology prevented anyone from attempting entry. One could claim that this was a big waste of money since no one was trying to enter. I guess there is no end to how others could claim other things.

Nevertheless, the technology exists, so we must use it. That is the technology imperative. There appears to be no end to very expensive examples of this. Sigh. What can we say about ourselves? Hey, wait, look at that shiny new gizmo. Why we could…

by Dwayne Phillips

Despite all the promise and all the already fulfilled promise, there is a fundamental problem with machine learning.

Machine learning is that part of artificial intelligence that time and technology favors. We have the stuff needed to make machine learning work right now.

Machine learning “works” because you feed in a million photos of things (at least for computer vision, the other ML areas have the same situation), learn, i.e., create a model, and then use it.

The technique can “read” x-rays, find cracks in airplane engines, warn folks of impending forest fires and all sorts of things that benefit people.

Then there are those applications where the technique finds a criminal in a crowded room by recognizing a face or points to someone who “doesn’t belong.” We find that there are all sorts of “biases” in those million photos that some of us don’t like in some situations. What do we do?

Solution: go through those million photos by hand to ensure we have a set that is “fair” or “better” in some way. Going through all those photos by hand defeats the purpose of the entire exercise. We will be inspecting everything manually to ensure that the machine does everything automatically. Huh? Won’t work.

Well, we can still justify this as you have to look at a million photos once to create a good “model.” Afterwards, you use the model over and over and over. That reuse has a greater return on investment than having people do all the work from now on. Really? Have you run the numbers on that? Well, uh, …

There is something some of us call “the Technology Imperative.” It states that if the technology and technique are available, we must use them. That usually wins the day.

Perhaps something good will come of this.

by Dwayne Phillips

Where will we go for discourse on the Internet? Semi-public groups for forums work.

I like Seth Godin’s recent short essay on trust and how folks use the Internet. Godin described the early (1970s) online interaction as, “Because each of these groups were high-trust communities, it was easy to conclude that the people they’d be engaging online would be too.”

Godin mentions the unfortunate online interaction of this century, “When a site decides to get big fast, they usually do it by creating a very easy way to join, and they create few barriers to a drive-by anonymous experience. And when they make a profit from this behavior, they do it more. In fact, they amplify it.”

Money is the root of much of this. Open your platform to everyone, increase traffic, increase ad revenue, get rich.

Godin points to the future and a better way, “Until there’s a correlation between what’s popular or profitable and what’s useful, we’re all going to be paying the price.”

Another solution: start your own little invitee-only discussion forum that is not hosted by the big and famous tech companies. Jerry Weinberg’s “SHAPE Forum” was one I used for a decade (This link goes to a sample discussion. In the sample, names were replaced with generic ones.) People who knew one another and understood the language of that group discussed complex matters of importance. Disagreements were common as were suggestions and solutions.

I describe the SHAPE Forum as a semi-public one. It is open to the public as long as the group members invite someone and explain the local guidelines for discussion. Persons who violate the guidelines are removed. If you are removed and don’t like it, well, no one violated your civil rights be allowing you in or moving you out.

Create a forum for your extended family. Family news is shown. Create a forum for persons engaged in the same industry or trade as you. These things are fairly easy to do.

Why do this? We are scattered across the country and the world and time zones. We know smart people who have answers to our questions. Discourse helps us all.

They key is to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars being involved. That is pretty easy to avoid. As long as the money isn’t worth the effort, no one will bother you.

by Dwayne Phillips

We usually build things for ourselves. We then hope that someone else will use what we build. Sometimes we adapt to doing it right; sometimes not.

A recent story related how we want 80-somethings to register for and then receive the virus vaccine. “All you have to do” is go online and… Wait, is there a contradiction here? “80-somethings” and “go online” seem to not go together or something.

A 30-something built something for 30-somethings. Then someone told 80-somethings to use this 30-something gizmo. Hmmm. Sort of doesn’t make sense, huh? How can smart people do this?

Consider Facebook. It was built by college students for college students. Remember how you needed a dot-edu email address to get an account?

Those college-student builders received and heeded some good advice from somewhere. They revised the software so that other folks (not college students) would use it. Viola’! A trillion dollars or something in profits.

Back in 2008, I visited a company that was under contract to build gadgets for the 2010 census. Someone at the Census Bureau thought it a great idea for census takers—those who walked neighborhoods and knocked on doors—to have a little digital device in their hands on which to enter information that would be zapped up to a computer where wonderfulness would occur. Oh, by the way, those census takers were usually retired volunteers in their 70s who had poor eyesight and had just mastered the push-button telephone at home. A 30-something building a gizmo for a 70-something.

I guess we don’t learn fast or maybe some folks learn faster than others. And then there are those who do learn and rake in a trillion dollars.

by Dwayne Phillips

The path to solution is often found in the next (logical) question.

Person A: How much will this cost?

Person B: I don’t know?

Person A: When will you know?

Person B: Uh, I don’t know that either?

Person A: What will you need to do so that you know?

Person B: I’m not sure. I’ll to think about that.

Person A: When will you sit and think about that?

Person B: I don’t know.

Person A: Are you free tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.?

Person B: Yes, I am.

Person A: Then sit tomorrow at 9 a.m. so you can learn what you need to know to know when you will know about how much this costs. That way we will be moving forwards.

…

The next (logical) question is quite simple. If you don’t know something, start tomorrow at learning what you need to know so that you will know something. For some reason, we struggle to ask the next (logical) question of ourselves. We need another person to ask us.

Where is that other person who will ask the next (logical) question? Don’t know? What will you need to do to know? When will you sit and learn what you need to know so that you can…

by Dwayne Phillips

Three years from now may never come.

“I don’t want to be ‘locked into’ company A because company B may have a better offering in three years. We need to be able to shift to company B.”—a well-meaning advisor.

In three years, the world may be different. Let’s remain agile. Let’s keep the ability to move in a different direction.

True, the world may be (probably will be) different in three years. True, it would be good to be able to shift direction then. True, agility is good. True, true, true.

What may not be (and probably will not be) true is that what we know today is relevant to the future of three years from now.

Who predicted 2020 back in 2017? Huh, well, anyone? But 2020 was an extreme case. True, but “extreme” is a relative term, and we will probably think that 2023 was an extreme case.

Hence, while looking to the future is good, it is easy to over rate it. Let’s do something today, now, and gain what we may today, now. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own (I seem to have read that somewhere in a good book).

by Dwayne Phillips

When problems occur in complex online presentations, those involved struggle to fix the problems. They are invested in the presentation. That investment inhibits thinking. Always bring along an uninvested assistant.

I have participated in countless ZoomerTeamer meetings in the past year. Some were simple—a daily chat with a small team of colleagues. Some are complex—several thousand observers at an international conference.

Sometimes, there are “technical difficulties.” No one can hear the presenter. No one can see the presentation. Support personnel step in to remedy the situation. No support personnel? The presenters scramble.

I’ve been one of these presenters scrambling to have something that isn’t working work. Whatever it is, it worked just fine during the practice session (there is always a practice session for complex meetings). Nothing works as it should. Everything is fuzzy. Everything is confusing and confounding and all those words that begin with “con” and mean “contrary to what should work.”

I was always invested in the presentation. I had prepared, practiced, perfected, and perspired to no end. I was focused.

I was too focused. When problems occurred, I was focused on a tiny thing that I was convinced was the problem and solution I couldn’t see anything else. That was my failing—I couldn’t see anything else.

That is one of the great problems of being invested—I cannot see enough.

What is needed is someone who is not invested. The uninvested person can see much more than the invested person. The uninvested is carefree and has nothing pressing down on their chest or the brain. The uninvested can breathe and think. And the uninvested assistant has the administrative privileges that allows correcting problems. The uninvested assistant doesn’t have to attempt to describe the problem and the solution to the invested persons who have ceased to breathe and think.

Doing a complex meeting? Find someone who is not invested in the presentation. Grant them administrative privileges. Have them appear at the complex meeting. If problems occur, the uninvested will remedy them much faster than the invested.

by Dwayne Phillips

Are we making a product or making a product that allows others to make a product. Are we making a product that will allow us to make a product, but we spend so much time on the first that we never make a product?

I see this often. People aren’t building products. Instead, they are building infrastructure so that others can build products.

Well, who are these “others?” Come on, we are using our resources to build something that might lead to something or might lead to nothing.

This happens in many fields of endeavor:

Writers: build a writer’s escape in the back yard for writing. They spend years on the building and don’t write anything during those years.

Instead, go to the public library, sit at the Internet terminal for an hour, and write using Google Docs or something. An hour a day writing produces a novel in three to six months.

Woodworkers: Build and equip a wood-working shop. They take years doing that and never work on wood—except the wood used to build the shop.

Instead, work on the kitchen table or the garage floor.

Anglers: Work work work so you can buy a fishing boat. During those years of working and saving, they never go fishing.

Instead, grab a stick, a ball of twine, and a lump of bait and go to a nearby ditch or pond.

This list could continue.

Okay, spend some energy building a product that will help produce a product, but spend most of your energy building products.

by Dwayne Phillips

Every now and then, someone shows how well you can do something. In rare situations, everyone else improves. Most of the time, however, not so much.

I like to watch TED talks. They are so goooooood. Twenty minutes. Every sentence full of content. Just enough visuals, but not too many. Relevant topics. Wow. Good stuff.

Then I turn to watch someone present a topic at a conference (all online in the year of the virus) or somewhere. Huh? What is that? Their face points at the camera while their eyes point at the words that are somewhere off to the side. The lighting is awful. There are too many graphics, and I can’t read them. The sentences are not sentences. The, “well, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, you know” is endless.

There was hope that TED talks would show everyone else how well you can make a presentation. A few followed along, but those were the V E R Y few. Otherwise, the TED talk simply showed how baaaaaaaad everyone else was.

Sigh. There is an old saying, “Excellence is the exception.” The root words of excellence and exception are the same or maybe just a convenient coincidence.

Regardless, if you are making a presentation, watch a few TED talks. Read about how they make TED talks so good. Try harder. Please.

You have something to say. Help others hear it.

by Dwayne Phillips

The “winner” will be declared by fallible persons with prejudices and favorites (just like us).

Surely we can do better than this. Right? Surely, all us smart people can put our heads together and create a better community, a better consensus.

Alas, not this year. We’re all working from home, at least all of us who count as something are working from home, right? You mean there are valuable persons who have to show up on the job site to work? Well, we’ll pull them along if we have to. I mean, they should just acknowledge us and our smartness. Right?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

We’re all fallible. We all have prejudices and favorites. What I value is of no importance to you and the other way around.

So much for society. What about our unit at work? We’re managers, so how do we manage the work and lead the people? One person at a time. Talk with one person. Learn. Listen. Help. Lead. (Someone famous once said those four words.) Change. It is slow, but it is worth it.

So much for work. What about society? Same thing, only bigger and slower. It is worth it.