Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

There are techniques, tools, methodologies, etc. that won’t work—until they do. They shouldn’t work—until they do. What is happening here?

Many years ago, we were sitting in a conference room watching a presentation video on a television. The television has a cathode ray tube with a curved glass cover (I wrote that this was many years ago). The display glass was covered with dust. I left the room and returned with several wet paper towels. Just before touching the screen, someone shouted, “Hey, don’t do that. That won’t work. That’s the wrong way to clean a screen!”

I cleaned the television screen with wet paper towels. It worked just fine.

• You shouldn’t clean a television screen with wet paper towels. It won’t work.
• You shouldn’t clean a chalk board with wet paper towels. It won’t work.
• You shouldn’t clean an erasable white board by writing on it. It won’t work.
• You shouldn’t document a system with a pencil and paper. It won’t work.
• You shouldn’t talk to a person in person face to face. It won’t work.

The list goes on and on. There are many techniques you shouldn’t use to accomplish tasks as those techniques won’t work—until they do.

Sometimes, the wrong technique gives 80% good results. Sometimes, the wrong technique gives 98.6% good results. Those techniques don’t give 100% good results, so they are the wrong technique.

Well, some of us have never achieved 100% on anything in our lives. Therefore, we accept what we achieve and keep moving forward. Someone in the audience, who maybe achieved 100% at some point in their life, will scream. Ignore them.

Oh wait, ignoring a scream won’t work—until it does.

by Dwayne Phillips

No matter what is in a document, believe what you observe in the here and now. Believe reality.

While writing this, we are in the middle of having the carpet replaced at work. The big room where I work is filled with cubicles (one of the great torture chambers invented by man). Those hard-working folks replacing the carpet have to lift the cubicles, move them a wee bit, and replace the carpet squares. This is all hard work.

There is a schedule for all this hard work of replacing carpet. The schedule was created by hard working folks in meetings with Microsoft Project and Calendar and all the high-tech office tools we have. That schedule was distributed via Outlook and distribution lists and more of the high-tech office tools we have.

Then the carpet workers showed up one day a week earlier than what the schedule indicated. “Please move out of the way, we have to replace the carpet,” requested the carpet workers.

“But, no. This is not possible, this is not per the schedule,” protested some of my colleagues.

The carpet workers were present and they started replacing carpet. That was reality.

It has been said many times in many ways over many centuries. The saying is something like, “If the terrain disagrees with the map, believe the terrain.”

Reality is in front of us. Schedules, maps, plans, procedures, etc. Those are nice, but reality is in front of us. Believe reality. Accept reality. Do the best we can. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

In our brave new world of remote working and such, one thing remains: evidence of work.

A: What are you doing?

B: Working.

A: What have you done?

B: I read three books and six papers as assigned.

A: Uh, why should I believe that?

There is no evidence of work. All that information is in the mind of person B. Person B needs evidence of work.

B: Well, I have written a report on each item I read. See here. Check the notes.

A: Oh, evidence of work. Okay. I’ll, uh, er, get to those reports. Thanks.

All this remote work-from-anywhere stuff we are doing now requires some evidence of work. “See this,” says person B, “it didn’t exist three days ago. It exists now. I created it while I was working. It is evidence of work. You now have something you can use.”

This is pretty simple stuff. It seems we wouldn’t be struggling with it so much, but then we are an odd lot.

by Dwayne Phillips

Many people struggle to find that elusive “time to write.” Others struggle to find to do anything else but write.

Some people try in vain to find that elusive “time to write.” Something else is always in the way. This happens; that happens, and the time to write is not there. Fatigue wins again.

Some writers are quite annoying to others in that the writer is simply “not here.” The writer is somewhere else writing. There are no boundaries as the writer simply cannot do anything else but write.

It is almost a disease in that the writer must write to breathe. Boundaries are required to allow the writer to rejoin the rest of us.

• Eat? Too busy writing.
• Sleep? Too busy writing.
• Whatever it is that normal people are doing at this time? Too busy writing.

Writing is not the only preoccupation that exhibits this preoccupation with whatever it is. Some people exercise, some teach, some argue, etc.

Time to write? Why not?

by Dwayne Phillips

It is easy to use my past as a reason for my behavior. It’s just an excuse. Put it and all other excuses behind and be here and now and better.

“You have to understand” (when we hear those words, run and hide quickly)

• I was in the Army
• I grew up in New England
• I never played baseball as a kid
• I always wrote a lot
• I didn’t have a library in my town
• I was raised in a big family
• I was an only child
• I was part of an Irish/Italian/Cajun/Latin/Whatever community

I could keep this list going for a while. I have a past that brought me to this place here and now. I act the way I do because of my past. You just have to understand that and not blame what I do on me. My problems were caused by something, someone, somewhere.

Wrong. I am responsible for what I do here and now. Excusing myself because of something somewhere else at some other time is convenient. Like all excuses, it is just an excuse. Move on. Be here and now.

Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Excellence is an exception. It is also a pleasant surprise. Enjoy it.

Sometimes I am surprised in that I walk into a new situation with a new group of persons and, WOW, they are doing things well. Best practices, best tools, high expectations, high satisfaction. It is all here. They are well and well on their way.

That is all rare. It is a pleasant surprise. I must not lose the “pleasant” part. Excellence is an exception. When we find it, let’s enjoy it. I find it fleeting.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are many important questions that relate to one situation or another. I find that there is one question that is more important than most in any situation

What did I learn?

That is the more-important question. I try to accomplish things that I want to accomplish. I have a goal. I work hard towards that goal. At my age, I have become more realistic in setting goals. Still sometimes, it all flops and I fall flat face-down in the mud.

What did I learn?

I cannot choose all the outcomes, but I can always choose to ask myself this question. I write this post at a time when my professional life is not bringing the results I want.

What did I learn?

That question keeps staring me in the face. I guess I had better get around to answering it. Maybe there will be another chance at another thing. I can’t afford to skip the learnings of today when I face tomorrow.

Let’s do better. Let’s learn.

by Dwayne Phillips

I have to write all the parts to have a whole. But the parts that comprise the whole will probably change.

I am facing a big writing project (“big” of course is subjective). I have divided the whole big project into parts. Now, write each part, check off the parts in the list, and I will have the whole.

I don’t feel like writing the first part first. I don’t feel like writing the second, third, or even fourth part first. What do do?

1. Write the part that I most want to write, first.
2. Look at what is left and repeat step 1.

Well, I suppose that will work. Correction, I know that will work. But what’s the use? I mean, I have to write all the parts to have a whole. Why not just “bear down” (or some other cliche) and write the parts in order?

Simple answer to this obvious but no-fun question: until I am finished with the whole, I really don’t know what parts comprise the whole.

Once I have been writing for a while, the list of parts will probably change. The part that I didn’t want to write, may be unnecessary. I didn’t have to struggle with it after all. It went into the trash can before I wrote it.

Lazy approach? Maybe, but who am I to call myself “lazy” when I am writing all the necessary parts that comprise a whole and I ship the whole piece to those who need it?

Write the most interesting (to me) part first. The rest will fall in place. At least, that is my experience.

by Dwayne Phillips

These chattering bots can “generate” all sorts of information. Humans must do more and better to keep their paying jobs.

I recently sat in a lecture about some worthwhile topic. The lecturer started with, “There are eight aspects to this topic that we will cover in the next ten sessions.” The lecturer listed those eight aspects on the PowerPoint screen and described each in some detail.

One of my fellow lecture attenders pulled me aside afterwards. While sitting bored in the lecture, he had asked ChatGPT, “What are the major aspects of this topic?” ChatGPT immediately spit out the same eight things our learned lecturer listed. Further prompts produced better summaries and details of the eight topics than the lecturer produced. (There are many other systems that do the same, but I will use “ChatGPT” in this short essay.)

Our lecturer could not spell ChatGPT let alone use it. Hence, his lecture was the result of long hours of hard work, i.e., someone paid the expert lecturer lots of money to do something that a novice could do in 15 minutes with ChatGPT.

And hence we arrive at higher expectations for human intelligence and human experts.

“ChatGPT could have pumped out that material. I am paying you money to do much better than that.”

I have yet to hear the above statement. That is an unfortunate indictment of ignorance on those who hire human experts. It is also a call to action for human experts everywhere. Laymen can produce accurate information on many topics. If a human expert wants to continue to be paid for expertise, its time to up our game.

Start lectures with, “You could pull much information on this topic from ChatGPT. That includes these eight main aspects. I point you to the accompanying handout for such. Now we will delve into material that ChatGPT doesn’t ‘know’ yet.”

New tools are valuable. They are also forcing experts to do better. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

You think the US government is big and spends lots of money? It is now overshadowed by industry—especially in computing.

I was an employee of the US Federal government for 28 years. We did big things in computing that cost big dollars. I once worked in a lab where we had four supercomputers. One of them cost $6 million while the other three cost $4 million each. No one had that type of computing power.

There is news that Microsoft and OpenAI will build a data center with an AI super-duper-computer that will cost $100 Billion. That is Billion with a B. No government in the world can afford such a computer center.

At least in the field of computing, governments have fallen far behind industry. Innovation and production occurs in industry. Governments sheepishly ask for handouts.

“Can we please use Copilot for a reduced price? We have 10,000 employees. That should be worth some consideration, huh?” That doesn’t make a dent to a company that has 100 million registered users. There are no home-town discounts to a government that drug your company in court for ten years with no result.

The US government tied IBM in court for a decade. No result. The US government tied Microsoft in court for ten years. No result. The US government is starting the same with Apple. Experts predict that same no result.

Adjusting to the new world? Hardly. The US House of Representatives bans the use of Copilot among its staffers. No need for better product and productivity. Just continue to plod along. We are, after all, THE GOVERNMENT.

That doesn’t carry any weight any longer. Some haven’t realized this. Many outside of government realized it a decade ago. I am still associated with the US Federal government. We can do better. Here’s hoping for a better future.