Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Research is expensive. Someone pays the bills. Sorry about the lesson in economics.

The future of companies is often in the research they perform in the back rooms. Not glamorous, but often necessary. And those smart folks in the back rooms cost lots of money. The company has to be making enough profits to pay those bills. Sorry about the lesson in economics.

DeepMind is a place full of brilliant folks. It also costs a lot of money with little immediate return. Sorry about the lesson in economics.

Google recently fired an AI researchers and wants more positive papers. These things are awful. Sorry about the lesson in economics.

AI researchers are good folks trying hard to do good things. They aren’t exempt from the First Rule:

There is no free lunch.

Sorry about the lesson in economics.

by Dwayne Phillips

We often use a “figure of speech” to describe something. Well, that’s nice, but I know that such-and-such cannot literally do something-or-other. Can we please have some literal descriptions?

I have recently been reading constantly about a very popular software app. I won’t mention which one because that would take us off the topic of figurative and literal descriptions.

All the descriptions of this very popular software app use figures of speech. An example figure of speech is, “This software manages that thing.”

Well, no it doesn’t. People manage things. Sometimes people write software to help them manage things. The software does some specific tasks that help the people do their job.

Those specific tasks can be described literally. Please speak literally instead of figuratively.

For example, this piece of software appears to manage things and actually helps me manage things when it:

1. reads parameters that I entered in a text file
2. reads status from a text file
3. uses if…then statements that use the parameters and the status
4. calls control routines based on the if…then statements

Why don’t we have more literal descriptions? I believe the answer is that it is more difficult to understand something well enough in context to describe it literally.

It’s simply harder. Fatigue always wins.

Oh, thank you for the effort required to describe something literally. Now I understand.

by Dwayne Phillips

Are we spending time in gold mines or coal mines?

Of course we want to be in gold mines. Untold riches. Right? Consider a few things.

Gold Mine resource: Now and then we find a nugget of gold that is valuable almost beyond measure. Most of the time, most of the days, there is nothing but dirt.

Coal Mine resource: Every shovel brings energy.

Now, where do we spend our time?

by Dwayne Phillips

When teaching and demonstrating systems, it is better if there are errors.

Teaching how to use a system is better when there are errors.

No, that prior sentence is not a typo. I want errors to appear when I am showing a person how to use a system—anything from software to a toaster oven.

Errors, problems, uh ohs, etc. occur in real life. Users of systems need to know what to do when errors occur. If a user is taught how to use a perfectly performing system, they will flop in real life.

For example, when a system doesn’t connect to the Internet like it should, what do you do? Well, there is a work around—a way to go behind the scenes and force the system to connect to the Internet. They only way to teach that workaround is for the system to fail to connect to the Internet in the middle of class.

Note to System builders: please build ways for teachers to make the system fail so they can demonstrate how to use the system in the real world.

by Dwayne Phillips

Thoughts about all those folks out there who seem to be doing something that the experts don’t like.

1980—it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when I heard a woman telling foreign dignitaries about the common person in America. I didn’t approach her and hit her with a two-by-four—mostly because I didn’t have a two-by-four handy.

Today, “The common person gets their news from Facebook. Can you imagine the ignorance?”

The person making that statement used to be paid to write for a newspaper or the web version of the newspaper. The common person now talks to trusted friends instead of reading this former “journalist” who shot himself in the foot by writing nothing but editorials instead of being a journalist. Now this former journalist is unemployed and is lashing out at “the common person.”

Never underestimate “the common person.” The adjective “common” means there is a lot of these folks.

This isn’t yet another praise of “the silent majority” or populism or something. Just a reminder that there are plenty of persons “out there” (they must be out there because if they were in here some of us wouldn’t be worried about them) who don’t see things the same way we or me or someone else sees them.

Those folks out there are not ignorant. They simply disagree with some other folks.

by Dwayne Phillips

All organizations have management processes. Do they matter?

All organizations have management processes. Some organizations codify them, teach them, spread them, proclaim them, and even sometimes use them.

Do things management processes, i.e., “the way we do things around here,” matter? Of course they do.

And sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the personnel, the idea, the breakthrough is so good that everything works. The organization succeeds wildly beyond everyone’s imagination. Everyone gets rich and famous and (sometimes even) lives happily ever after.

Then someone goes back and claims, “Well, you have to understand that we created the environment or infrastructure or something-or-other that enabled our success. Let me explain.”

Then that someone writes a book and publishes posters and sells all that stuff and holds big-dollar seminars exhorting others to adopt their wonderful wonderfulness.

And really, it was simply a breakthrough idea that was 99.9% of everything.

Beware the organization that fails at a product but produces a process.

Also beware the organization that succeeds at a product but produces a process.

Same thing, just a different first step.

by Dwayne Phillips

Our mistakes put us in this situation, a tree didn’t fall on us.

“How did we get here? What happened?”

Simple, we decided to do this and that and some other thing, and we were mistaken. No one made us do what we did. We chose on our own. So, here we are, in a bad situation.

We make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We stumble and bumble—some days worse than others.

Accept our fallibility. Plan for our fallibility. Ask, “If this is a bad decision, where will we be? Will we be able to recover? Will this take all our resources? Is this fatal to our organization?”

Some call this “risk management.” Others call this common sense. Others call this pessimism. Whatever we call it, we should probably do some form of it. After all, we make mistakes—some worse than others.

by Dwayne Phillips

Who wants whom? Who wants someone else’s attention or expertise? People tend to forget the answers.

You called me.

We called him.

These mean something—important. We called him. We want his time, attention, expertise—we want something he has and we don’t have.

The same when you call me. You want something of me.

Then things roll downhill or around the hill or something. Things become confused. Now you are doing me a favor. Wait. What? You called me. How is it that you are doing me a favor. Wait. What? We called him. How are we doing something for his convenience?

“Sir, I called you because I think we can help each other. This will be good for both of us.” Yes, mutually beneficial, but still, I called first. Let’s not forget that.

by Dwayne Phillips

We are often the way we are because of our situation, not by a choice. Sometimes our situation forces us into “good.”

Slim and trim are good. At least being slim is seen as good by most of western society at this time in the 21st century. Obesity is not good. Again, that is the current opinion of western society.

How many people around the world are slim by choice, i.e., diet and exercise? How many people around the world are slim by situation, i.e., they simply don’t have a lot of food to eat? I think that most slim people on planet earth today are slim by situation, not by choice.

New technology companies in the last half of 2020 are working from home using Internet tools and skimping on expenses of office space. Choice or situation? The working from home part is mostly from the situation, i.e., our reaction to the coronavirus. The Internet tools are also stemming from the situation. Some commentators comment that this work-from-home and saving on overhead expense are great for new companies.

A good choice or simply the situation? I believe that most of these good business choices are simply results of the situation.

Is it good to lose choice and be commanded by situation? Well, the chooser doesn’t have to spend as much time choosing. There is more time and energy remaining to decide other issues. That must be good, huh?

We go on down this path of choice or situation to no end. What is the result? One result is that managers should understand if they are choosing something or merely being pushed into something. Understand the impetus. Understand what is happening. Use the situation to the good of your colleagues, your endeavor, and yourself.

by Dwayne Phillips

Productivity leaps are possible and happening. I am sorry to write that fortunes can be made while employing just a few persons.

I recently learned of a game called Among Us from a company called InnerSloth. In November of 2020, there were 500 million people playing the game.

InnerSloth has four employees.

It was a long, slow climb to this popularity, but the game became an improbable hit. The four persons had savings and lived very cheaply for a few years. There was no guarantee of success. None. It just worked.

Given programming toolkits and cloud computing and imagination and long hours, four persons can make software that is used by half-a-billion. That is not a gain in productivity—it is a leap from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other.

Note to government agencies the world over: get with it.

Jobs? Four of them. Of course there were persons employed to create the tools and the clouds and the smartphones on which the game is played. Still, four jobs.

The new, new economies are like this. When things work, when games become hits, there is a lot of money concentrated in the hands of a few. I wish those at InnerSloth all the best. I hope they make lots of money. I hope they show others that productivity leaps are possible. I also hope they find ways to hire other persons.