Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

When in doubt, take the easier way. That seems to be the norm.

We bumped into some odd situations this week at work. Four months ago, something was supposed to happen. Something major was supposed to happen.

Nothing happened.

Actually, nothing appeared to happen. Major things did happen. Several persons acted decisively. They decided to take the easier way, not hold discussions with others, and not change the organization in which they worked.

What were the results? People received their salaries. People occupied their time with activities that benefited some other people.

What were not the results? We aren’t sure. We don’t know what we didn’t do and who didn’t receive benefits from those activities.

Regardless of speculation, those who decided on what to do decided to do the easier things. Time marches on. We don’t change much.

by Dwayne Phillips

Most of us profess to like a good story, but do we?

Stories are important. They inform others of our path to where we are today. We love stories.

Or do we love the word “story?”

If we love stories, we would tell them often. We would type the words to the story so that others could “hear” the story later by reading those words.

In my experience, I find far more persons who like story than who will type the words to a story. They seem to love the word “story” more than an actual story.

I guess I have this all wrong. There is some fear of typing words that freezes persons. Maybe English teachers in public schools did this to people over the generations. “I’m not a writer.” Odd, everyone I know who has told me this was able to talk.

There is something about typing the words that we say that has been beaten out of us.

And who says public schools are not effective at teaching? Perhaps some teachers teach love of the word “story” without teaching love of story.

by Dwayne Phillips

What interests me today? The project that I am working today? Perhaps not.

I know I am working on this project today, but it is just another project. Sure, I want it to succeed, but really, it’s just another one.

What really interests me is finding the BIG IDEA. That thing that I will turn into a big open-source project that thousands of programmers will love and work with me. I will be famous and give $10,000 appearances every week (all expenses paid first class).

The BIG IDEA is so much better than this project. That is why this project isn’t doing so well, but it will be okay. I mean, it’s just another project. There are many and will be many more until I find that BIG IDEA.

Okay, let’s switch from me “the dreamer of BIG IDEAS” to me the project manager. Are the people working on this project with me devoted to the success of this project? Are these persons dreaming instead of something else?

It is to our benefit for me to take time and ask. Take time and have a conversation about today and tomorrow and dreams.

And have the humility to wish that someone on this project will have a BIG IDEA and all those BIG IDEA dreams will come true for them.

by Dwayne Phillips

We each have threats that we value and threats that we ignore.

I sit here in a coffee shop drinking plain old coffee while writing. In the year of the virus, persons walk in wearing their theatrical masks to show concern for a threat. They grab their coffee, walk out, and sit in their giant SUV parked in front of the sign that reads:

NO PARKING…FIRE ZONE

Hmmm, if there was a fire, all the persons in all the shops in this shopping center would be in immediate danger of death and that giant SUV would block the fire fighters and…

Not to worry, these persons are good persons as evidenced by their masks that have logos on them from all the current protests that amplify how good a good person is this week.

We each have our own threats that we value and threats that we ignore. The virus and the mask are more important to some than the fire hazard or the pollution hazard from a massive internal combustion engine in a massive 15-person vehicle in which no more than two persons usually ride.

Life goes on in the year of the virus. The more things are far out of the ordinary, the more we are the same.

by Dwayne Phillips

Giving advice? Do we do what we advise?

Quick point: an ethical person will only consult, advise, recommend, etc. only things that they do themselves.

There are limits. If I advise a company to buy a million-dollar computer system, that is ethical even though I don’t have a million-dollar computer system myself as I don’t need one.

Nevertheless, I advise people to do a little, fail a little, learn a little, repeat. If I am not practicing that, I cannot ethically advise that. There are many examples of advice:

• write every day
• write in a journal
• read every day
• read things that you don’t understand
• experiment every day

The list is endless. I do the above items, so I advise them for others.

by Dwayne Phillips

Leaving room for learning is a good practice, as long as I continue to fill those empty rooms.

I write a lot. I write much more than the average person—whom I have yet to meet.

I know English grammar better than the average person. Most average persons could care less about that. There is much about English grammar that I have yet to learn. That is fine, so long as I continue to learn.

I suppose that the the point of the matter. It is fine to not know everything about something so long as I continue to learn. When I don’t know about something and refuse to learn, then I have hit a wall or something bad.

Partial ignorance is fine. Refusal to learn, not so fine.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some people work on big data. The rest of us find value by working on data that is bigger than we can understand without some hand-crafted tools.

For about two years I worked on a BIG DATA project. Well, that is how it was touted. BIG DATA was a cool name that impressed people. Me? I tried not to giggle or grimace when those words were spoken and those PowerPoints were blazoned across screens in the far flung reaches of the fruited plain.

Walmart was my favorite example when persons would pull me to the side and ask for clarifications. Consider every Walmart in America and the world. That’s a big number. Consider every cash register at every Walmart. That’s a big(ger) number. Consider every customer going through every cash register at every Walmart. That big number continues to be BIGGER. Consider every purchase by every customer at … I hope by now you have the BIG DATA picture in your mind. Walmart is an example of BIG DATA. They do gazillions of transactions every second of every day. They track and analyze every one.

Walmart does BIG DATA.

We analyzed relationships among persons related to significant events. Every one of our analysts knew what questions to ask. Given a couple dozen persons and one event, the analyst could pin things on the wall, connect them with yarn, and have those cool displays like on the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel.

The trouble was, we didn’t have a couple dozen persons, we had 200,000 persons. We didn’t have a big enough wall and enough yarn to find the answers. And no one had the time or helpers to do the job. The data is bigger than a person can analyze.

We did BIG(er) DATA.

We solved these bigger data problems by hand crafting little tools that helped us do this and that and answer the fundamental questions that every analyst knew.

• Just show me the activities of 4 July 2020.
• Just show me the persons with college degrees.
• Just show me the telephone numbers with area code 202.
• Just show me…

The “just show me” items would move on and on until we reduced 200,000 persons to two or three persons. There was the answer.

BIG DATA? No.

BIG(ger) DATA? Yes.

Value added? Yes.

Sometimes you just need to change the topic by a couple or three letters for it all to make sense.

by Dwayne Phillips

What type of person are you trying to hire? The questions you ask answer this question. Please listen to yourself.

Do you want a scientist or a technician or a clerk?

Technicians and clerks are easy to find. Ask what tools they’ve used.

Finding a scientist or analyst or other thinker … Now you have to think a while before asking a question.

For example, I have worked as a systems engineer. Many persons in the computing industry confuse the term “systems engineer” with “system administrator.” They are easy to confuse.

Jobs for system administrators use the names of tools: Linux, Windows, server, Docker, etc.

Jobs for systems engineers use terms related to thinking: requirements, ideas, concepts. Oooh. That is sort of fuzzy, hard to put your finger on those things. Concrete things are missing. What do we talk about? How do I judge if a person can think? This hurts my head.

Here’s a tip: Ask the prospective scientist something like, “How often do you think about the scientific process and its nuances?”

by Dwayne Phillips

Ah, my car will drive itself. I can rest, read, think about things. Really? Perhaps we aren’t comfortable with the answer to the question posed in the title.

Who will really benefit from self-driving vehicles?

Alcohol, canabis, and pharmaceutical industries. This includes restaurants and bars that serve these. The vehicle itself is the designated driver, and we all have a designated river all the time.

And there are some medicines that say, “Do not drive after taking this.” Okay, I won’t.

And let’s toss in the doctors who perform procedures on us. “You will need someone to drive you home afterwards.” Simple.

Sex and pornography. The porn industry always benefits from new technologies that enable entertainment. And since we aren’t paying attention to driving, we are available for entertainment.

Content creators. The pornography one extends to this. Like to read books (paper and electronic)? Read all you want because you aren’t driving.

Hotel and Motels. Since we can do all sorts of things while driving, we will take more road trips and stay in more motels.

I see the best benefit is that those who cannot drive due to physical and mental issues will have access to transportation. Those persons, however, are in a small minority when compared to the persons mentioned above.

Is this good news or bad?

by Dwayne Phillips

An age-old question that won’t seem to go away.

Odd how things come around. I keep a file with ideas for blog posts. I jotted some notes for this post about six months ago. I was perusing that file and noticed this. While the context of that note jotting months ago was completely different, it is exactly the same. Hmmm, timely?

The topic of this question is the person who will placate. That is, the placating person will place the other person on a pedestal to never be disturbed. The other person will poke and prod and such, but the placating person will continue to move along without a protest, without a,

“Hey, I exist. I matter as much as you.”

A rational person can state that others are placating because they are satisfied.

In the same situation, a rational person can state that others are placating because their position renders them unable to act otherwise.

Events can reverse the roles. The placating person can assert themselves loudly enough so that the other person shrinks and placates the now-assertive person.

The new-found assertiveness changes everything, but leaves us in the same situation: one person is all important while one person is completely submissive. Progress? Perhaps, perhaps not.

What we seek, and what we may never achieve, is that one person, the other person, and the context are all equal. (Yes, the context, the culture and our society, is important as well.)