Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Yet another rant by an old man about something we used to do.

etiquette: noun, the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

Hat etiquette. See above.

I am old. I still have scars from my parents and grandparents and school teachers. Take you hat off, now.

I guess there is something wrong with me to expect a male to remove their hat when indoors, especially while eating a meal. I suppose I am too old for some of these expectations.

Is etiquette completely gone? Might as well be, it is too hard to spell. Is etiquette something cultures of supposedly superior folks push onto supposedly inferior folks? Perhaps. This is all too much to cogitate this early in the morning.

For the time being, sir, be a gentleman and remove you hat indoors.

by Dwayne Phillips

One again, our world plunges into debate about … bunny rabbits on trampolines.

Are those bunny rabbits bouncing on a trampoline real? Oh no, they aren’t. AI generated that video. Who is the dastardly person who perpetrated that hoax on us all? We need to find a villain and do what it is we do to villains these days.

It wasn’t real. It was funny and entertainment. That’s entertainment folks. Stuff that isn’t real, but makes us watch a little longer than we should because we laugh when we look at it. Bugs Bunny wasn’t real, but we watched and laughed. Same with the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote and the list goes on and on.

Yeah, but… Of course there is a “but” this time. The computer created something so real we thought it was real. We could tell Bugs Bunny wasn’t real. We couldn’t tell the bunnies on the trampoline wasn’t real. Well, some of us could tell it wasn’t real when we looked close enough, but that’s not fair.

Milli Vanilli won a Grammy Award in 1990. Then we learned it wasn’t real. We were mad because someone entertained us with something that wasn’t real. We were fooled. We felt foolish. We were mad.

Entertainment is mostly stuff that isn’t real. We suspend belief for a moment or two. We are entertained. Come on folks, it’s just bunny rabbits on a trampoline. Surely there are issues more important to discuss.

by Dwayne Phillips

We do everything according to our documented documents—except when we don’t.

Mr. Zuckerburg at Meta has created a superintelligence group to do something wonderful in AI. He is using the tried-and-true documented management practice of the skunk works. The skunk works is a special place where you put some really smart folks and tell them to do something wonderful, something that is not possible back at the factory where everyone follows the rules. Break the rules; break the mold, and do something wonderful.

We do everything there according to the tried-and-true. We’ve been mistaken many times in the past. We went to the trouble to record those mistakes and learn from them. We have rules and guides and procedures and all those things work for us—until they stop working for us.

One day, we wake up and our smartest folks are frustrated with all these lessons learned. “Okay,” they groan, “we won’t do stupid things. We won’t do the stupid things that the average folks did last year. We aren’t average. Trust us on this one.”

Then these smartest folks need a new gadget today so they can do something wonderful. “Hold on there,” replies someone in the chain of someones who buy new gadgets. “It’ll take a few days to get the right signatures of approval and then the bids from at least three suppliers and then…”

Then these smartest folks just give up and go to another company that doesn’t have any rules or lessons learned.

So Kelly Johnson at Lockheed created a skunk works to build airplanes that couldn’t be built. So Steve Jobs created a skunk works to build the Mac computer. So Mr. Zuckerburg created a skunk works to build superintelligence. So… the list goes on and on. Some of the famous skunk works created famous things. The great majority of skunk works didn’t invent sliced bread or something as wonderful as sliced bread. They tried, failed, and lapsed into oblivion.

We do everything according to plan, according to lessons learned, according to documents until we don’t. We hit the wall of invention and re-invent the exception to the rule. We try. Sometimes the exception works.

Let’s remember, however, that the exception is the exception. Excellence is an exception. Don’t expect wonderful from the exception. The lessons learned were learned by smart folks who worked hard. Sigh. No one said this would be easy.

by Dwayne Phillips

We have to read the fine print to understand our agreements. Why, however, is there fine print?

I was reading through a contract document recently. I missed several things, just a couple of words buried in a 100-page document. I guess we call those things “the fine print.” Gotta’ read the fine print.

And then again, I have to ask, why is there fine print? If something is important, why is it buried deep in a document in a sentence in a paragraph where the important detail is not the subject?

Well, ya’ just have to be careful. Ya’ just have to read slower and pay attention. Gotcha’!

And then again, I have to ask about that. State general principles. State that not every clause on every line will be specified specifically. The general principles will apply. General principles like, “We will do the best we can. We aren’t perfect. We will make mistakes. Please work with us. We will assume the same about you and will work with you.”

I guess those types of general principles won’t hold up in court or something. We can do better than burying things in the fine print. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Another fundamental in speak to people seems to have been lost.

I recently had the misfortune of sitting in a conference room for a period of time that was greater than three hours and somewhat less than an infinity of pain. I, and another couple dozen colleagues, was facing a giant screen to read important words in a PowerPoint. The speaker, the person educating us, was standing behind us and talking to the backs of our heads.

Some people, me, don’t hear well any more, so it helps to see the face and moving lips of a person speaking to us (me). Sigh. Forget it. Just read the words on the screen and tune out the voice of that person talking to he back of my head.

There is a fundamental of communication called “eye contact.” I don’t know if anyone else remembers that. I realize that different cultures assign different meanings to eye contact, but here in our American culture eye contact is important. Well, it used to be important. All these ZoomerTeams meetings where the eyes are not looking at the camera and hence no eye contact has perhaps changed that culture.

And this was always part of being polite and respectful. Two really old concepts.

Anyways, speaking to the back of heads definitely prevents eye contact. Well, another rant from an old man. Perhaps it is time to re-calibrate things I have learned and move on.

by Dwayne Phillips

Common usage is incorrect, but, hey, what’s the problem? Yet another headache.

My grandson is a “rising junior.” That means, and everyone in America understands this but me, that he is between his sophomore and junior years of high school. (And he’s 6’3″ tall which puts him far above me, but I digress.)

This is wrong. “Junior” is the noun indicating he is a junior now. “Rising” is the adjective meaning that he, as a junior, is rising to something let rising in the morning and falling out of bed.

But then again, as an AI chattering bot instructs me, “While your grammatical analysis is sound, ‘rising junior’ is an established idiom in the context of American education. It’s a commonly accepted and understood term to describe students in that specific transitional period. So, while it might not be perfectly logical in a purely literal sense, it’s highly functional and ubiquitous in its particular domain.” This is an “anticipatory labeling.”

By gad. The illiterates win again. I get another headache. Where is the aspirin?

by Dwayne Phillips

Short-range drone attacks using low-cost hardware and software. Could we use this stuff for other things?

During 2025, most of the world was amazed by a couple of military actions that involved drones. Urkaine destroyed Russian military facilities deep inside Russia. Israel destroyed Iranian facilities deep inside Iran. Both of these operations involved drones that didn’t have the flying range necessary. Someone drove a truck deep into forbidden territory, walked away, and the drones few the last mile.

These attacks used inexpensive hardware and software. Most of the software was 20 years old and open-source. Daring, dangerous, and successful.

I wrote a short story in 2014 about such drone attacks. Was I some sort of genius to foresee this? Nope. Just about anyone who gave this a moment’s thought could do the same.

Here’s a question: if someone can send cause cheap drones to deliver explosives to a tiny target in hostile territory thousands of miles away, can someone deliver medicine into an open window at the home of an infirmed person?

The answer must be, “Yes.” And the next question is, “Why aren’t we doing it?” Come on scientists, engineers, technologies, managers, billionaire$. Let’s do some good things for just plain folks.

by Dwayne Phillips

AI has upended large parts of the education system. What to do? Back to basics. Decide what is important to learn and teach that.

Teachers give an assignment. Students use one of these chattering bots to write the answer. Task done. No learning, but the task is done so move on. This is an indictment of the school, teacher, and the education system.

What to do?

There was a time in America when high school students took typing as a course. Some high schools taught four years of typing (I never took typing as a class, but somehow managed to learn approximately where to put my hands and bang out 80 or 90 words a minute). A critical skill to learn was how to position a piece of paper in the typewriter machine so that there was a one-inch margin at the top and bottom of the page and at the right and left of the text. Another critical skill was how to use correction paste or tape and correct mistakes. The teacher knew these critical skills; the students needed to know them. Hence, lots of instruction and practice until the students mastered the skills.

The margin and correction on paper in a typewriter are no longer critical skills. No one teaches them and no one learns them. Times change, technology changes, and education changes. The same is true for calculating square roots of numbers long hand and looking up sine, cosine, etc. in tables and interpolating. Those aren’t critical skills any longer.

Computer programming: students need to learn how to create a loop control structure in the syntax of a language. Practice, practice, and practice through programming assignments. Well, sorry folks, but that is no longer a critical skill. For the life of me, I don’t know how to loop in a bash shell, but I do know to ask a chattering bot how and get a working piece of code (feel the vibe?).

The typing teacher is gone. The programming teacher is … well, is it too early or too late to say that teacher is gone as well?

What are the teachers supposed to teach? And how? Back to basics (funny how things seem to always go back to basics). What are the requirements? (back to that question) What are the critical skills right now? Answer that right now. Create assignments to practice that right now.

And one more thing: some students really don’t need to be students in this or that school. They already have critical skills and should be out creating new businesses and industries. Let them go without requiring a school first.

by Dwayne Phillips

Two fundamental tasks most of us should attempt everyday.

Perhaps you manage work in your profession. Much of what I write is pointed towards us managers of work. I also point towards us leaders of people. Manage and lead. Fundamentals.

Two basic tasks of managers and leaders are observing and noticing. Two different things.

Observing turns on all the senses and takes in everything—well almost everything as sometimes everything is overwhelming. See, touch, taste, smell, hear, etc.

Noticing comes from observing. I have been watching all these people walk in and out of Starbucks this morning. I noticed that few people wear socks in the middle of July. It is too hot for socks or maybe socks are out of style these days.

I sit in a meeting. I observe carefully. I listen carefully as my hearing isn’t as good as it used to be. If I don’t listen carefully, I don’t hear what people are saying. I notice that people speak at one volume as they enter the room and chat about whatever. Once the meeting begins, people speak in a lower volume.

Observe by listening; notice the change in volume. Now I can manage the work and lead the people. Why are people speaking softly when they express their opinion about the work and the organization? Are they afraid? Do they lack confidence? Are battles raging behind the scenes? Those are questions a leader may ask and issues a leader may address.

Observe. Notice. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

New tools sometimes allow us to modify the techniques we use. The new tools don’t require modification, but allow it.

These kids today, these engineers and scientists under 30, they just … well, they just do things differently. They have new tools (and I have new tools). They work the way the new tools allow. I, sometimes, modify they way I work to adapt and adopt.

Consider typing—you know, banging on the keyboard to put words and such into the computer. This may go away, but anyways, the kids today type differently. Word processors and look-ahead and think-ahead applications correct typing in real time. The kids are sloppy in their typing. They just fudge the words on the screen as the software corrects the spelling for them. You no longer have to start a sentence with an uppercase letter as the word processor fixes that for you. You don’t have to spell all the words correctly as the word processor fixes that for you. Slop the words on the screen. Don’t worry.

Now consider these chattering bots. They give a different answer every time you ask the same question. Huh? Ever heard of a repeatable experiment? Well, its all probability, so the answer is probably a good one, until it isn’t.

New tool. Modify the technique. Ask a question. Don’t like the answer? Ask again. Change the order of the words in the question. Oh, here’s a different answer. Like it?

Take what is good enough, check the box that the task is done, and move on to the next task.

Hey, that isn’t how I always worked in the past. New tools, modify the technique. Move on.