Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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The Round Table of Librarians

September 22nd, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Librarians have always been able to point us to the right place to find the information we needed. Today, however, with all the knowledge of mankind on the Internet, one person can’t find everything. Librarians don’t know much, but they do know where to look. Someone told me something like that a […]

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Tags: Adapting · Communication · Knowledge · Library

The Washington D.C. NFL Team

September 1st, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The locals are resisting the cries for a nickname change. Is anyone surprised with the resistance? Consider the situation: You are born in a place. You grow up there. You cheer for the home team. Nothing surprising in how the first two items lead to the third. One day, some outsiders shout: […]

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Tags: Adapting · Change · Communication

Writing with My Eyes Shut

July 31st, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I relearn that with hands on the keys, I can shut my eyes and still write. Several years ago, I was trying to write in the evening after a long day at work of reading and reading and reading and a little writing. My eyes hurt. I had to shut them. So […]

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Tags: Adapting · Writing

The Spam Comment Magnet

April 3rd, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is SEO backwards: words that draw spam comments like a magnet. I don’t receive many comments on my blog posts. I receive many more spam comments than real comments—about 100 to 1. One post I wrote in 2009 draws more spam comments than all the other posts combined. It is titled […]

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Tags: Adapting

Predictors of the Next Technology

July 25th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips My experiences teach me that younger technologists are much better at predicting the future than older technologists. Go back to 2007. I am working in a group that looks at technology trends so we can be ready for the future when it comes. We were considering operating systems for smartphones. The senior […]

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Tags: Adapting · Change · Culture · Technology

Governments, Companies, and Agility

December 27th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Companies are far more agile than governments. I hope that one day governments will accept this and work with companies instead of against them. A few recent stories have appeared about companies moving money to countries with lower tax rates. Some people are outraged about it. Governments will see what the companies […]

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Tags: Adapting · Agility · Government · Greed

A Genius of America

September 10th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips America breeds misfits. These people sit in the back of the classroom and laugh. Then they grow up and invent things that no one else imagined. Part of the genius of America is that we breed misfits. These persons sit in the back of the classroom. Some of them laugh all day […]

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Tags: Adapting · Differences · Fun

Blink-of-an-Eye Expertise

December 15th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A blink-of-an-eye expert can walk into a situation and point to disastrous mistakes in the blink of an eye. My wife knows kitchens and what happens in kitchens. She can walk in a kitchen full of people cooking something, and if they are doing something wasteful, she can point to it immediately. […]

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Tags: Adapting · Education · People · Thinking

Thoughts on Heating and Cooling

November 10th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Facebook puts a data center near the arctic circle. The natural cold air will cool the computers. Why is this news? Why is this hailed as a brilliant “green” action? It was December of 1980. We had a small room with a dozen racks of heat-producing equipment that needed to be cooled. […]

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Tags: Adapting · General Systems Thinking · Management

The Free-Form Data Entry Template

September 15th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips How to cross the barrier of the blank sheet of paper. I love a blank sheet of paper. I know a lot of people who don’t. I was in a meeting once where people were given blank sheets of paper and literally revolted. They wanted some type of template to focus their […]

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Tags: Adapting · Meetings · People · Process