Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips We seem to create silly rules about silence. This is another one of those, “What happens here stays here.” We create silly rules about silence. I wrote about one earlier in this blog, “Silence is agreement.” Nonsense. Another that just came to mind is, “What is said here stays here.” That permits […]

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by Dwayne Phillips As crazy as it sounds, high-level, recognized expert, professionals still read their PowerPoint to the audience. I watch a lot of presentations. Not just a weekly briefing by someone who has relatively little experience on the job and making presentations. I watch presentations of research work. The presenters are experts, have years […]

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by Dwayne Phillips For some reason, we often run away from the words that we want most to convey. I work with persons who are trying to write. They show me their draft, we talk, we walk through the words, and I ask questions. The questions usually lead to grimaces and twisted expressions, struggled breathing, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We make rules. Why? Sometimes it is petty and to serve our ego. Pause and think (two pretty good rules about rules). We make a rule for or over or against the persons we know or our work colleagues. We cannot enforce that rule over all the persons who are supposed to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Once again, its not the event, its our reaction to the event. Here is an exercise in reading news headlines. Read the headlines (these are paraphrased from the Washington Post on one day): Virus tied to increased risk of neurological and psychiatric illness The pandemic has caused parents to slow down Expanding […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Candid comments from someone on the inside. It can be ugly in here. For a while, I worked on a project where I would teach persons how to use the software that was produced. We had good intentions. When the software worked as advertised and taught, it allowed the users to do […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Where will we go for discourse on the Internet? Semi-public groups for forums work. I like Seth Godin’s recent short essay on trust and how folks use the Internet. Godin described the early (1970s) online interaction as, “Because each of these groups were high-trust communities, it was easy to conclude that the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We are responsible in that we are able to choose our response. This isn’t a new thought, but one that bears repeating. Around the first century in the world or Rome and Greece lived a man named Epictetus. He is the first persons recorded to have written the thoughts in this blog […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If work is important enough to be performed, the product is important enough to be inspected. Someone is supposed to do something. Okay. Do it. Next. Right? This is a note to project managers and those who may think we don’t need or maybe need project managers: You get what you inspect, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips People differ in work styles. Failing to admit such is failure. Let’s discuss our difference and work. We turn in products on schedule, sometimes literally at the last hour. Well, what’s the problem? The products are on time. And many are fine with that. If you finish ahead of time, you show […]

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