Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Any change to a situation will change the situation. It is often difficult to discern which came first. When a new person walks into an existing group of people, that group changes. There is no way around this—at least I know of no way around it. To have a new person without […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, projects and the people working on them lose their way. This is an expression I heard many times over the years. They’ve lost their way. I didn’t understand the expression. I suppose it was one of those grand mistakes that I never assumed people would make, but time showed me over […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the key to doing something better is really quite simple. Over the years I have improved various things in my life. People ask me, How did I improve my handwriting from awful to neat? How did I improve my grammar and punctuation? How did I improve my fiction writing? How did […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Automation is replacing human jobs. Sorry. That is bad news for people who want to work, and there is no way around it. Such is the nature of today’s new technologies. In recent centuries, new technology arrives and displaces workers. Those unemployed eventually find jobs in new industries that build and maintain […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I read a classic management text. It is as true today as it was in 1969. When in college in the mid-1970s (yes, I am that old), an English professor spoke about the Peter Principle. This was a relatively new concept about how people rise to their level of incompetence. Work was […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Those people who love you the most, may try hardest to stop you from becoming something you want to become. I recently read a blog post about how your friends and relatives may try to stop you from becoming a writer.  This is not a surprise, and it does not speak badly […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I am a problem solver. Sometimes, however, solving a problem is the worst thing to do. This story made the rounds recently about how our military is experimenting with small jolts of electricity to keep sleep-deprived troops awake. The electricity might have fewer bad side affects than the current treatment — lots […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Younger adults are moving back into the cities. Is this some great trend or just the normal reaction to childhood? There is a big trend today: younger adults are moving from the suburbs back into the big cities. In Washington, D.C. it’s called gentrification, or is it re-gentrification, I get confused sometimes. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Organizations strive for growth or progress, but are they accepting of the change that comes with it? Let’s assume that growth is good for an organization. If you don’t like growth, think of another word that would mean good things for an organization, e.g., progress, innovation, creativity, etc. and substitute your word […]

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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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