Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips It sure is hard to understand fill-in-the-blank. Or is it hard to understand what someone wrote about it? I recently experimented with Jekyll. Good grief! That’s complicated! I also experimented with Git and GitHub. Good grief! Those things are complicated! And then I read several textbooks on machine learning and convolutional neural […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When delegating a task to another person, clear communication is key. It is unfortunate that clear communication is also rare. Here is a simple test. Person A: Are you doing task such-and-such? Person B: Not myself. I delegated task such-and-such to Person C. Person A: Oh, good. Task such-and-such is intricate and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The first step, if taken carefully, eliminates almost all other directions from consideration and frees the mind for everything else. I’ve read about trackers, i.e., those persons who are assigned to find someone who is lost. They find people lost in the woods. The most important thing the tracker does is to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The new boss arrives. Everyone tells her what they are doing all at once in great detail. The new boss is “sipping from the fire hose.” I heard this “sipping from the fire hose” phrase a thousand times in my career. The new boss arrives. She is inundated with details during the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some matters are certain in my mind. Others are a bit fuzzy behind a veil of doubt and cause me to argue with myself. There are times for both situations. Some things are fuzzy in my mind. I am not certain about them. I have to argue with myself. I start a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Perhaps we can find enjoyment anywhere at any time. It is worth the attempt. Several years ago I had several conversations with the late Jerry Weinberg, one of the best computing consultants we ever had. Jerry told me about how he played golf. Jerry started playing the game most familiar to everyone. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some of the best advice I ever heard and heeded is simply, “Don’t try too hard.” Writing. Studying. Researching. Don’t try too hard. Writing: let it come out of you. When you hit a difficult spot, type “this is a difficult spot, come back later.” Done. Now keep banging away on the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Brevity and clarity are apt companions. The trouble is, they aren’t frequent companions.

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by Dwayne Phillips If I cannot explain something with brevity and clarity, I am not ready to explain it. Gosh, that summary is a killer. I am ready to explain something. I have this earth-changing wonderful great super-duper (note the lack of brevity and clarity) idea that the world needs to hear and implement just […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A tough one to define, but we usually know it when we see it. And then we ask, “Why?” Look to the eyes. I spent a few days in airports recently. I found myself discouraged. The word “sloth” kept coming to mind. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away […]

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