Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Abbreviations have real purposes. Laziness is not one of them. I see many abbreviations these days. Most are acronyms (TBD, F/U/W, Apr, etc.) that are not expanded. Funny thing, I read in an authoritative book at some point in time that abbreviations were used for: Please note “to save typing when there […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the best pieces of writing are still from simple tools and strong emotions. I recently read yet another post from a writer about how in the world you can write while you are traveling or on vacation or something or other that perplexes those who attempt to write. Ten years ago […]

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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 […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Ever notice how some people speak software during meetings? Are they afraid? Where is their confidence? I don’t hear well. Too many years in noisy equipment rooms with fans blowing too loud. Hence, I concentrate on what people say and the volume they use when saying it. I’ve noticed that many people […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I can do something wrong. I can do something right, but be mistaken in how I tell the story of the doing. There is a difference. Is one mistake better? I can do something wrong. For example, not tighten the lug nuts properly when I change a tire on a car. I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Chatbots can answer questions about written pieces. They can be good tools for feedback. I was recently testing several different chatbots to understand which performed better. I fed a 200-page document I wrote into each chatbot and asked them questions. There were several questions which all the chatbots failed to answer. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips To use AI to write reports requires a person who can write well. Let’s use AI to write our reports or essays or deep research or whatever AI will write for us now. That’s not cheating, that’s using good tools … some disagree violently with that statement. The AI tools are quite […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Like the TV game show Jeopardy, lets make suggestions in the form of a question. The TV show Jeopardy always had the answer in the form of a question. This always seemed silly to me, but the show was and still is successful, so what do I know about TV game show […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have been able to write drafts faster and with much higher quality than other writers I know. I have, unknowingly, been writing at “pulp speed.” I stumbled across this concept of writing at pulp speed recently. It came from a blog post by Dean Wesley Smith. Back in the old days […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I suppose I am several generations behind in the lingo of my profession. Is it too much to ask people to speak English or at least define their terms? I read this recently, “Get the architecture right, then the details.” Hmm, sounds like in that case “architecture” means the “high-level design.” But […]

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