by Dwayne Phillips It is often best to leave the conversations of another profession to those other professionals. I am an engineer. There, got that out of the way. And I have a Doctor of Philosophy or PhD in engineering. I have not idea why they call the degree by that name. Oh well, got […]
Engineers and Philosophers
October 5th, 2023 · No Comments
Tags: Communication · Engineering · Expertise · Humility · Language
Nouns and Verbs
September 18th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Back to a basic: write with nouns and verbs. It brings us closer to brevity and clarity. Those are pretty good places to be. I was reminded of this short and powerful writing tip this past week. And yes, it was from Strunk and White. They used the title of the post […]
Tags: Communication · Information · Language · Review · Word · Writing
Not a Writer (?)
September 11th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Are you not a writer? Really. Just type the words you say. “You must understand, Dwayne, you are a writer,” several people over the years. Yes, I am cursed or blessed to be “a writer.” What do I do? I put my fingers on the keyboard and type the words that come […]
Tags: Communication · Technology · Thinking · Tools · Word · Writing
Data Visualization (A Calendar)
September 7th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Let’s not get carried away with things like “data visualization.” We’ve been looking at data for a long time. I have heard a lot lately about data visualization. This blog post should indicate that I have heard far too much lately about data visualization. The folly hit me recently as we were […]
Tags: Calendar · Communication · Data Science · History · Journal · Knowledge · Technology · Visibility
Did My Words Make Sense?
September 4th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]
Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing
BYOD
August 24th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips BYOD or Bring Your Own Data is a big deal. It has been in computing since the start of computing. Nothing new here folks, but it is still important. Everyone is a data scientist (sort of). Everyone works for a data-centric organization (sort of). Data is the new oil (sort of). Data […]
Tags: Communication · Computing · Data Science · Information · Language · Software · Technology · Word
Apology
July 31st, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips An apology is just that—an apology. It is neither an explanation nor a justification. Rats! An apology is simple: I did this wrong. I am sorry for that. I ask your forgiveness. An apology does not contain an explanation: I was trying to do such-and-such and … An apology does not contain […]
Tags: Accountability · Adults · Authentic · Change · Communication · Conversation · Error · Ethics · Excuses · Honesty
No, You Don’t ”Know”
July 6th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sorry, we (you and me) don’t “know” as often as we like to think. When I ask a person a question and their eyes look up, that means… Hah! Silly notion. I know what this means. I know what that means. I know what the other person is doing and thinking and […]
Tags: Communication · Culture · Knowledge · Learning · People
Hollywood and Fighting Against What We Do
June 26th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we fight against something with all our might only to discover that are foe is ourselves and what we do everyday. As I write this, there is a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Note, I am not in Hollywood writing this as a writer who is on a writer’s strike. Now that […]
Tags: Analysis · Communication · Consulting · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Writing
AI Won’t Replace People
June 22nd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we attribute things we don’t like to things we don’t like. It’s easier that way, even though it isn’t reality. Well, here we have it: AI is replacing people. We can read it in the newspaper. Plain and simple. I link to one newspaper article. I could link to a dozen […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Jobs · Management · People · Problems · Work