Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

Working Up header image 4

Programming vs Something Else

April 28th, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Just about anyone can learn to program a computer. Not many people earn degrees in Computer Science. I first noticed the above statement in 1978 (yes, I am that old). Students were telling me how they loved to write computer programs. We were taught something called PL/I in those days. Then the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Computing · Education · Programming

In Praise of the Raspberry Pi

March 31st, 2014 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Praising the most successful education project in the history of man: the Raspberry Pi. Nobel Prize? Why not? Two years ago the Raspberry Pi was launched. 2.5 million units later, it is still going. Two years is a long time in technology—a very long time. (Wikipedia has a good article on the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Education · Programming · Technology

HealthCare.Gov – An Excellent and Terrible Teaching Example

November 14th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Take care when choosing an example for teaching. Often what seem to be great examples are terrible in that people concentrate on the unintended. I have taken a lot of courses related to project management. I have taught a few. I have read a lot of books on project management, and, as […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Communication · Education · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Teaching

The Personal Learning Environment

October 17th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I learn a few things about learning environments. I recently attended a conference on innovation in education at George Mason University. I am not a professional educator and, to be candid, I never thought much about professional educators. To show that I am not all cold hearted and stone headed, I learned […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Education · Learning

They Made Us Do That in College

September 2nd, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are practices that time has proven to be worthwhile. Someone in school drilled them into us. We vowed to avoid them as soon as school was out, but life eventually catches us. I have lost track of the number of times I have seen this on the job. We have a […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Education · Excuses · Logic · People · Process · Risk

A Meager Goal

June 10th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When starting an endeavor that seeks the educate and spread information, here is a meager goal – don’t make the people less interested in the topic. Consultant and author Jerry Weinberg taught this one to me. It is his goal when teaching a class or seminar. At the end, he wants to […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Communication · Education

Percent Change – A Review Tutorial

January 7th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This may be a waste of time, but I review how to calculate the percent change. I feel silly about this post. I am going to show how to calculate the percent change in numbers. I learned this when I was 12 or 10 or something in school math. A look at […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Communication · Education · Government · Money

Precise, Concrete, and Specific

December 13th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Those three nouns in the post title continue to come to mind lo these many years since freshman English Composition. It was the summer of 1976 – yes, the Bicentennial summer. I was one month out of high school and taking freshman English composition. Dr. Gray taught the class. Two things stand […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Communication · Education · Writing

Excellent High School Learning Program (accidentally?)

May 17th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A school district in Maine has (accidentally?) created an excellent learning program for its high school students. The Portland, Maine school district is issuing laptop computers to some high school students for use in school. The computers are loaded with censorship filters that will keep the students away from social media web […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Education

Shortage of Engineers (?)

May 14th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Why don’t we have more engineers and computer scientists? Maybe, for better or worse, we don’t have enough “tough” people. I have recently read of a shortage of engineers and computer scientists. I have my doubts about this shortage, but enough people are declaring it that there may be some truth to […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Computing · Education · Employment