Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips It seems odd that to purchase alcohol a person must show they have a license to operate a motor vehicle. There are things in society that seem odd to me. One is the relationship we have established between obtaining alcohol and having a license to operate a motor vehicle. If you want […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have observed people change their mind from one extreme to another. Is there a name for this behavior? I have observed something about people and I am searching for a name for this behavior. I have observed this across decades, organizations, and areas of endeavor. Here is how it goes: Consultant: […]

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by Dwayne Phillips More often I find myself needing help from a person who is good at figuring out stuff. A PeGAFOS. I have simple needs at work. I need a person good at figuring out stuff. Someone who can consider a puzzling situation and figure out how to work our way out of the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The Rule of Three Solutions: one solution is a trap, two solutions is a dilemma, and three solutions helps point to more solutions. A recent post by a friend – Johanna Rothman – reminded me of this rule. It is part of a general idea of finding at least three thoughts in […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A reminder about models. Please take care when using them to predict the future. George Box is credited with: all models are wrong, but some are useful It is a model, an approximation that helps describe real life. It is not real life. Some of these descriptions are useful to help us […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If a system fails at one boundary, it will probably fail at another boundary. Hence, if you find a boundary failure, start looking for other boundary failures while you still have a chance at prevention instead of correction. A few years back I had a problem with my van. I couldn’t reliably […]

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by Dwayne Phillips One reason for blogging is to clear ideas from the mind. Put them in the blog and they no longer rattle around up there. That makes room for the next ideas. Why blog? There are many reasons. Here is one: To clear the mind. This is one thing that writing, any type […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Facebook puts a data center near the arctic circle. The natural cold air will cool the computers. Why is this news? Why is this hailed as a brilliant “green” action? It was December of 1980. We had a small room with a dozen racks of heat-producing equipment that needed to be cooled. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Often, greed is not the result of one great big greedy villain, but rather the sum of many well-meaning people who wanted to add just one little item to a system. The Occupy Wall Street occupiers continue to occupy Wall Street and a few dozen other famous places in a few dozen […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We have chased manufacturing out of America. We now have holes in our job structure and have lost the ability to adapt to a changing world. I read a few posts on the “Econolypse” lately. Here is one post, and here is another. We have chased the manufacturing jobs from the U.S. […]

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