Working Up

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

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The Landmark

March 18th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Meet me at the big oak tree outside of town at dusk. They said something like that in the old Westerns. It makes sense to still do this. There was always a showdown or something in the old Westerns. The big oak tree a mile outside of town at dusk. How did […]

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Tags: Agreement · General Systems Thinking · Planning · Time · Urgent

Like Us or Like Some of Us

March 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We want AI systems to act like us. Or do we? Perhaps we want AI systems to act like some of us. But who is “us” and who is “not us?” Testing shows that the latest and greatest large language models will generate bad information about political campaigns. That is wrong; those […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Censorship · Computing · Concepts · General Systems Thinking · Systems

Large Language Models and Adults

February 1st, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Large Language Models appear to have all sorts of problems. I wonder why companies that build such don’t hire adults to help build them. I recently learned that large language models (LLMs) have “sleeper agents” in them. Given some inputs, the LLM starts doing crazy things that it shouldn’t do. Gosh. LLMs […]

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Tags: Adults · Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Concepts · Engineering · General Systems Thinking · Testing

Flexibility and a Foundation of Fundamentals

August 7th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To be flexible enough to do new things, I often need a foundation of fundamentals in place first. If I am standing on shifting sand, I have to be flexible to adjust my stance and upper body so I don’t fall. Flexibility is required just to stay in place. If I am […]

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Tags: Agility · Experiment · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Testing

Things Are the Way the Are

July 27th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Things are the way they are. But why? An old saying explains much of the reason. There is an old but little known saying, “Things are the way they are because they got that way.” Pause to consider. Yes, of course the saying is correct. We are here because everything and everyone […]

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Tags: Accountability · General Systems Thinking · History · Learning · Systems

Understanding What I Should Understand

July 10th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Meta understanding is understanding about understanding. This is rarely practiced. That lack of practice is perilous. I once worked with a man who had a high school diploma and nothing else as far as formal education. Still, this person rose in the ranks of government service to the level of Senior Executive […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Leadership · Learning · Management · Thinking

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 […]

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Tags: Analysis · Communication · Consulting · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Writing

The Simplest Thing

June 12th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips New problem? Need a new solution. First, try the simplest thing. It happened again at work the other day. We have a new problem (new day, new problem). We need a new solution. What will we do? Hmmm, there are so many options. Each option with its good things and bad things […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Leadership · Problems · Process · Solutions · Thinking

Everybody Is Chattering (not)

May 25th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s curb our enthusiasm about these chatbots and large language models multiplying productivity and costing jobs. I just saw another article about how ChatGPT and the like are being used in yet another field of endeavor with giant gains in productivity. We won’t need half the people we have in the office […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Breathe · Change · Chaos · Fear · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Learning

Symbolic AI, Machine Learning, and Cows

May 18th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The old ways of doing AI are still better than some of the new ways in some cases. The answer, of course, is to combine the best of all to do something better. Feed the following into a chatbot: “The cow jumped” The chatbot will finish with “over the moon.” That is […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Language · Learning · Machine Learning · Word