Working Up

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

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Have You ever Taught?

September 19th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Teacher? Not me. Of course me. Understanding what it means to teach reveals that almost all of us are teachers. teach: verb, show or explain to (someone) how to do something. Have you ever told someone something that they didn’t know before you told them? Congratulations. You are a teacher. It really […]

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Tags: Communication · Education · Learning

Meta-Mistakes and Management

September 16th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we can do it right the first time. Other situations render this nearly impossible. Let’s understand the difference and manage accordingly. There is an old saying that goes something like: We don’t have time to do it right, but we seem to have time to do it twice. Some say the […]

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Tags: Agility · Learning · Management · Mistakes

Don’t Try This at Home

August 19th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I know what I’m doing. You don’t. I can have fun. You can’t. As a kid, I used to see wild stunts on television. They always prefaced them with, “Don’t try this at home.” Why not? Why could they do things, but I couldn’t? Of course they had years of this and […]

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Tags: Change · Education · Fear · Learning · Permission

Data Science and that Old Green Textbook

August 8th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Are you a data scientist? Have you ever read that old green textbook? Probably not, and that is unfortunate. I’ve been delving into data science lately. I’ve applied for a few jobs with the title “Data Scientist.” I’m not sure what a data scientist is, but much of what I have learned […]

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Tags: Data Science · Learning · Pattern Classification · Patterns

I Understand this Well Enough to…

August 5th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips One basic progression of understanding. I understand this well enough to: understand it in my mind use it explain it clearly to others invent it invent what comes next ignore it

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Tags: Knowledge · Learning

AI: Some History and Some Future

July 18th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some of us have been here before. “AI” is hot again. Perhaps this time the future will be different from the past, but I doubt it. I worked extensively in AI in the 1980s. What I see today is remarkably similar. This is due to what I believe is a gross misunderstanding […]

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Tags: History · Learning · Technology

Boring Meetings or Learning Opportunities

July 15th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Is this yet another boring meeting or a new opportunity to learn? Is this naive? I attend meetings. In my former employment, I attended several meetings each day. My current employment has reduced that to several a week. Most meetings are boring. They are inefficient. They are drudgery. Yuck. Some meetings are […]

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Tags: Choose · Learning · Meetings

You Don’t Belong Here…so PLEASE Stay

June 24th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Outsiders, drifters, those who aren’t like us. These are the persons we need the most. We need people here and now who don’t belong here and now. How else would we learn anything? This is pretty simple. With a little thought, most of us would agree with it. Most of us, however, […]

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Tags: Culture · Learning

We are Talking about This

June 17th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We are talking about this because this is what we are talking about now. The preacher—the person on TED talks, the motivational speaker, the person next to you at the bar— preaches on the topics that we talk about in the parking lot, the hall ways, the grocery store, etc. At work, […]

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Tags: Conversation · Learning · Listening · Management · Notice · People

If Learning is the Goal…

May 20th, 2019 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Schools are for learning. Or are schools for teaching? The two are different. If learning is the goal, this school district succeeded. “High school students crash the WiFi system so the teachers cannot access homework assignments.” The kids at that high school learned a lot. They learned computing; they learned computer security; […]

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Tags: Adults · Childhood · Education · Learning · Teaching