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 […]
No, You Don’t ”Know”
July 6th, 2023 · No Comments
Tags: Communication · Culture · Knowledge · Learning · People
Predicting the Future
June 15th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We predict the future poorly. We know we do. What we don’t seem to realize is how often we predict the future. We predict the future poorly. Very poorly. Very, very poorly. Which among us predicted ChatGPT would arrive? And then become that fastest adopted system ever? I am waiting. Okay, I […]
Tags: Leadership · Learning · Management · Mistakes · Reframe
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 […]
Tags: General Systems Thinking · Leadership · Problems · Process · Solutions · Thinking
The Experts and the Rest of Us
June 5th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The experts devise a better way to do things. The rest of us attempt to follow their expert lead. We flop. Object-oriented programming flopped. Microservices and serverless computing flopped. I guess I could think of a few other great ideas that flopped. How about teaching kids to read via that total method […]
Tags: Choose · Expertise · Failure · Fatigue · Learning · Process
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 […]
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 […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Language · Learning · Machine Learning · Word
And What Has Changed?
May 4th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The passing of time is usually insufficient for a person to move from task to another. Sorry. Hopes and wishes are not plans. I have seen this time and again. A person is hired for one job with the qualifications needed for that job. A few years later, that person is moved […]
Tags: Change · Hope · Learning · Reality · Teaching · Wishes
Whose Words?
May 1st, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It is important to remember whose words we are discussing. If you mentioned something, we are discussing your words. If I mentioned something, we are discussing my words. There are ways to back away from our words. I read the words from the PowerPoint. They were wrong. Simply wrong. 1 + 2 […]
Tags: Accountability · Communication · Humility · Learning · Meetings · Mistakes
Things I Don’t Want to Know
April 24th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips There are things I don’t want to know. Knowing those things means I have to do some work that I just don’t want to do. Life is full of headaches. There are more than enough headaches for each day. I don’t need any more headaches. Then some well-meaning person walks in the […]
Tags: Health · Learning · Management · Multitasking · Resources · Work
Portable and Permanent Possessions
March 27th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider one of the more quotable aspects of knowledge. My dad used to tell me that knowledge was the one thing no one could take away from you. A search of the world’s knowledge, a.k.a., Google it for yourself, shows that many famous people are the origin of this […]
Tags: Education · Family · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Learning