By Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what it is that computers can and cannot do. Computers are taking over the world. Well, maybe not. Let’s recall what a computer can do. A computer can tell if a light bulb is on or off. That’s about it folks. Nothing more. Everything else is […]
Is the Light Bulb On or Off?
March 21st, 2022 · No Comments
Tags: Cloud Computing · Computing · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Software · Teaching · Technology
A Meat Grinder (time for a reframe)
March 17th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips That job is a “meat grinder.” It has chewed up several people. Stay away. Or do we simply need to reframe the situation? While writing this, I have spent much of the past week(s) looking at the help wanted ads and talking to several companies about their job openings. Several of the […]
Tags: Adapting · Choose · Jobs · Learning · Reframe · Stories
We Don’t Need an XX on the Team
November 29th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We don’t need an expert in this or that to build better systems. We need a desire to learn and a desire to please. We don’t need a User Experience (UX) person on the team. We don’t need a Customer Experience (CX) expert on the team. We don’t need an XX (fill-in-the-blank […]
Tags: Customer · Experiment · Expertise · Learning · Resources · Systems · Work
The Clipboard and the Pencil…and the Hurricane
November 1st, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Unfortunate events provide yet another great reason to use a clipboard and a pencil. My records indicate that this is the fourth blog post I have written about the clipboard and the pencil. The gist is that these old, simple tools are still quite valuable. Hence, we might reconsider a few other […]
Tags: Adapting · Emergency · Internet · Learning · Notebook · Simple · Technology · Tools
Fat Finger the Database (misadventures in data entry)
October 11th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Data entry, one of the lower-paid professions, is prone to errors, and some can be fatal. During the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Ida, a person close to me needed an essential service. By “essential” I mean if the service did not arrive, someone would die. I repeatedly called the service provider. […]
Tags: Competence · Customer · Error · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Mistakes · People · Testing
No-Cost Learning
October 4th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I find it unfortunate, but no-cost learning doesn’t exist. I guess this goes back to the concept of if it is worth something, it is worth something. No-cost learning? Boy, I sure do want that! Free online courses have a price tag of $0. They do, however, require time, energy, and other […]
Tags: Choose · Learning · Resources · Teaching
Question Asking
June 21st, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The skill we should be teaching and learning and using more than any other today is question asking. We live in a world where all the questions have answers. We just have to find the answers. We have the facts, the data, the everything online in front of us. It is there. […]
Tags: Analysis · Data Science · Experiment · Learning · Questions
Start Small and then…
June 17th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips There are many good reasons for starting small. One is that it allows room for growth, and growth brings with it optimism, hope, and other good tidings. Start small. There are good reasons to start small. If I do it all wrong, I have only invested small resources like time, money, equipment, […]
Tags: Alternatives · Hope · Learning
What I Hope We Learn from the Pandemic
June 10th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The prolonged year of the virus is slowly moving towards an end. It will never end, but I hope we have learned a few things that we can all do. The pandemic is declining. It is like a math function that tends to but never reaches zero. The limit as time approaches […]
Tags: Education · Health · Learning · Virus
Write a Short Story
May 6th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips A simple method for writing a short story (I mean really simple). I like to write short stories. Perhaps that is because I think I have so much to tell, but not enough persons to sit and listen. Anyways, here is one method to writing a short story: Remember an event in […]