Working Up

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

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Problems to Solve

January 5th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What problems do we want to solve? The simpler are usually the more difficult and more important. “World hunger,” has been the answer for beauty queens and scholars my entire life. That was the answer to the problem we should solve. The trouble is, world hunger was solved a hundred years ago. […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Problems · Solutions · Teaching

Levels of Abstraction

November 28th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What are you talking about? What level of abstraction are you discussing? There are levels of abstraction. A car moves me from here to there. A car has an engine, a transmission, wheels, and fuel. An engine has spark plugs and belts and hoses. A spark plug has a housing, insulator, and […]

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Tags: Analysis · Communication · Learning · Systems · Teaching

Data is the New…Nausea

July 25th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Data, data, data. Enough already. Just tell me something I don’t know. Data is the new oil. Data is the new bacon. Data will fuel the economies of the future. Data will determine the winner of the next world war. Data, data, data. I work with data. On some days, some folks […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Data Science · Information · Knowledge · Learning · Machine Learning · Teaching

Defining Jargon in Terms of Jargon

April 11th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We invent new ways of being lazy in communicating. It sort of sets us apart from the ignorant masses. I did a Google search on “Kubernetes.” The result: Kubernetes, also known as K8s, is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Oh, containerized applications. Of course. Jargon […]

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Tags: Accountability · Clarity · Communication · General Systems Thinking · Talk · Teaching

Is the Light Bulb On or Off?

March 21st, 2022 · No Comments

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 […]

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Tags: Cloud Computing · Computing · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Software · Teaching · Technology

Organizing the Material

January 27th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Almost anyone can gather the material. Organizing it or creating a story from it, however, appears to be a rare yet valuable skill. We have lots of information. Go to Wikipedia. Download PDFs of the pages. Concatenate the pages. There it is. Go to a search engine. Find a dozen hits. Copy […]

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Tags: Clarity · Communication · Context · Design · Information · Purpose · Reframe · Stories · Teaching · Thinking · Wikipedia

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 […]

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Tags: Choose · Learning · Resources · Teaching

Sorry, I Hoped We Would See Some Errors

January 28th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When teaching and demonstrating systems, it is better if there are errors. Teaching how to use a system is better when there are errors. No, that prior sentence is not a typo. I want errors to appear when I am showing a person how to use a system—anything from software to a […]

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Tags: Error · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Systems · Teaching

What is Complicated, the Thing or the Description of the Thing?

November 30th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It sure is hard to understand fill-in-the-blank. Or is it hard to understand what someone wrote about it? I recently experimented with Jekyll. Good grief! That’s complicated! I also experimented with Git and GitHub. Good grief! Those things are complicated! And then I read several textbooks on machine learning and convolutional neural […]

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Tags: Clarity · Learning · Simple · Teaching · Writing

The Curriculum Designer

November 5th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have a new profession in our world of virtually online distance custom learning. Don’t “go to a college” as that wastes too much money and time. Create your own training program, work hard, spend little money, get the same learning. The trouble is, if you don’t know a topic, how will […]

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Tags: Education · Learning · Teaching