Working Up

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

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Why People Hate IT at Work

April 17th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The systems we use at work are woefully behind what we use at home. This is especially true if we work in a government organization. At the time I wrote this post, OpenAI demonstrated their GPT-4 with ChatGPT. That means I see how to summarize lots of things and understand what is […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Information · Technical Debt · Technology · Work

AI’s VisiCalc Moment

April 3rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI has moved from interesting to actual work. This is much like the arrival of VisiCalc, which changed the home computer from hobby to actual work. I was still in college the first time I saw an Apple computer. It was so new and odd that the Apple II just sort of […]

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Tags: Apple · Artificial Intelligence · Change · Chaos · Technology

The Computer is Down

March 2nd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We seem to be far more tolerant of technical failures. When I was a kid (we played baseball in the streets and things like that), I often heard the excuse, “The computer is down.” That excuse brought all sorts of grievous vexation that excuses usually bring. It was recognized as an excuse […]

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Tags: Accountability · Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Computing · Excuses · Technology

Increments, Perfection, Fear, Candor, and Pride

February 16th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Today’s practice of delivering software and systems emphasizes continuous delivery. Today’s practice, however, fails at this. Technology is not the problem. CI/CD is continuous integration and continuous delivery (or deployment). Work everyday. As each little increment of capability is finished, deliver it. Perhaps we deliver every day and perhaps several times every […]

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Tags: Communication · DevOps · Expectations · Experiment · Honesty · Ideas · Leadership · Technology

What About the Teachers?

February 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In the past month or two, many have bemoaned the appearance of software that can write essays for students. I have yet to read concerns about software that teachers can use to write essay assignments. ChatGPT is ruining the world. Well, at least some folks think it is ruining their world. The […]

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Tags: Computing · Ethics · Machine Learning · Teaching · Technology · Writing

Worthwhile Problems?

January 26th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I see amazing solutions and advances in technology everyday. Are all these, however, solving worthwhile problems? I recently read about how persons at Nvidia created a system that modifies a live video so that the eyeballs of the person on camera point to the camera. This happens while the real eyeballs are […]

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Tags: Choose · Engineering · Problems · Solutions · Technology · Wishes

The Problem, the Solution, and Focus

January 16th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We can focus on only one thing at a time. That is part of the definition of “focus.” There are ideas for shifting focus that work pretty well. I can focus on one thing at a time. That is what “focus” means—one thing at a time. Am I focusing on the problem […]

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Tags: Problems · Process · Solutions · Technology · Tools

The Crowd Wins Again

October 20th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Folks out there in the crowd are clobbering the high-tech giants and everyone else they want to clobber. Yet another essay appears about how open-source software projects appear faster than systems produced by high-tech giants full of experts. Computing power is so inexpensive that there are many, many, many folks out there […]

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Tags: Economics · General Systems Thinking · Influence · People · Technology

A Simple and Functional Database

September 26th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Stop worrying about the next technology. Do something simple that has all the functions you need. The database. Sigh. Gosh, what is next? What is the next database technology that will solve all my problems? Requirements: Enter information. Find entered information. Read entered information. Change entered information. Solution: The ASCII text file. […]

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Tags: Analysis · Computing · Data Science · History · Record · Simple · Technology · Writing

The Clipboard and the Pencil…and Organizing the Work

July 21st, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Overwhelmed with many tasks and people? Grab a clipboard and a pencil. This one may require a clipboard with a bigger clip that has a bigger capacity than most, but the basic tools will suffice. There are too many tasks and too many people. Emails and text messages and notes from here […]

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Tags: Management · Portfolio · Resources · Simple · Technology · Tools · Work