by Dwayne Phillips A partial list of boo boos I have seen in published documents over the years. If anyone had read these things, surely they would have found these things. Right? I guess an editor or someone like that should have read this, but it appears that no one did. Here is a partial […]
Did Anyone Read This?
November 13th, 2023 · No Comments
Tags: Accountability · Appearances · Honesty · Reading · Reality · Writing
Liars (Mean and Otherwise)
November 9th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Once again, the world swings into yet another crisis. Many persons with good intentions intend to reduce the crisis by limiting what other persons can say and write about it. Nothing new here. We used to have silly liars. The National Enquirer is one great example. Hillary Clinton had an alien baby […]
Tags: Ethics · History · Thinking · Trust · Word · Writing
The Blank Sheet of Paper Test: Part 2
November 2nd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Everyone claims agreement. Great. Let’s just test that statement with a blank sheet of paper. The beginning of this post is copied from a post a couple years back. Then we pick up with a different test. “We all agree on what we are to do!” claimed a person full of hope […]
Tags: Agreement · Commitment · Communication · Management · Meetings · Writing
A Word Multiplier
October 23rd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips These new chattering bots like ChatGPT are great word multipliers. Do we need word multipliers? That is the question. Try this at home: I am now up to 2,500 words in ten minutes. In another ten minutes I will have 5,000 words. In an hour I will have 50,000 words. 50,000 words […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Questions · Software · Technology · Tools · Writing
Nouns and Verbs
September 18th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Back to a basic: write with nouns and verbs. It brings us closer to brevity and clarity. Those are pretty good places to be. I was reminded of this short and powerful writing tip this past week. And yes, it was from Strunk and White. They used the title of the post […]
Tags: Communication · Information · Language · Review · Word · Writing
Not a Writer (?)
September 11th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Are you not a writer? Really. Just type the words you say. “You must understand, Dwayne, you are a writer,” several people over the years. Yes, I am cursed or blessed to be “a writer.” What do I do? I put my fingers on the keyboard and type the words that come […]
Tags: Communication · Technology · Thinking · Tools · Word · Writing
Did My Words Make Sense?
September 4th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]
Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing
Hollywood and Fighting Against What We Do
June 26th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we fight against something with all our might only to discover that are foe is ourselves and what we do everyday. As I write this, there is a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Note, I am not in Hollywood writing this as a writer who is on a writer’s strike. Now that […]
Tags: Analysis · Communication · Consulting · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Writing
Abbreviations
June 19th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is another fundamental of written communications that we seem to have forgotten—the humble abbreviation. Let’s abbreviate: The last item in the list is confusing, but given the context we always know what that means, right? Sorry, we don’t. I contend that we should not use abbreviations any longer. 98.6% of the […]
Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Tools · Work · Writing
The (Un)Real Book Writers
May 29th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Some people are using text-generating software to write a book a day. The world changes daily. Some people change while some don’t. Here is a story about some folks in India(?) who are putting several books a day every day onto online book sellers. The same bunch of folks are writing glowing […]
Tags: Adapting · Artificial Intelligence · Jobs · Technology · Writing