Multi-use Models

Models are like kitchen utensils. You need a variety of them, and you should know when and how to use them. They should be useful for more than a single task. I recently started exploring the first explicit model I learned years ago. The Cyberntic Model One of my more...

Getting to Language Revisited

Faithful reader Jim Bullock (jbullock_at_rare-bird-ent.com) had the following comments about Getting To Language. Your diagram is interesting, at least two ways. First, when you’re not doing email (or phone) there are more “channels” than simply...

Verifying Models

My name is Don, and I have a problem. I’m trying to make sense of my world. Sometime ago I asked myself the question, “What is the earliest indicator that something is going wrong?” And of course, I’m not happy with just a single problem,...

Getting to Language

Albert has an interesting job. He takes the manufacturing software the plant operators use, and creates simulation software to train operators. I started working with him when his company selected some new software, and he needed suggestions on how to do things like...

Choosing Change

© Don Gray 2003, 2010 I’ll never forget that morning even though it happened a quarter of a century ago. I was a programmer helping start up a new factory, and things had been going OK. Not great, but OK. I decided that morning on the way to the factory I was...