Projects

Consulting

Submitted by dthoma7 on Thu, 2010-08-26 14:25
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For several years now I have been consulting with a wide variety of clients to help them improve their processes and systems. If you bring me in, note that I am trained as a socio-technical systems analyst and make a couple of core assumptions:

1) Every system exists in its present form for some reason (nothing is totally irrational, there is probably someone with some power and control who wants things to be as they are)

Modeling: what we have yet to learn

Submitted by dthoma7 on Mon, 2010-08-09 03:18
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This week Bill Gates noted that we need better modeling tools for software in order to solve some of the persistent and hardest problems facing the planet. I agree, but I would suggest to him that we not only need better tools. We also need better concepts and techniques for modeling. Som research on modeling human-machine systems by my friend Andrew has indicated that modeling techniques still lack meaningful representation in complex systems [1]. I have reviewed a number of papers this year analyzing Gantt charts and their capacity to improve project management. In each case, Gantt charts tend to get used as eye candy with no impact on improving project outcomes. The idea is to have a representation a group can use to jointly visualize complex data and understand it [2], but these current representations are still inadequate. So, simply making software that add digitizations of current concepts will not be enough. We need new concepts.

Microsoft Project Favorites

Submitted by dthoma7 on Fri, 2010-02-12 00:23
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Codeplex is an open-source MS project site.  Here is a tool for exporting Earned Value data from Project 2007 to military and UN compliant software.

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2009/05/26/now-free-on-codeplex-earned-value-management-application-for-un-cefact-standards.aspx

Thank you for taking the Project Management General Suvery!

Submitted by dthoma7 on Mon, 2007-09-10 17:09
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Thank you for taking the Project Management General Survey.

Healthcare and ICTs

Submitted by dthoma7 on Wed, 2007-03-28 14:55
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I will be posting more here as I continue to move content to this online site. Here is an interesting tele-opthamology system. Most telemedicine has been in radiology or other 2-dimensionally capturable practices. Rural provision is improving partly due to ability to provide care through technology.


Best Interests of the Child

Submitted by dthoma7 on Thu, 2007-03-08 17:51
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I am exploring the "best interests of the child" doctrine used by many Courts in the US to determine child custody. I am using this page to collect notes:

Sources

While many individual law firms attempt to define the standard for different States as they see fit, I am avoiding listing such sources here due to their subjective and potentially biased nature. Many sources look at the issue in terms of adoption. Few seem to look at the issue in terms of 'fit' parents in custody battles.

E-learning: blended delivery mechanisms

Submitted by dthoma7 on Thu, 2006-10-05 02:59
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I have spent a fair amount of energy studying the effectiveness of information and communication technologies in the delivery of teaching content.  This work began when I was a teacher and teaching association representative working with the Japanese Government's Education Ministry in 1994-1997 on educational improvement efforts.  At that time, I got a grant of $60,000 to design a technology-enabled English teaching classroom.  It was very effective, and I believe it was later copied by other schools.  

Improvement of Research Methods: Q-Methodology Application

Submitted by dthoma7 on Thu, 2006-10-05 02:11
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One of my earlier projects related to improving our ability to study subjectivity in an ordered and effective manner.  Many people shy away from such a task though the early applications of factor analysis and various statistics boldly braved this territory.  The Q-sort and Q--methodology provide just such a tool.  The paper is attached.

Enabling Knowledge Work through the Application of ICTs

Submitted by dthoma7 on Thu, 2006-10-05 01:54
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This is an on-going project spurred by my own global background and experiences.  More than 60% of all office work is now computer-mediated (source: IDC).  Much work is conducted virtually in distributed group settings spread across the world and involving multiple organizational and national cultures.  Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a pivotal role in enabling these work settings, settings characterizing the majority of modern work. 

Research

Submitted by dthoma7 on Wed, 2006-07-12 15:12
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Publications (selected)

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