I am Jack Vinson
You can find me many ways, either via the contact form or the various social media services like Mastodon and LinkedIn (I am usually "jackvinson" on the various social services). And there is always the old standby of email on jackvinson AT jackvinson DOT com.
Jack Vinson - Business Interests
I am deeply interested in both Knowledge Management and Theory of Constraints. I've worked with a wide variety of businesses and operations, and all this work reflects these two key interests. Even as a product manager, I was constantly looking for ways to see how the products I managed could help the customer be more effective with their time and energy.
Theory of Constraints and Knowledge Management are means to an end -- tools. First examine the needs for your business, then look for tools that will help you get there. What are your goals? What is getting in the way of those goals? Let's find ways to attack those things and move forward.
Jack Vinson - Background
I live in the Boston, Massachusetts area and have lived in Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Cleveland, and several other locations for shorter periods.
I currently work as an independent consultant, helping clients implement their strategies for improving the flow of value - understanding the vicious cycle that blocks flow and developing mechanisms to break the vicious cycle and turn it into a virtuous cycle.
I have been a knowledge management advocate and technology enthusiast and the president of Knowledge Jolt, Inc., a knowledge management consultancy since. I am deeply interested in how people work, whether that is as individuals, in small groups or within organizations. I want to help them do it better.
Within Knowledge Jolt, I focused on helping organizations understand how they use their information. I worked with an insurance company and their call center to implement a content management vision as part of a large group of technology and business people. I have also worked with small firms to start the discussion around how they want to use their knowledge and the ever-changing horizons of technology on the offer. I continue to evangelize the importance of personal knowledge management to build individual and group effectiveness.
I have worked both as an internal consultant and an external consultant, and I enjoy aspects of both roles. Most recently, I was a consultant with P3 Consulting Group, where we implemented Theory of Constraints for businesses to help them get more of the right stuff out of their systems - all with the goal of helping be the most effective that they can. We worked in many areas of the business: project management, supply chain, manufacturing, and sales. My particular focus while I was with P3CG was on Critical Chain Project Management.
I was a product manager for a short time at the Boston-based AspenTech, a company that sells software for chemical process modeling, manufacturing process operations, and supply chain management. I was working on the batch process engineering software - software with which I have familiarity from my work as a chemical engineer in pharmaceutical process development.
Until I left Chicago, I was an adjunct faculty member in the Center for Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University. I taught a course on knowledge management and advised several master's students in their final capstone projects.
I spent eight years in the pharmaceutical industry at Searle / Pharmacia / Pfizer, initially working in process development and biotechnology, putting to use my Ph.D. in chemical engineering. In that role, I was primarily a expert at modeling and simulating chemical processes to optimize the processes and troubleshoot problems. I also worked with industry-university collaborations at Purdue, the Technical University of Denmark, University College London and Imperial College to develop and test new computer-aided process engineering methodologies.
In the last several years at Pharmacia / Pfizer, I was the knowledge manager for our biotechnology unit. I had the responsibility for developing knowledge strategies and fitting them into the overall strategies of the organization as the organization wrapped up several high profile drug development projects. I was also responsible for ensuring smooth connections between the biotech organization and supporting technology as well as with the larger corporate directives around compliance (21 CFR Part 11) and budget control. Continuing my industry liaison role, I worked with CENSA around developing standards for electronic lab notebook systems.
Prior to my industry work, I did a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania with a strong focus on the intersection of artificial intelligence and chemical engineering. Following the Ph.D., I had a post-doctoral research appointment at the University of Massachusetts, working on an expert system for chemical process synthesis. My undergraduate studies were at The Ohio State University.