Monday, February 2, 2009

We've moved!

Had enough of Google's poor maintenance of Blogger.com. Moved to WordPress. See you there.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Physician Contact List in the US

Fully Licensed Physicians in the United States

788,528 in total <> 17,275 emails

34 primary and secondary specialties

Over a dozen sortable fields

Price for new customers - $398


()()() You get these for F-Ree with every order this week ()()()

Contact List of American Pharma Companies
47,000 names and emails of the major positions

Hospital Facilities in America
more than 23k hospital administrators in over 7k hospitals [worth over $300 alone)

Listing of American Dentists
Practically every dentist in the US is listed here

US Chiropractor List
100,000 Chiropractors in the USA (worth $250 alone)

send email to: Sanders@listamaze.com

good until February 06


to terminate please send a blank message to discontinue@listamaze.com

Monday, January 26, 2009

Reference for TOC and the Scientific Method

Taking a quick break from the dissertation:

I've had two emails asking for a reference to an earlier posting on the Theory of Constraints and the scientific method. It was from a discussion on the Critical Chain Yahoo! Group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CriticalChain/message/8964

Back to the dissertation.

Monday, January 12, 2009

See you on February 1st

I am taking some time off for a final three-week push to complete my dissertation draft. Wish me luck.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Can the Theory of Constraints Actually Deal With Complex Systems and Complex Problems?

Ever since I attended the Odyssey Camp in July 2008, I have been nagged by the thought that the Theory of Constraints is not the universal problem solving tool that I thought it was. That was the motivation behind my TOC Wicked Problems Challenge which has yet to have at least one TOC practitioner give it a try. That doesn't prove that TOC is not valid but, if TOC is a powerful as it is touted to be, you would think at least one TOC advocate would give one of the problems a shot.

In the meantime, I am going to spend the next few months examining the fundamental assumptions of TOC to determine for myself if TOC is still valid or should be supplanted with another problem-solving methodology. Occasionally, I will post my reflections along this process. I will start with how valid TOC is in regards to systems theory.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Self-Handicapping: How Project Teams Fall Apart

New York Times has an interesting article about how people deal with their low expectations by creating excuses early for their anticipated poor performance. As I read this article, I thought about several projedt teams that were damaged by self-handicappers and apologist. This is an important topic that I haven't seen mentioned before in the project team literature but it should be.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

New Year Resolution: Get Even More Organized

I've always been well-organized but I feel that I could do better. And with the new job, finishing up the dissertation, my online teaching, and desire to become active in professional associations, I'm realizing that my old system of To-Do lists and Yahoo! Calendar may not be sufficient.

So, I am signing up for an online Getting Things Done application (Nozbe), an online mindmapping tool (MindMeister), an online collaboration tool (Huddle), and online backup tool (Mozy). These four tools should work well together in helping me stay focused, organized, and productive this year. I'll keep you updated on my progress.