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Controlling Decision Costs

   

 
 
   
 
About Us
  • Paul Collins is a management consultant, providing high performance techniques and technologies that support collaborative problem solving and decision-making in web-based meetings.  His clients (generally Fortune 2000 Companies, Government Agencies, and a variety of not-for-profits) have included, NASA, the US EPA, BP/Amoco, Motorola, Tutor/Mentor Connection, Chicago Wilderness and Public Allies.  He is currently a part-time student in Northwestern University’s Leadership and Organization Behavior program.   Paul became an independent consultant and opened his consultancy (Jordan-Webb) in 1981 (www.jordan-webb.net). 

  • Since 1989, his consultancy has provided consulting services related to facilitation, collaboration, conflict resolution, team development, virtual team leadership and management and interpersonal communications skills to organizations in the business, government, academic and not-for-profit sectors.  Since 2002, Paul has also developed a niche in helping clients understand how to reduce the time and cost of decision-making and providing deployment strategies for e-Collaboration (aka electronic meeting systems). 

  • Paul is a certified Forté Communications System Facilitator/Coach and is a certified facilitator for the WIQ and GroupSystems Group Decision Support Systems.  He has authored "white papers" for clients on the results and effects of integrating business practices with group support technology and has made presentations to academic and business groups and associations on the Enterprise Deployment of e-Collaboration, Developing Personal Networks, Interpersonal Communications, Facilitation and Leadership, Innovation and Facilitated Thinking and Understanding the Costs of Decision-Making.
  • Paul has facilitated groups in both business and technical areas. His facilitation style is described as empowering and leading without directing, helping participants quickly overcome technophobia, and making workshops highly productive and enjoyable. Paul has spent over 30 years facilitating, mentoring and coaching diverse business, ethnic, cultural, religious and racial groups to work towards common ground, setting goals, accomplishing objectives and becoming high performing work-teams.  Paul has also worked with clients to design and facilitate distributed and virtual meetings integrating, collaborative methods and processes while using group decision support technologies including e-Collaboration, web conferencing, teleconferencing and video conferencing.

  • He’s led projects in business areas such as vision and mission development, business strategy planning, sales/marketing strategy planning, marketing research focus groups, leadership development, project management, organization development, organization design, program design, human resource management, new product development, concept evaluation and problem identification/solving.  He has facilitated in technical areas including system requirements analysis, system design specification, data modeling, functional decomposition, process modeling, process improvement and work re‑design.

  • Paul's client experience through Jordan-Webb includes:
    • Corporate
      • Motorola, BP America, Amoco Corporation, ShoreBank, Accenture, U.S. Cellular Corporation, GATX Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, Baxter Healthcare, GD Searle, Ameritech, Cardinal Health, Bergen-Brunswig, Fox-Meyer, GE Railcar Services, Fel-Pro, Banta Corporation, Northern Indiana Public Service Company, Commonwealth Edison, Kemper Insurance, Hartford Insurance, Leo Burnett Idea Lab
    • Government
      • National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Argonne National Laboratory, PACE Suburban Bus Service, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Oregon Liquor Control Commission
    • Academic
      • University of Wisconsin, Loyola University, De Paul University, Waubonsee Community College, Elmhurst College, University of Chicago, Roosevelt University, Polish Roman Catholic Union,
    • Not-For-Profit
      • University Healthcare Consortium, AmericaSpeaks, Chicago Latino Coalition, Polish Roman Catholic Union, Chicago Wilderness, Common Ground for Pro Life/Pro Choice, Tutor/Mentor Connection, Cabrini Connections, Public Allies of Milwaukee, Teen Think Tanks of America, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center., Labor Management Council of Greater Kansas City, Girl Scout Promise Group

  • Paul is also the founder and director of Ethnic Dance Chicago (www.ethnicdance.net), an organization that provides weekly programs of ethnic dance and music to adults.  EDC also provides dance/music programs to students, faculty and staff in public, private and parochial schools. Paul has had a passion for dance since he started dancing at the age of eight and called his first Square Dance at the age of twelve.  He has taught ethnic dance programs at the Old Town School of Folk Music, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is a popular instructor in downtown Chicago dance programs including SummerDance in Grant Park, WorkOut in Millennium Park and AbonDANZA! at the Cultural Center.  Paul has taught dance workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.  Since 1999, Paul has been an artist-in-residence for the Wisconsin Dells Spring Hill School District International Festival and more recently for the Chaney Monge School Diversity Day Program. 

  • Paul is an accomplished instructor of various types of ethnic folk dance and a caller of traditional American square and contra dance.  He is the founder and director of Ethnic Dance Chicago and is a co‑director of the Door County Folk Festival, now in its 29th year, and one of Midwest's most popular and enjoyable dance and music festivals.  He directed and produced the University of Chicago International Folk Festival for 12 years.  He is director of the C & J Dancers (an ethnic dance performance group) and a long‑time member and a former officer and director of the Folk Dance Council of Chicago.  He has conducted dance classes and workshops and organized performing groups for adult and family recreation programs and for school programs in the US, Canada and Europe. 

  • Paul is also a co-founder of the Midwest Facilitators' Network (www.midwest-facilitators.net).  The MFN produced its first Conference in January 1993 and since has produced over 45 full-day conferences and two-day skills development workshops.  The MFN recently partnered with DePaul University to produce the Group Facilitation Symposium (11/08).  Paul is also a member of the Midwest Society of Professional Consultants (Program Chair, Speakers Bureau), the National Black MBA Association (Lifetime Member), the International Association of Facilitators the International Association of Public Practitioners, and the Academy of Management.

  • Paul attended Northwestern University's pre-college program, National High School Institute ("Cherub Program, Education Department).  As an undergrad at the University of Chicago, Paul studied Germanic Languages & Literature and Economics, but with self-study and hands on experience in the Education Department, he developed knowledge, skills and abilities in Management Information Systems, Information Technology and Organization Change.  Since 1970, Paul has pursued a program of independent professional development by attending programs offered by the Forté Institute, the Institute for Performance Culture, MG Rush Systems, Interaction Associates, Leadership Strategies, the American Management Association, the Sandler Sales Institute and others.  Studies included facilitative leadership, group facilitation, high-performance and virtual team development, group collaboration, organization development, and languages including Hungarian, French and Japanese.  Paul is currently enrolled in Northwestern University's Leadership and Organization Behavior program. 

  • Paul has presented workshops in facilitation, collaboration, team development and leadership for the University of Chicago, Loyola University, De Paul University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Roosevelt University, Illinois Benedictine University and the University of Wisconsin (Madison). He was a on the Board of Advisors for Loyola University's Center for Information Management and Technology as Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee and has been a instructor in the Management Certificate Program of the University of Wisconsin Executive Education Program and for the Facilitation Certificate program at DePaul University.

  • Paul has a long of history of public speaking at conferences, including: Ethics Conference (DePaul), National Black MBA Association, Structured Techniques Association, Face to Face Technology Symposium, Collaboration 2003, Toastmasters International Region V, the World-Wide GroupSystems, American Society for Quality, Best of Teams, Southwest Facilitators Network, Midwest Facilitators Network, International Association of Facilitators, and International Association of Public Practitioners. 

  • Paul's other avocations include, hiking, squash, volleyball, softball, travel, foreign languages, music (classical, jazz, blues, ethnic), sound engineering, old-time radio, opera, theater, model railroading, web development, and exploring new Internet technologies.