My background profile...
Over the past three decades, I have concentrated almost exclusively on helping businesses and other organizations to optimize for success in a world where information, computing, and connectivity are ubiquitous.
Professional competencies:
My professional competencies include: business visioning, modeling, and strategy; change management planning, direction, and execution; business process reengineering and design; organizational design and development; enterprise architecture and information technology planning; business systems architecture; information architecture; methodology design and implementation; project management, team leadership and mentoring, teaching, training, and facilitation; business, technical, and academic research and writing.
Industry expertise:
Industry sectors in which I am experienced include pharmaceuticals, automotive manufacturing, high technology, banking and insurance, communications and marketing, energy production and distribution, heavy-freight logistics, food manufacturing, distribution, and retailing, software engineering and services, real estate, entertainment arts and culture, higher education, publishing, government services, and more.
Methods. frameworks, and technology skills:
My skills with business design methods include value network and value chain analysis, SWOT analysis, root cause analysis, competitive forces analysis, critical factors analysis, stakeholder value analysis, and numerous approaches to assessing financial and operational effectiveness. I'm also skilled in Alex Osterwalder’s and Yves Pigneur's recently-developed Business Model Innovation approach and tools as well as those outlined in Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy approach.
I’m experienced with a multitude of enterprise, process, and information systems modeling, analysis, and design tools and methodologies, including UML, the Zachman Framework™, BPR/BPE, E/R, OO, ORM, Agile, etc. I’ve developed proprietary information design, process engineering, and business and technology assessment methodologies on behalf of numerous clients. Hands-on experience includes a wide range of current and legacy productivity tools, coding languages, IT platforms, and database technologies.
Project management:
My project management experience is extensive and includes planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and leading business transformation and information technology projects with budgets of up to $40 million and team sizes of as many as 50 or more members. I'm fully conversant with numerous project management methods, practices, and toolsets.
People and communication skills:
I am well-skilled as a facilitator, communicator, and educator, and have significant experience with bringing groups of stakeholders to a common, shared understanding of what needs to be addressed within a given project or new venture.
I have gained extensive experience with abstracting, documenting, and communicating complex information to boards of directors, senior executives, all levels of management and operating personnel, investor and funding groups, customer groups, and a variety of other external agencies.
I am also a recognized author in subjects including information theory, knowledge systems design, organizational development, and business creativity and innovation.
Teaching:
Since 2005, I have been a sessional instructor for The Business of Software (CSC454) at the Computing Science Department of the University of Toronto, a course that takes students through the full lifecycle of software entrepreneurship using a 'living lab' approach.
Since 2004, I have been leading a series of seminars and hands-on workshops that at C1 Artspace which teach business, communications, and web-related skills to creative professionals aiming to launch or grow their careers.
Significant publications:
Wytenburg, Arnold J., Harnessing Complexity: Rethinking Understanding, Relevance, and Knowledge Systems in Business, presented to the fellows of the Institute for Studies in Coherence and Emergence, Boston, 2001
Wytenburg, Arnold J., BRACING FOR THE FUTURE: Complexity and Computational Ability in the Knowledge Era, in Emergence: Complexity and Organization, issue 3.2, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 2001
Wytenburg, Arnold J., Toward a General Theory of Knowledge Systems, in Proceedings, 4th World Congress on Intellectual Capital, ed. Nick Bontis, McMaster University, Hamilton, 2001
Wytenburg, Arnold J., Complexity, Computational Ability and the Corporation of the Future, in Managing Complexity in Organizations, ed. Michael Lissack and Hugh Gunz, Quorum Books, Westport, CN, 1999
Public speaking:
I often speak to public and professional audiences on a variety of topics related to business, communications, and the arts. I have been a frequent guest lecturer at Sheridan College of Arts and Design and the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, and have spoken at numerous scientific, business, and arts-related conferences in Canada, Europe, and the United States.
Academic background:
- Research fellow with the Institute for Studies in Coherence and Emergence in Florida and Utrecht,
- Media, Culture, and Philosophy at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, at the University of Toronto,
- Fine Arts at Ontario College of Art (now OCAD) in Toronto,
- Law (SocSci) at Carleton University in Ottawa,
- Information Sciences, Finance, and Economics at Algonquin College in Ottawa.
Additional background:
I recently contributed toward the co-creation of a recently-published book focused on business innovation by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, titled Business Model Generation (www.amazon.com).
I've been recognized as a leading business thinker in a recent book, McLuhan for Managers, by authors Mark Federman and Derek de Kerckhove.
I am quoted in Questions that Work, written by Andrew Finlayson and published by AMACOM.
I recently collaborated in producing a series of nine critically acclaimed new media-based contemporary artworks comprising experimental music, video, and still imagery, on behalf of The Canadian Music Center for Nuit Blanche, 2007 (www.artreview.com).
I've been profiled in several feature newspaper articles, including the Toronto Star on applying Marshall McLuhan’s thinking to the practical matters of business management, and the Globe and Mail on collecting fine art.
I have owned and operated two critically acclaimed contemporary art galleries, Wave Gallery and The Art Company, from 1997 through 2003.
Over the pastthree decades, I've played a leading role in raising charitable donations of nearly C$2 million for medical research and child welfare in Canada.