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Consult Project Search - August 2004

Sorry everyone - all the stuff below is on ice since some time. None of the services listed are operational. I keep it as an indication of what is possible. Maybe at some future time I resurrect CPS again..........

Consult Project Search - April 2002

Dear Consultant and/or Employing Company or Organisation inthe 3rd World Development Business,

We are pleased to announce yet another relaunch of CPS(Consult Project Search) – a Database of 3rd World Development Consultants(Aid Experts, TCE, Technical Cooperation Experts, however you want to call them).  We have been around off and on since 1987 – we started as a floppy-disc-based PC database, and moved in recent years to a web-page based service.  We have always been very cost-effective and never over-price but we suffered from financial viability problems and haven’t always had enough funds to keep our data current.  And like a lot of players in this arena, we suffer from apathy, conservatism, and inertia from Companies,Organisations, and even from Consultants.

New Technology and the widespread use of email by 99% ofTCE’s and by 100% of Organisations and Companies mean that we are able tolaunch a new initiative on a shoestring. In particular, I have recently written an outstanding Text Search Utility (WfindStr.exe) which means that “the documents are the database” , and there is no longer any need for tedious and time-consuming data processing and data entry, pre-classification of categories etc etc..  This “breakthrough” (similar products have been around for some years, although most of them have been and are still expensive products)  will cause great despondency among the IT fraternity, who may see their overinflated salaries and rich lifestyles under threat.

CPS as relaunched is a bundle of various products and services, each of which is able to a large extent to operate with or without the other components.  Thus CPS can tolerate the failure of any one or even several of the components, and the others can and will carry on to succeed. These components are:


  1. WFINDSTR.EXE – the text search utility – this is obtainable as a free internet download (3 megabytes), and is an excellent text search utility for CV-based databases covering all sectors of the workforce, for companies products and services directories, and for many other uses outside the narrow scope of  Aid and Development. 

By the clever technique of namingthe CV files with the same name as the Consultant’s email address (with a .doc or a .htm at the end) then wfindstr.exe can create with the results of a search a neat list of email addresses to which a targeted message can be “narrowcast” (as opposed to broadcast).


  1. CV’s for download and/or on CD – after 2 months of operation, we now have 290 current CV’s  in Word format with full contact info including one or more email addresses.  We also have 3800 CV’s dating from 1992 – these should  be regarded as low-grade information on high-grade consultants.  We are optimistic that from our February 2002 base of 100 current consultants we can by referral increase that towards our target of 5000 – 10000 people on whom we have high-grade information – including email address(es).  We also hope that some organizations will donate copies of their collections of recent electronic CV’s.  Our current stock of 270 up-to-date and 3800 old-data CV’s are all available for internet download free of charge.  And they can be searched on using WfindStr.exe.


  1. An email list of 500+ Organizations and Companies on our website which we will encourage Consultants to use as their complete or partial mailing list when sending out their CV’s.  This will assist Consultants and Companies to create their marketplace.  And the Companies will hopefully use CPS’s WfindStr to search through their CV collection when tendering and staffing Projects.  Note that with this scenario, then item (2) above is effectively bypassed (but the companies have that extra administration in the receiving of lots of emails).  If the consultants adopt the CPS CV File Naming Convention, then companies’ administration will be greatly reduced, and old CV’s can be neatly overcopied by the latest versions.

  1. Similar to (3) above, a list of email addresses of Consultants on our website, which companies if they wish can use to solicit CV’s or to broadcast project vacancies.

  1. An online availability and contact info update service which is accessible online by any consultant, regardless of whether he or she had their CV included in the CPS System.   http://www.quickbase.com/db/7tvyu8uj . This will make current Consultant availability and contact info available to companies with zero work on the Companies’ behalf.  We plan to cater for up to 10,000 Consultants with this service.

SUMMARY:

1. Companies - download WFindStr text search utility and use it with your existing massive stock of CV's.

2. Companies - Download our file cps101.zip of 100 up-to-date CV's and our file cps102.zip of 45 up-to-date CV's (added 2002.02.15) and if you wish download also our files cps001.zip, cps002.zip, cps003.zip and cps004.zip - 3800 low-grade CV's of high-grade consultants.

3. Companies - keep an eye on our file download site http://www.anytimenow.com/guest user password for more CV files to download.

4. Companies - use our Contact and Availability Service at http://www.quickbase.com/db/7tvyu8uj .

5. Companies - make sure your suitable email address(es) for receiving CV's direct from Consultants are listed on our info page for Consultants http://www24.brinkster.com/alexweir/cps/colist.htm

6. Companies - keep any eye on our info page for Companies with email lists of Consultants - http://www24.brinkster.com/alexweir/cps/conslist.htm

7. Consultants - email all your Consultant and Company contacts in the Development field and get the Consultants to email their CV as a Word .doc attachment to alexweir@africaonline.co.zw with a c.c. to alexweir@email.com. Get the Companies to look at this web page system http://www24.brinkster.com/alexweir/cps

8. Consultants - when you send a CV update to us, please use our email file naming convention, so that when your CV arrives we will simply overcopy your older version with no admin work on our part. And by using this file naming convention, it makes very simple a "searching-and-email-narrowcasting" process by employing companies and organisations. The technique is to name the CV files with the same name as the Consultant’s email address but with a .doc or a .htm at the end.

9. Consultants - update your availability at http://www.quickbase.com/db/7tvyu8uj . See availability and contact for detail info...




AlexWeir    2002.02.08 alexweir@email.com and alexweir@africaonline.co.zw
4Brechin Drive
Marlborough
Harare
Zimbabwe
Africa
Tel+263 4 301 047 and +263 23 824 045 (mobile)

PS - A link to the email promotional message we sent out 2002.02.05 to 560 companies and organisations worldwide