Sunday, December 31, 2006

My Christmas tradition...

In past years I have blogged a specific writing of my favorite author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. This year I am extending the tradition to me two new blogs.

The writing that I have selected for this year is Ambraham Lincoln. A writing that was prepared for the president at his funeral.

From RWE.org - The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Volume XI - Miscellanies (1884)
Contributed by Ralph Waldo Emerson
XV
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

REMARKS AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES HELD IN CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1865

" NATURE, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
'With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will
That bent, like perfect steel, to spring again and thrust.

Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
Could Nature's equal scheme deface; . .
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face."
LOWELL, Commemoration Ode.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WE meet under the gloom of a calamity which darkens down over the minds of good men in all civil society, as the fearful tidings travel over sea, over land, from country to country, like the shadow of an uncalculated eclipse over the planet. Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain to mankind as this has caused, or will cause, on its announcement ; and this, not so much because nations are by modern arts brought so closely together, as because of the mysterious hopes and fears which, in the present day, are connected with the name and institutions of America.

In this country, on Saturday, every one was struck dumb, and saw at first only deep below deep, as he meditated on the ghastly blow. And perhaps, at this hour, when the coffin which contains the dust of the President sets forward on its long march through mourning states, on its way to his home in Illinois, we might well be silent, and suffer the awful voices of the time to thunder to us. Yes, but that first despair was brief: the man was not so to be mourned. He was the most active and hopeful of men; and his work had not perished: but acclamations of praise for the task he had accomplished burst out into a song of triumph, which even tears for his death cannot keep down.

The President stood before us as a man of the people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, had never been spoiled by English insularity or French dissipation ; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak ; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a captain in the Black Hawk War, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois ;- on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place. All of us remember - it is only a history of five or six years - the surprise and the disappointment of the country at his first nomination by the convention at Chicago. Mr. Seward, then in the culmination of his good fame, was the favorite of the Eastern States. And when the new and comparatively unknown name of Lincoln was announced (notwithstanding the report of the acclamations of that convention), we heard the result coldly and sadly. It seemed too rash, on a purely local reputation, to build so grave a trust in such anxious times ; and men naturally talked of the chances in politics as in-calculable. But it turned out not to be chance. The profound good opinion which the people of Illinois and of the West had conceived of him, and which they had imparted to their col-leagues, that they also might justify themselves to their constituents at home, was not rash, though they did not begin to know the riches of his worth.'

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter ; he did not offend by superiority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed good will. He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty, which it was very easy for him to obey. Then, he had what farmers call a long head ; was excellent in working out the sum for him-self; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly. Then, it turned out that he was a great worker ; had prodigious faculty of performance ; worked easily. A good worker is so rare ; everybody has some disabling quality. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial ; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper, - each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well.

Then, he had a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible to all ; fair-minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner ; affable, and not sensible to the affliction which the innumerable visits paid to him when President would have brought to any one else.' And how this good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to him, every one will remember; and with what increasing tenderness he dealt when a whole race was thrown on his compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive occasion, " Massa Linkum am eberywhere."
Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society ; to take off the edge of the severest decisions ; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion ; and to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and in-sanity.

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests ; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility of printing, he would have become mythological in a very few years, like Æsop or Pilpay, or one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables and proverbs. But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of their application to the moment, are destined hereafter to wide fame. What pregnant definitions ; what unerring common sense ; what fore-sight ; and, on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane tone ! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion. This, and one other American speech, that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, and with no fourth.

His occupying the chair of state was a triumph of the good sense of mankind, and of the public conscience. This middle-class country had got a middle-class president, at last. Yes, in manners and sympathies, but not in powers, for his powers were superior. This man grew according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day ; and as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event. In the midst of fears and jealousies, in the Babel of counsels and parties, this man wrought incessantly with all his might and all his honesty, laboring to find what the people wanted, and how to obtain that. It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he was. There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. The times have allowed no state secrets ; the nation has been in such ferment, such multitudes had to be trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every door was ajar, and we know all that be-fell.

Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war. Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor ; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years, - four years of battle-days, - his endurance, his fertility of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them ; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent ; an entirely public man ; father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue.

Adam Smith remarks that the axe, which in Houbraken's portraits of British kings and worthies is engraved under those who have suffered at the block, adds a certain lofty charm to the picture. And who does not see, even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the terror and ruin of the massacre are already burning into glory around the victim ? Far happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away ; to have watched the decay of his own faculties ; to have seen - perhaps even he - the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen; to have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long enough to keep the greatest promise that ever man made to his fellow men, - the practical abolition of slavery ? He had seen Tennessee, Missouri and Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had seen Savannah, Charleston and Richmond surrendered ; had seen the main army of the rebellion lay down its arms. He had conquered the public opinion of Canada, England and France. Only Washington can compare with him in fortune.

And what if it should turn out, in the unfolding of the web, that he had reached the term ; that this heroic deliverer could no longer serve us ; that the rebellion had touched its natural conclusion, and what remained to be done required new and uncommitted hands, - a new spirit born out of the ashes of the war ; and that Heaven, wishing to show the world a completed benefactor, shall make him serve his country even more by his death than by his life ? Nations, like kings, are not good by facility and complaisance. " The kindness of kings consists in justice and strength." Easy good nature has been the dangerous foible of the Republic, and it was necessary that its enemies should outrage it, and drive us to unwonted firmness, to secure the salvation of this country in the next ages.

The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Genius which ruled in the affairs of nations; which, with a slow but stern justice, carried for-ward the fortunes of certain chosen houses, weeding out single offenders or offending families, and securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites of Heaven. It was too narrow a view of the Eternal Nemesis. There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations, which makes little account of time, little of one generation or race, makes no account of disasters, conquers alike by what is called defeat or by what is called victory, thrusts aside enemy and obstruction, crushes everything immoral as in-human, and obtains the ultimate triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of everything which resists the moral laws of the world.' It makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for his task. It has given every race its own talent, and ordains that only that race which combines perfectly with the virtues of all shall endure.'

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Saturday, December 30, 2006

One year summary.

It was December 29 last year that I started writing this blog. It was at the prompting from a friend that I write about the things that I was researching. Write about the things I was passionate about, to write about innovation in the oil and gas industry. I thank him for pointing out this opportunity to me. I started this blog with several specific objectives in mind;

  1. Discuss the methods of (re)-organization of oil and gas firms, and specifically, replace the hierarchy or bureaucracy with the industry standard Joint Operating Committee (JOC).
  2. Debate and discuss the attributes and elements of innovation within the oil and gas industry.
  3. Explore the impact of today's information technologies, and their role in making energy firms more innovative and accountable.
  4. Discover what is possible and how things could be better.
I am pleased to report that these objectives are being, and will continue to be, met. I am also pleased to report that I have no shortage of material to write about. The basis of this website is my Master's Thesis that proved the joint operating committee is the optimal organization for innovative oil and gas producers. The scale of this revised organizational structure is not small. The re-organization, re-configuration, and re-everything of every element of activity, process, data and approach in oil and gas is affected. I've certainly landed in the middle of a fire storm of controversy, conflict and best of all, value for all concerned.

Reviewing the material that I posted this past year, I noticed a theme that I thought was rather valuable for the industry. That these concepts and material, particularly the new organizations supported by the new information technologies, was being accepted in the larger academic arena. Explicit support was being built for these concepts. I was able to spin these concepts out of this weblog and publish the "Final Research Report." This support alone has significant tangible value for the energy industry. Value in that it documents the many calls to action that are being stated throughout the world for both the energy industry and business community in general.

There is something else I want to point out. That is the value that this weblog represents. I think the oil and gas worker has a central location for discussion and presentation of material that is consistent with the innovative employee / worker, and the technologies impact. These are the main focus of the recent revisions that I've done to the website. I am therefore making this an unexpected, and much valued objective of my writings.

Another area that I am particularly enthusiastic about is the Massachusetts EnerTech Cluster that was recently announced by Dr. Robert Metcalfe. This is based on the desperate need for something of this nature, and is building on the works done by the recent efforts of MIT's. This is necessary, and I would assert should have been done many years ago. I also foresee similar, however more limited, clusters of Energy Information Technologies in both Silicon Valley and Houston. These three locations will be the brain trust of how the energy needs of the future are met.

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Friday, December 22, 2006

MIT President Emeritus on MIT Video

Dr. Charles M. Vest provides an interesting discussion regarding the teaching and developmental challenges that the engineering disciplines will go through in the next 14 years.

At around the 35 minute point, Dr. Vest states their is a parallel to the current issues the energy industry faces, with the issues the auto industry faced in the 1970's. An interesting and accurate analogy.

During the Q and A Dr. Vest makes the point that at a diner with Secretary Rice, regarding the changes at the State Department, Newt Gingrich made it very clear, we have something that was built for a different era, that science and technology in industry have to re-organize to meet the challenges of today.

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Monday, December 18, 2006

Metcalfe's declaration of the Massachusetts Enertech Cluster

Dr. Robert Metcalfe is a major force in the technology world. He is the inventor of Ethernet which is the basic underlying infrastructure of the Internet. Based on Ethernet, Metcalfe founded 3Com which was an integral part of the building of the Internet. A man of great ideas, and a man who has the ability to make those ideas operate in the real world.

Dr. Metcalfe has been affiliated with MIT through out the years, and works with Polaris Partnerships, a venture capital firm he owns, and has recently guest blogged on VCMike's Blog, a silicon valley early stage venture capitalist. Click on the title of this entry to review Metcalfe's ideas.

Metcalfe's ideas are that the greater Boston area holds 10 first class research universities and over 100 universities in total. This is the place that he proposes to house the "Massachusetts Enertech Cluster"(MEC). He proposes the MEC to be modeled on the Silicon Valley Cluster, the area of MEC's focus will be on innovation in oil and gas, and I can not agree with him more.

Metcalfe's interest from a venture capital perspective are listed in this blog entry and include: Ember, Scicortex, and Greenfuel.

"Ember is a networking company that delivers tiny radio semiconductors and protocol software. Ember’s aim is to network all the world’s embedded micro-controllers, of which, according to IDC (another Massachusetts company) there will be 10 billion new ones shipped next year. Ember’s go-to-market focus is home and building control. And what do you think the principal benefits of home and building control are? By wirelessly controlling lights, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, many of Ember’s early customers are conserving energy. By wirelessly reading meters, many of Ember’s early customers better measure the energy they are saving"
"SiCortex is a computer systems company, so why is it an example of Massachusetts enertech? First, SiCortex has just launched open-source software Linux superclusters that improve by factors of 10 delivered computational performance per dollar, per foot, and, yes, per watt. Because they each consume two factors of 10 fewer watts than the PC microprocessors on our desks, SiCortex fits six 64-bit microprocessors on a chip and therefore 5,832 in a single cabinet, cooled by air, saving energy on running the computers and even more on cooling them. That’s enertech. And second, SiCortex is enertech because its superclusters are designed for high-performance computing applications, prominent among which are seismic data analysis for oil exploration, climate modeling, fluid dynamics, reactor simulations, quantum chromo dynamics — enertech. No wonder the lead in SiCortex’s recent $21M venture financing was Chevron."
"GreenFuel is now working with huge electric power plants in the Arizona desert to scale up its enertech. GreenFuel pipes CO2-laden flue gases through algae slurries circulating in solar bioreactors. GreenFuel algae use photosynthesis in enertech greenhouses to remove greenhouse gases (CO2 and NOx) from the flue gases before release into the atmosphere. And then, get this, the rapidly thickening algal slurry is harvested several times per day to produce lipids, starches, and proteins for extraction into substantial quantities of, respectively, biodiesel, ethanol, and feed. GreenFuel algae-solar bioreactors do require acreage, water, and electricity, but junk land, dirty water, and single-digit percentages of parasitic power. GreenFuel treats CO2 as a valuable plant food and, rather than try to sequester it expensively, GreenFuel recycles CO2, cleaning the atmosphere while producing cheap and clean energy"
Out of these I would particularly like to point out the business of Ember. Building the network for all the worlds embedded network microcontrollers. Metcalfe defines the market as being 10 billion devices that will be shipped in 2007. IPv6 will provide the unique addressing of each of these devices, wirelessly. This is exactly the reason why IPv6 and WiMax reside in my Technical Vision.

This is evidence to me we are entering a world where things are changing quickly. Companies that continue to hold on to old ways of business risk everything. Now is the time for change.

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Thursday, December 14, 2006

The attention economy.

John Hagel III has written a fascinating series of articles on what is being called the "Attention Economy". His comments are located here, here and here. I highly recommend my readers to view these articles thoroughly. Hagel picks up from the quotation of Professor Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureates quote,

"...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of the information sources that might consume it."
I think that Hagel is picking up where Simon's comment left off and introduces some current research that Michael Goldhaber is doing in this area. Goldhaber's best articles are here, here and here. Attention is not a commodity, in that it is fixed and Hagel discusses both the scope of your own attention and the attention that ideas can garner and sustain. I wanted to comment on the important impact of this thinking and relate the significance of what I think is being said.

For myself I find the demand to keep enhancing my information systems requires daily diligence of what, where and who I spend my attention on. If I am not vigilant I become satisfied with the status quo and that is a dangerous attitude to have these days. There is enough justification and supporting information to ignore and belittle the overall and global changes that are occurring today. Many prefer to refer to their BlackBerry's and consume their lives in the day to day grind of mindless activity. We need to focus our attention on what and where we are going with these technologies. If we loose sight of the road that we are travelling on we could be lost for a sizable amount of time.

An important point of view to maintain is the technology works for me to meet my needs, I do not respond in any way to the demands of the technology. Needless to say I have no BlackBerry and I ensure that at least 80% of my synchronous time is spent in person, with limited amount of time being spent on phone calls. I communicate asynchronously, or at my time, on my schedule and my agenda. Many things fall off the table as a result, and I am best able to prioritize what is necessary.

The other aspect that is important is the speed at which things are viewed. I like to spend as much time as I can per day on reviewing and writing what I am researching about. With three blogs and two major topics it is something that requires a focus that is difficult to sustain. So there are two modes, quick and summary where little is available for immediate recall, yet some of the more important aspects are recalled many days later, or as required. Here is where Google is an invaluable tool in that I am then able to re-find that reference almost immediately. And then there is the reading and reviewing at the pace that is necessary to take notes and assimilate the complex topics that demand my time and efforts. These can take a goodly amount of time, but that time is afforded to me as I know nothing otherwise will be lost.

I frequently look at it from the point of view that Google has provided me with at least 7,000 of the smartest people in the world, working to make my information better. Google also provides me with the supercomputing power necessary to index and make available that information that is the most important to me. Such power in the hands of every user will make the majority of the major issues in the world more solvable. The most surprising element of this tool is that Google is making a billion dollars a quarter doing this. The attention economy operates on a different premise.

So what is it that I am trying to do here. In a nutshell I am trying to create and sustain the necessary attention of my readers to ensure that their time is most effectively spent on reading, sharing and conversing through this blog. There ability to be fully informed through a high quality filter is what I am preparing and providing to them in this blog format. The recent changes that I have made to this blog are designed to increase the value and usability. And include;
  • Use of Labels, as well as Technorati tags, providing my readers with a variety of ways to aggregate items that I and others write about.
  • I installed three custom search engines;
    • Oil and gas custom search reviews the highest quality journals and sites that cover the global oil and gas business. As I find more high quality documents and sites I will add them to that search engine.
    • Innovation search engine reviews the quality documents and sites that I discover and use in my research regarding innovation.
    • Academic search engine that provides the best academic sites available. Oxford, Harvard, MIT, London School of Economics, University of Chicago, Berkely, Princeton, Yale and Stanford to name just a few. Other sites like DSpace and most of the universities that provide their course offerings and videos online.
  • I have installed not only the del.ico.us articles that I read and find of value, but now have included the tag cloud that these articles and tagging provides. Readers are encouraged to fully explore the referenced articles and tags, they are there for your reading enjoyment and to act as a filter to get to the quality stuff first. Please don't hesitate to join my del.ico.us network while visiting.
  • I have also provided 50 of the most recent blog posts and readings that I discover through my RSS reader, Google Reader. These url's can be seen by going to the website where these ideas are hosted. These provide my readers with the best of the best.
  • And finally a financial summary that caters to the oil and gas market activity. And a summary of the Sun Microsystem Aquarium which is where the J2EE server that we will be using is summarized.
If I am able to provide quality reading material and idea generation for my viewing public, focused on innovation in the oil and gas industry globally. With a strong focus of my writing regarding the revolutionary use of the joint operating committee, I think that I am spending my time as effectively as I can. I believe that this enables my readers to focus their attention a little clearer on the issues and opportunities we all face in the oil and gas industry.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. As I have mentioned here before, there is no better job in the world from my point of view. I will be writing more on the topic of the attention economy and work hard to focus my readers attention as finely as I can.

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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Some books I like.

104 Titles of some of the best books that I found.

The Strategy of Conflict
Thomas C. Schelling

Classical and nonclassical logics : an introduction to the mathematics of propositions
Schechter, Eric, 1950-

Winning at collaboration commerce : the next competitive advantage
Collins, Heidi.; Gordon, Cindy.; Terra, Jose Claudio Cyrineu.
August 23, 2005

Computational Economics
David A. Kendrick, P. Ruben Mercado, Hans M. Amman
December 15, 2005

The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration
Anthony Giddens
January 11, 1986

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck
June 15, 2002

Extreme Competition: Innovation And the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
Peter Fingar
January 31, 2006

The fast forward MBA in project management
Verzuh, Eric.

Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Levitt, Steven D.; Dubner, Stephen J.

The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life
Thomas W. Malone
April 2, 2004

Genome
Matt Ridley
October 3, 2000

Happy Lives and the Highest Good : An Essay on Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics"
Gabriel Richardson Lear
January 5, 2004

Human accomplishment : the pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences, 800 BC to 1950
Murray, Charles A.

Ideas Have Consequences
Richard M. Weaver
September 15, 1984

Income Distribution in Macroeconomic Models
Giuseppe Bertola, Reto Foellmi, Josef Zweimuller
December 1, 2005

Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics: Selected Essays
Giovanni Dosi
September 23, 2001

It's About Time : Understanding Einstein's Relativity
N. David Mermin
November 1, 2005

The Java programming language
Arnold, Ken, 1958-; Gosling, James.; Holmes, David (David Colin)

Java: An Eventful Approach
Kim Bruce, Andrea Danyluk, Thomas Murtagh
July 29, 2005

Leading with questions : how leaders find the right solutions by knowing what to ask
Marquardt, Michael J.

Learning the bash Shell
Newham, Cameron.; Rosenblatt, Bill.

Lecture Notes in Microeconomic Theory : The Economic Agent
Ariel Rubinstein
December 16, 2005

Max Plus at work : modeling and analysis of synchronized systems : a course on Max-Plus algebra and its applications
Heidergott, Bernd.; Olsder, Geert Jan.; Woude, J. W. van der.

On Adam Smith's Wealth of nations : a philosophical companion
Fleischacker, Samuel.

The only sustainable edge : why business strategy depends on productive friction and dynamic specialization
Hagel, John.; Brown, John Seely.

Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline
Bernard Williams, A. W. Moore
January 2, 2006

Politics and Vision : Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought
Sheldon S. Wolin
May 3, 2004

The Politics of Good Intentions : History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order
David Runciman
May 5, 2006

Producing security : multinational corporations, globalization, and the changing calculus of conflict
Brooks, Stephen G., 1971-

Radical evolution : the promise and peril of enhancing our minds, our bodies--and what it means to be human
Garreau, Joel.

The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology
Ray Kurzweil
September 22, 2005

The State of Democratic Theory
Ian Shapiro
August 18, 2003

The Strategy of Conflict
Thomas C. Schelling
June 26, 2003

The Success of Open Source
Steve Weber

Swarm creativity : competitive advantage through collaborative innovation networks
Gloor, Peter A. (Peter Andreas), 1961-

The Theory of Corporate Finance
Jean Tirole
December 15, 2005

Understanding institutional diversity
Ostrom, Elinor.

The West's last chance : will we win the clash of civilizations?
Blankley, Tony.

Wicked cool Java : code bits, open-source libraries, and project ideas
Eubanks, Brian D.

Winning at collaboration commerce : the next competitive advantage
Collins, Heidi.; Gordon, Cindy.; Terra, Jos©♭ Cl©Łudio Cyrineu.

Winning the Knowledge Transfer Race
Michael J. English, William H. Baker
October 25, 2005

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
April 5, 2005

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape
Brian Hayes
September 26, 2005

It's Not What You Say...It's What You Do: How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company
Laurence Houghton, Laurence Haughton
December 28, 2004

Knowledge Accumulation and Industry Evolution : The Case of Pharma-Biotech
Mariana Mazzucato, Giovanni Dosi
March 9, 2006

The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities
Giovanni Dosi, Richard R. Nelson, Sidney G. Winter
January 15, 2001

Technology, Organization, and Competitiveness : Perspectives on Industrial and Corporate Change
Giovanni Dosi, David J. Teece, Josef Chytry
May 21, 1998

Technology and Enterprise in Historical Perspective
Giovanni Dosi, Renato Giannetti, Pier Angelo Toninelli
August 1, 1992

The Economics of Technical Change and International Trade
Giovanni Dosi, Keith Pavitt, Luc Soete
March 23, 1991

Technical Change and Economic Theory (Ifias Research Series, Number 6)
Giovanni Dosi
October 23, 1990

Technical Change and Industrial Transformation
Giovanni Dosi
August 23, 1984

Technical change and survival: Europe's semiconductor industry (Industrial adjustment and policy)
Giovanni Dosi
February 23, 1981

Sisomo: The Future on Screen
Kevin Roberts
November 15, 2005

An Army of Davids : How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
Glenn Reynolds
March 7, 2006

The Prepared Mind of a Leader : Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions, and Solve Problems
Bill Welter, Jean Egmon
October 24, 2005

License to Harass : Law, Hierarchy, and Offensive Public Speech (The Cultural Lives of Law)
Laura Beth Nielsen
August 30, 2004

Plato's Fable : On the Mortal Condition in Shadowy Times (New Forum Books)
Joshua Mitchell
March 3, 2006

China the Balance Sheet: What the World Needs to Know about the Emerging Superpower
Institute for International Economics, Center for Strategic & International Stu
April 10, 2006

A Machine to Make a Future : Biotech Chronicles
Paul Rabinow, Talia Dan-Cohen
April 7, 2006

Dynamic Models in Biology
Stephen P. Ellner, John Guckenheimer
March 31, 2006

Information Science
David G. Luenberger
February 15, 2006

Information Revolution : Using the Information Evolution Model to Grow Your Business
Jim Davis, Gloria E. Miller, Allan Russell
January 9, 2006

Managing in the Next Society
Peter F. Drucker
July 24, 2002

The Long Tail : Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
Chris Anderson
July 11, 2006

A New Kind of Science
Stephen Wolfram
May 14, 2002

The Second Cycle: Winning the War Against Bureaucracy
Lars Kolind
April 24, 2006

Competing on the Edge : Strategy as Structured Chaos
Shona L. Brown, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
April 15, 1998

The Innovation Killer: How What We Know Limits What We Can Imagine... And What Smart Companies Are Doing About It
Cynthia Barton Rabe
June 30, 2006

A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age
Daniel H. Pink
March 24, 2005

Schumpeter on the Economics of Innovation And the Development of Capitalism
Arnold Heertje, Jan Middendorp
March 24, 2006

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape
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Choice and Consequence
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April 4, 2006

Micromotives and Macrobehavior (Fels Lectures on Public Policy Analysis)
Thomas C. Schelling
October 23, 1978

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages
Carlota Perez
April 23, 2003

Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics: Selected Essays
Giovanni Dosi
September 23, 2001

Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction (Graz Schumpeter Lectures, 1)
J. Metcalfe
January 28, 1998

Knowledge, Institutions and Evolution in Economics (The Graz Schumpeter Lectures)
Brian Loasby
September 23, 2002

Schumpeter and the Endogeneity of Technology : Some American Perspectives
N. Rosenberg
June 23, 2000

Joseph Alois Schumpeter
Wolfgang F. Stolper
August 8, 1994

Democracy, Education, and Equality: Graz-Schumpeter Lectures (Econometric Society Monographs)
John E. Roemer
January 9, 2006

Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries
David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu, Richard Schmalensee
October 1, 2006

Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
Matthew R. Simmons
June 10, 2005

iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
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September 25, 2006

Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win
William C. Taylor, Polly G. LaBarre
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America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
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September 16, 2006

Power, Speed, and Form: Engineers and the Making of the Twentieth Century
David P. Billington, David P. Billington Jr.
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Painting outside the Lines: Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art
David W. Galenson
January 18, 2002

Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity
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Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
Milton Friedman
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The Road to Serfdom Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman
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The Constitution of Liberty
F. A. Hayek
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Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order
F. A. Hayek
February 15, 1978

Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice
F. A. Hayek
October 15, 1978

Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 3: The Political Order of a Free People
F. A. Hayek
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Individualism and Economic Order
F. A. Hayek
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Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
Milton Friedman
November 15, 2002

Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman
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A New Kind of Science
Stephen Wolfram
May 14, 2002

The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind
Marvin Minsky
November 7, 2006

Organizations,
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Lectures on Economic Growth
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February 15, 2002

The Attention Economy : Understanding the New Currency of Business
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Change or Die: How to Transform Your Organization from the Inside Out
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Monday, December 04, 2006

Writing as an art form.

I enjoyed writing what I have called the final research report, it tops out at a little over 23,000 words and is the culmination of many of the ideas and issues regarding the oil and gas industry. One thing that I have learned, and enjoy about the skill of writing, is that generally the author does not know what he / she is writing about until such time as the work is completed in their mind, and they sit down and read it from cover to cover, literally for the first time.

I have experienced this phenomenon before in my writing. I thoroughly enjoy the final reading as there is some almost secret point that has been hidden deep in the subconscious that is being said in the words. I know I will be the first to see what that is, and it will be I who will be the most excited to discover it. This proposal did not disappoint.

The idea that came to the forefront is the copyright itself, and specifically, its application in what would be considered a unique way. The copyright has become a major sticking point with the industry and is deemed by myself to be of extremely high value. The point about ideas is that good ideas take an immense amount of intellectual effort to complete. The copyright is a monopoly granted to the writer for the lifetime of the writer + 70 years after death.

The point that I understood from my writing about the copyright is this. The copyright is far more valuable to industry then it is to me. My desire to keep it in tact and close care of it is also in the best interests of the industry. Why, for 2 reasons for sure, and their may be more, however, what I've learned in the development and writing of this proposal are these:

  1. The level of technical risk that is inherent in these developments is high.
  2. To focus the attention of the industry on the project owned by the copyright holder.
To expand on these concepts a little further, this copyright helps to focus the energy industries efforts on these software developments. For them to spend any money and resources on a pirated software venture would be wasteful and still born from the word go. Companies are not in the business of taking risks and the risks associated with sponsoring a pirated software venture are 100% in this instance.

Therefore industry is left with their resources being pooled to address, and mitigate the technical risks associated with these software developments. A handy benefit for the industry. From my point of view, I have done the industry a big favour by consolidating this intellectual property in one location. I doubt they will share in this opinion, however, it is time to start working together to solve these problems and building these solutions. I hope that they see this too.

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