Our Solution Part XX

We have quickly gone through some of the highlights of the Preliminary Specification in this series called “Our Solution.” All of these blog posts can be aggregated by using the blog label PS-Solution. There are many other attributes of the Preliminary Specification. This list may best represent the attributes that I find are the most valuable to the oil and gas industry. The purpose in preparing this summary is to provide you with a better understanding of the Preliminary Specification and to encourage you to read the entire specification. I know it is rather long and people don't generally have an interest in the areas outside of their domain of knowledge. It is however somewhat necessary to get an understanding of the total specification to help you better understand how your domain fits within the bigger picture. At 175,000 words in the Preliminary Specification I know I am asking a lot however it will provide for a better user in the long run.

It may seem that we are several million light years away from becoming the manner in which the oil and gas industry operates. Now with annual report and annual general meeting season over. The ability to hold the bureaucrats accountable for their actions has once again ceased to be possible. Their window of opportunity to enjoy the cabin and count the value of their pensions provides a never ending level of satisfaction. This however does nothing for the profitability of the industry or deal with any of the issues that are certainly pressing. It is a “business as usual” situation in the oil and gas industry today. The looming financial disaster that the bureaucrats have engineered is well within sight of everyone in the industry. And their exit strategy from the industry at that time is well planned.

Therefore from our point of view this should be good news. However, I can't think of a more disastrous situation. The last time the bureaucracy cut and run, it was the government that had to step in to mitigate the situation. I personally think there is enough government involvement in business today, we don’t need more. When the bureaucracy does cut and run the capacities and capabilities of the industry will take a decided step downwards. This is not what we should have to experience. The bureaucracy should responsibly deal with their exit by putting their replacement in place and manage the industry until such time as they are not needed. Then again who said we live in a perfect world.

It is our responsibility therefore to be prepared to take over from the bureaucracy when they do decide to leave. We are working on having our budget provided to us in the January 2017 time frame. Until that time we are working on our key priority of developing the user community. It is the user communities development that is the difficult and time consuming element of our solution. It is also something that we can do without the benefit of our budget in place. I have therefore made it our priority in terms of our activities for the next number of years.

In terms of priority of your time and energy during this time. As a prospective user community participant. The understanding of the Preliminary Specification in its entirety, helps significantly in terms of understanding why some things need to be the way they are. Your understanding of how the user community fits within the industry, its role and significance. Particularly the power they hold in terms of change and enabling the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer. Also the user communities participant in terms of their role in the service providers that will be developed to provide the administrative and accounting services to the oil and gas producers. It is this model that is fundamentally different than what exists today. We will be changing the makeup of the industry and it is the user community that is at the heart of the industry. These are significant business opportunities for those that can see their way into the manner in which the industry will operate. Both as a user community participant and as a service provider. It is that these two roles are filled by the key individual who is the user community participant and the principle behind the service provider.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Status Update

As difficult as our task appears to be, we are making progress in terms of spreading our message throughout the North American oil and gas industry. People can see the Preliminary Specification and understand its logic. Most importantly they can see how they will be able to fit into the revised oil and gas industry. What is difficult for many people to appreciate is the scope and scale of change that we have to exercise to enable the Preliminary Specification, the user community and service providers. It is my opinion that the bureaucracy is a method of organization that has ceased to build value in all industries. It is why we are no longer growing. Just as the former Soviet Union found that their system of organization could no longer function, the bureaucrats need to understand that their days are numbered in this the 21st century.

It is our focus on developing the user community for the next 18 months. At which time we should be able to shift into the development of the Preliminary Specification. This assumes that we are successful in convincing “someone” to fund our budget and proceed with these developments. It may appear that we are a significant distance from having our budget funded, however, watch and learn. The real priority right now is the development of the user community as this enables us to lose nothing in terms of time. If we had our budget now, we would be doing the same things, developing the user community. It is the critical qualitative difference in our software offering and will be the method in which the oil and gas industry solves its issues.

Oil and natural gas prices have shown some strength in the past month. The bureaucrats are thinking all is well and they dodged the bullet, so to speak. Others outside of the industry may be thinking the same thing. Why then would it be necessary to conduct such radical surgery as implementing the Preliminary Specification if everything is on the road to renewal. To me commodity prices are displaying characteristics of a classic dead cat bounce. Last week the EIA announced that natural gas storage levels are 65% higher than they were last year. One look at the production profile of the United States and it is clear that the storage capacity for natural gas will be reached this summer / fall injection period. Taking 100 to 110 bcf per week of demand out of the market, suddenly, will cause the natural gas prices to take a further step downward on a semi-permanent basis. And as for oil, there is no good news anywhere that can support $60.00 prices.

What needs to happen is a method in which producers can allocate production based on profitability. Only the Preliminary Specification provides our decentralized production model. The bureaucrats are conflicted against themselves by having to produce everything they can to offset their overheads. To determine which properties are profitable is impossible for each and every producer on each and every property. They use estimates of what the overhead at the property is and these are based on best guesses from the 1960’s. The actual overhead of the producer is capitalized into the ballooning asset base. Therefore to determine the actual cost of a property, forget it. The only number they can provide is the gross margin. And as long as the gross margin is positive then they will produce. However, don't be surprised if, in the future, the margins do turn negative.

Hope springs eternal. So the saying goes. The alternative is that the bureaucrats face the reality that they have failed and begin dealing with the consequences. Not something that anyone wants to see. So we assume that things will be alright when the commodity prices rise to these levels. We need to extract our emotions from the work that we have ahead of us. And focus on the job that we need to do. A very difficult and hard type of work in building the Preliminary Specification, the user community and service providers. Alternatively we will see the continued failure of the industry leading to the breakdown of its capabilities and capacities. Who knows, we might have to go there before anything happens with People, Ideas & Objects budget being funded. And we're prepared for that too.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Our Solution Part XVI

“Plurality should not be assumed without necessity.” Occam's Razor which simply states that the simple solution is the right one. Those reading the Preliminary Specification may find the 175,000 words anything but a simple solution. However those with a sizable amount of oil and gas experience know that using the Joint Operating Committee in the manner that we are provides a very simple and elegant solution. It is the way that the industry is structured. Around partnerships that mitigate risk and enable the pooling of assets. The Joint Operating Committee is the organization that the industry operates under. Yet none of the ERP systems that exist today recognize this. They define what we call the corporate model. How does the corporation manage their compliance and governance requirements. SAP doesn't even know that partners exist! They work around this “anomaly” in their software. What is needed is an industry specific development of the software to meet the unique needs of the oil and gas producer, the Joint Operating Committee and the industry.

The need to have the software developed for these needs is only the beginning. The changes that occur within the business. The developments of concepts that will occur in a dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer need to be accommodated as well. That is why the People, Ideas & Objects software development capability is a permanent addition to the toolkit of the industry. Included within that toolkit is a user community and a number of service providers that not only define the software, but also run the industry administrative and accounting operations. It is under this basis that we are able to bring the Joint Operating Committee, the natural form of organization to the industry, and our business models to the producer. These businesses enable the dynamic, innovative and profitable producer to reap the benefits of our significant multi-trillion dollar value proposition. One that provides the producer with price maker strategies. That define the full cost of the exploration and production process in determining what those prices should be.

The next 25 years is going to be different for the industry. Investors may not be around to continue to “build” the industry. As a mature industry they may expect that they finally begin to see a return on their investment. The chronic overproduction and bloated balance sheets that the bureaucracy are providing today don’t impress anyone in the investment community. Debt or equity investors. They can see the performance of the industry over the past fifteen years and know they would have been better off investing in just the commodity. The bureaucracy provides no value increase beyond the increase in the commodity prices. And I would argue that they have destroyed significant capital in the past fifteen years. A business model that provides no upside over the commodity price increase is not a business. Its a failure that is complete in every sense of the word.

And there is nothing being discussed from the bureaucrats in regards to the size and scope of the problems that they are dealing with. Absolutely nothing. The only issue they are concerned with is getting through the annual report and annual general meeting season so that they can resume their personal plans of planning their retirement. They know they sit on top of a failed state and will do nothing to fix it. Their plan is to escape when the troubles become too obvious and too difficult to hide. Leaving the industry in even worse condition than what they are currently managing it to be in. This is not their concern because no one will be able to state specifically that it is their fault. They were just bureaucrats.

Some might ask if shale reservoirs are financially viable? Not in the current business model, managed by the bureaucrats. And bureaucracies don’t change. We offer a business model and form of management that deals with the nuances of shale and makes it viable. Shale is a necessity. With 55% of the natural gas production now coming from shale. And a large percentage of oil coming from shale. There is no turning back now. That however doesn't mean that we have to produce shale at a loss.

The number of times that I have been told that what we are doing can't be done is probably historic at this point. Our current “impossible-to-do” is harnessing enough disgruntled oil and gas investors to start with the funding of our budget. It might work, or we might figure out a better way to raise our budget. One way or the other we'll get our budget funded. What I do know is there is a problem that exists in the industry and I think the Preliminary Specification and decentralized production model is the solution.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Career Risk for the User

Members of our user community have exposure to significant career risk as a result of being associated with People, Ideas & Objects. The bureaucrats have identified this project as being counter to their best interests. That is because we are working diligently to remove the bureaucrats from the landscape in the oil and gas industry. Therefore anyone who would be clearly identified as being associated with this project would be subject to the same warm and fuzzy feeling that I get each day from our good friends. Therefore the people who are associated with this project are kept confidential and are not exposed for any reason. Their career risk is significant and not something that can be mitigated. The bureaucrats, like elephants, have long memories.

This is also the key reason that our budget needs to be funded in its entirety. No one is going to commit to the level of career risk necessary to make this project viable without a viable going concern in which to move to. Since the only way that People, Ideas & Objects can be a viable going concern is to have the software developed, the user community developed and the service providers organized. The budget to bring those resources into being is necessary before we will be able to solicit the numbers and quality of user community participation to make this project a viable going concern. Classic issue in a modern manifestation.

To expect that people would volunteer for a project such as this is something that the bureaucrats would expect. They sit on a primary industry where the revenues are generated from oil and gas. And look down their nose at everyone of the tertiary industries that depend on the oil and gas industry for their revenues. What the producers need to begin to realize is that the ability for them to generate the oil and gas revenues depends on the members of the tertiary industries. Their behavior of turning on and off the tertiary industries revenue stream when oil and gas prices are up or down is a detriment to their own best interests. When prices were high they complained bitterly that the service industry was lazy and too expensive. Now with the prices being low they can't cut the flow of funds to the service industry fast enough. What will be the bureaucrats complaint next time oil and gas prices are high and people don’t want to work in the cyclical oil and gas industry? You really do reap what you sow.

The bureaucrats also have the attention span of the current quarter’s financial performance. Our project unfortunately spans a few of those quarters and therefore will be subject to the wandering minds of the bureaucrats. If we proceed on a pay as you go basis, once we are in full software development mode, the bureaucrats attention will no doubt turn to other “more pressing issues” and cut the funding to this development. Our ability to recover from a funding cut and resume developments would never exist. Its different when you have a physical asset like a drilling rig as the asset that you can idle for a few months. Our asset is our user community and software developers. Their Intellectual Property. Once this is stalled, it can not be restarted in my opinion. Therefore we must have the entire budget funded before their is any development work done.

The point about the boom / bust cycle and its impact on the service industry is something that we address in the Resource Marketplace module of the Preliminary Specification. There has to be a means in which the service industry can rely on the oil and gas industry to fund them. This method of turning off and on the taps is causing too many difficulties in terms of the service industries ability and capabilities that the oil and gas producers need. A dynamic, profitable and innovative producer needs to have the service industry innovating at the speed at which they are innovating. It doesn’t help to come up with the next great earth science innovation when all the rigs are idled, or, when all the rigs are contracted and you can't find a qualified crew. Tomorrow we will discuss the Resource Marketplace module in more detail in our “Our Solution” series.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Our Solution Part X

People, Ideas & Objects service providers are the sub-industry that we are developing in our ecosystem that will provide for the oil and gas producers administrative and accounting functions. These will be in replacement to the internal capabilities that the producer has currently developed. Making the change from a reliance on these internal capabilities to a reliance on an industry wide administrative and accounting capability. As we have mentioned this is a key element in our ability to provide the value proposition that we are able to provide the industry. And it should be noted here that the scope and scale of the processes that are managed by the service providers would include those that fall under accounting, land, production and exploration administration domains. Some have argued that this would never work. That the broad scope and scale across the industry would be too difficult to undertake. I would point to our value proposition is well within the trillions of dollars and that the service providers have as their competitive advantages several tools that are not otherwise available to the current producers.

Take for instance the principle of specialization. Most producers do not have the scale in terms of their processes management that can use this principle in their organization. What may be required is a production accountant for the new property and the work required by that property would total 1200 man hours per year. You would naturally assign that work to one individual and there would be no means in which you would be able to apply specialization to any of those processes involved in the position. Whereas with the service providers, we can take each element of a producers accounting and administration and strip it down to the basic elements and design them to be managed by one specific service provider. That service provider will then staff that process in the manner that provides the most effective and efficient means of processing the industries transactions and data. The service provider isn't manually processing these transactions and data, they are applying the most advanced management sciences to reduce the costs and increase the quality of the information that they provide. Specialization and the division of labor are the two principles that are responsible for all of the economic growth that we have experienced in the past 250 years. Constraining ourselves by using just the capabilities of the producer provides us with no capacity to improve the performance of the administrative and accounting capabilities. By establishing the service providers we are able to apply the principles of specialization and the division of labor to the administrative and accounting processes. And in so doing, increase the throughput of the industry.

Currently computers are used within the oil and gas producer to assist in the management of the processes that they are responsible for. Up to this point in time they have been of great assistance in helping people to do their work. However, they have never really been able to have an impact on the productivity of the people that are employed in the industry. In many ways the people who are working in the industry are doing the same things that were done in the industry in the 1960’s and 1970’s. To make any changes requires a wholesale investment of time and money, like what People, Ideas & Objects budget requirements dictate, in order to achieve the differences that are required. These investments in software development and process definition have been too expensive for one producer firm to undertake on their own. There has also never been an initiative that undertakes to raise the funds and organize these developments across the industry until People, Ideas & Objects has. The service provider who works to enhance the process they manage with specialization and the division of labor. Who also has the software development capabilities, and user community of People, Ideas & Objects permanently available to them. Has a new and robust environment in which to conduct the constant development of their processes.

It is harder for me to see how the industry continues on in the fashion that it is. The ability to develop software for each producer's individual administrative and accounting capabilities has quite obviously failed. As there is no one who is successful in the business. There are limited scope and scale applications available to the producer firms, however none that provide an overall vision or value proposition such as People, Ideas & objects. What is expected from the existing software developers is that producers will cobble together the works of several independent software developers in order to cover off a reasonable amount of the scope of the producer. So that it is impossible for People, Ideas & Objects, given our budget and value proposition, to put together the process management of the industry with the help of our user community and our service providers. However, it is expected that each producer does this within their own shop with their limited budgets, out of applications that have no shared vision or value proposition. It sounds to me that the arguments that are against People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers are coming from bureaucrats who are defending their own turf! Not some reasoned explanation as to why our solution won't work.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Why We Need All of our Budget

People, Ideas & Objects has a big job to do which provides significant value to everyone involved in the oil and gas industry. It is as a result of our value proposition that our expectations might seem a bit odd. And as a result they can be taken out of context quite easily. One of these expectations is in regards to our budget and the expectation that it will be fully funded before any work is undertaken. The reason for this is detailed in this post and is as with all things with People, Ideas & Objects, related to our users.

Clearly we have a powerful bureaucracy who are well aware of this project and have chosen not to support it. This can be assumed to continue and that steps will be taken against People, Ideas & Objects and those that willfully participate in either the user community or the future service providers. Protection for these people during the critical period in which they are exposed to the antics of the bureaucracy must be provided. That protection is the assurance that during the transition period that we are building the systems. The revenues they will need to make this software and establish their organizations for the future oil and gas industry. Will be there in the form of the user community fees paid by People, Ideas & Objects during development.

There is significant career risk to those individuals who chose to decide to join the user community and service providers. The bureaucrats will list these people on their “do not hire” list that is shared amongst the bureaucrats at their lair. This will be a permanent change in the users life, there will be no going back to the old ways. However, people who are making the commitment to the industry in the long run. Who are tired of the losing ways of the industry. And chose to join People, Ideas & Objects. Those that are committed to providing the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Why are they required to take any financial risk in the transition of the industry in order to provide the industry with the $5.7 trillion value proposition?

They aren't being asked to do that and they won't be asked to do that. They will have the financial resources necessary to leave their place of employment in the industry and participate in the user community, and seek to establish a service provider firm for the future of the industry. This will be done on the basis of the work that they do for the user community, the People, Ideas & Objects developers, and will be well compensated for out of the budget of $667 million for user community participation.

If we think that the industry will fund the development of the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification, user community and service providers on an annual go forward basis. This would be a foolish approach to take with the likes of the bureaucracy lurking in the shadows waiting to poach responsibility for that annual payment. They would most certainly come up with some reason to terminate the funding, or cut the funding, or tie the funding up in some way. I could go on but I’m sure that it is understood that they would try to do something. It is therefore incumbent upon us to ensure that our users and service providers are protected, and the overall viability of this project meets its successful conclusion. Having all of the funds at the beginning of this process is what is required to deal with the personal risks of the user community participants and the inability of putting this project back to together again if there were a temporary disruption. We must begin, continue without disruption and successfully build without the disruptive influence of the bureaucracy. They have shown themselves to be untrustworthy and unreliable. And that is how this unreasonable and odd expectation of having our budget fully funded has been developed.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative, profitable and successful means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Why is Our Budget so Large

In a world where there’s a $3.99 app for that. It seems odd that People, Ideas & Objects needs such a large budget in order to build the Preliminary Specification. Why not just an app on a phone and be done with it. If that were the case you would have the choice of 3 or 4 apps to choose from already. The difficulty is in the level of change that we introduce into the industry. The impact of that change and how it affects the people that work within the industry. The wholesale changes that we are making to the producer firm and the industry. And the need for these changes to be made in order for industry to function profitably in the future. This requires the level of commitment in terms of the financial resources detailed in our budget. However, this commitment is supported by the value proposition that is realized once we make these changes.

The change dynamic that we introduce is that the Preliminary Specification identifies and supports the industry standard Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer. When we do this within our system, everything within the industry is affected by this change. Not one element of the producer or the industry is unaffected by moving from the current corporate model to the Joint Operating Committee. It therefore invokes the need for a complete review of all aspects, the interactions and systems that are used by the producer firm, service and oil & gas industries. People, Ideas & Objects becomes an operating system for the industry. That is a very appropriate description of what the Preliminary Specification does.

At the same time we are only moving the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy into alignment with the seven frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. This is the paperwork that consumes the bureaucracies time and energy today. Once we have attained this alignment within the People, Ideas & Objects software the producer and the industry will realize a speed, innovativeness, accountability and profitability over the current situation. It is those frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee that are the foundation of the industry and it those frameworks that none of the current ERP systems identify or support. It is the result of our research that we were able to determine “what” and “how” a producer and industry would operate, that People, Ideas & Objects can bring you this offering. This is the cornerstone of our Intellectual Property and available only here.

Others may be able to determine other ways in which to organize the producer firm and the oil and gas industry. If so they can spend the time and energy that I have spent in developing People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. This multi-decade investment will pay off when the industry funds the initial development costs through Intellectual Property royalties to myself, and corporate profits for the firm. These are the costs of business in the 21st century. These Intellectual Property costs are also contrary to what the industry has been willing to pay for in the past. However, they have a choice, to continue on with their losing ways or realize the value proposition that we offer by funding our budget.

Therefore it is change on a wholesale level throughout the industry and Intellectual Property which are the real costs that make our budget the high cost that it is. There is nothing that can be done about either element of these budget categories and I'm sure it will cause much discussion and pain for the bureaucrats to ever have to fund this. In the mean time we can just keep score with the amount of money they are losing, the loss in their market capitalization and their loss of hope for the future. Its important to remember that bureaucracies never change. It is impossible for them to do so. That is why we are appealing to the oil and gas investor to direct their producers to fund People, Ideas & Objects so that they can remove the bureaucracy and replace it with the Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Budgetary Changes

One of the things that I did during the time that I was off was I took a sharp pencil to the proposed organizational makeup of People, Ideas & Objects. To see if there was any way that we could make the organization perform better in the future to meet the needs of the user community and the oil and gas industry. What a difference. The question that I asked myself is if we were such big believers in cloud computing why were we not implementing these technologies within our own organization at every turn. To date we have implemented them and have benefited greatly from them. One look at our budget however and you can see that we took the mindset that was very typical of the 20th century bureaucrat. We had allocated $200 million to build our own cloud computing facility to host the People, Ideas & Objects application when it was complete. The question was, was this the appropriate direction?

This questioning also involved our software development environment. Many services are springing up that provide the horsepower necessary to host a software development environment that would meet the needs of a development environment that People, Ideas & Objects requires. What we would need is an excessive amount of computing power for those times in which we would build elements of the application. Oracle is now one of these firms offering these software development hosting services. This removes a significant amount of capital from our development budget but it also reduces our organizational overhead in many ways. We don't have to concern ourselves with the minutiae of keeping servers up and running and backing up everything as many times as possible. These services will be provided to us by using Oracle services. Providing us with lower costs, easier administration but most importantly the speed of our development team will be enhanced and our focus sharpened.

Offering our application in a cloud computing configuration to the dynamic, innovative and profitable oil and gas producer was always the consideration. Under the decentralized production model, when we move the administrative and accounting resources to the service providers, why would we leave the IT staff at the oil and gas producer? We wouldn’t. The point is instead of providing that service ourselves by buying Oracle hardware and running it ourselves, we will be purchasing Oracle cloud computing services to run our application on their servers and deliver our applications in that manner. The oil and gas producers won't know the difference. Other than the fact that Oracle will have sizably larger facilities and therefore much higher performance than what we would have been able to provide. We will save the $200 million in capital that we allocated to build the facility. Reduce our overhead and organizational complexity by the costs of maintaining that facility. And most importantly again pick up a factor of speed in which we are able to deliver our product to the marketplace, and sharpen our focus. We are not currently hardware experts. We were going to have to become hardware experts. Now we have Oracle, who are hardware experts, now we don't have to be hardware experts. Speed to deliver the application in terms of time of this type is an important point. We may have been able to deliver the world’s best application and failed to deliver it due to our inability to get the hardware right. This is a critical change in our makeup, our strategy, organization and time to deliver. It also reduces substantially our technical risk.

And look at that change in our budget. Some might think that reduces our budget by $400 million! And some would be wrong. I have reallocated these funds across the Oracle budget categories to enhance the work that they will be doing for us. This is in order to recognize the cost of the rental of the computer time for the cloud computing services of the development environment and application delivery. A $100 million boost to the Oracle Developers category to shore up the number of people we are able to access from the mother ship. And an overall loosening of the budget constraints of the other categories. What we are approaching in the oil and gas industry is unique and necessary. Our success is critical to the success of the profitable oil and gas producer. Our value proposition dictates that this money won't be missed. Therefore we are deploying it to the areas that will increase the probability of our success.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Budget Developments

It's now November 3, 2014 and we are two months away from recording our first of three years of user community development. It is at this time that I would assert that People, Ideas & Objects have established some credibility in terms that we are user community based software developments. It is our primary focus and will be until we have the community established to the point where we can rely on it to drive the developments of our Preliminary Specification. A difficult undertaking and one that I think is worthwhile in the history of the oil and gas industry. Establishment of the user community will enable us to build the kind of software that solves the current issues and opportunities in the industry. And take on the challenges in the future.

Today the user community has an opportunity within the oil and gas industry that needs to be resolved. It has been our plan that we would prepare, organize and present ourselves to the investors of this industry with an alternative means of organization of the oil and gas industry. That they could then choose to select either the current bureaucracy or, People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification, the user community and service providers as the alternative that they wanted to run the industry. That this decision would be made in January of 2017 and if we were chosen, then fund our budget at that time. That was and is the plan. Our commitment to the development of the user community will continue in the same manner that I had planned for 2015 as was the case before.

However, this issue with Opec pushing the oil prices down has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons, as they would say. Oil is no longer able to carry the losses in the natural gas side of the business and the producers are going to be showing even poorer financial performance than in the past few years. Producers stock market capitalizations have reflected significant losses in market value. Our appeal to the investors may never be as promising as they might be in the next six months.

Therefore we will be active in terms of our attempts to raise our budget within this time frame as well as maintain our focus on developing the user community. If there is a point where we are overloaded in terms of commitments we will defer to the user community developments as our priority. We are only chasing this opportunity to raise our budget for its timeliness. The issue of the bureaucracies performance will be well within the mindset of the investor in January 2017 as much as it might be in the next six months, maybe more. Time in terms of raising our budget is on our side. We cannot afford to waste any time in terms of the development of the user community. The ultimate delivery of our product, the user community, the service providers and solving the problem for the industry relies on our diligence in terms of developing the user community. By taking this opportunity to chase our budget might provide us with the opportunity to knock a year off our timeline by starting our developments in January 2016, IF we can develop the user community within that short of period of time.

Once again I see within our logs that we are beginning to have the success in the development of the user community. People are beginning the early part of the process of joining the user community by reviewing this blog and the wiki. Learning what they can about the ideas on how to run the industry in a better way. And beginning to think how they too can participate and improve upon it. I think this could be some of the most exciting work that has been undertaken in the industry. Putting the bureaucrats in the unemployment lines. And building a new and better way to operate the oil and gas industry.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Providing Choices to the Innovative and Profitable Producers

We see with yesterday’s blog post that the decentralized production model is so much more than just an operational strategy that deals with a producers production. It is an operating model that is a key part of the business model contained within the Preliminary Specification. Having the capabilities provided by the software that defines and supports these desired characteristics is what People, Ideas & Objects is building. We are also providing the user community and software development capabilities necessary for the innovative and profitable oil and gas producer to change these business models, if necessary, to deal with the issues and opportunities that will inevitably occur within the industry.

What is unique, and where the capabilities are derived from is the fact that the Preliminary Specification uses the industry standard Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative and profitable producer. By doing so we have moved the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy into alignment with the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. It is as a result of this alignment that the business, operational and decentralized production models are able to provide the value to the producer. It is through this alignment that we are able to offer our software that provides the speed, accountability, innovation and profitability over the corporate model that is currently employed in all of the producer firms today.

The Preliminary Specification comes at a substantial cost in terms of the effort on behalf of the oil and gas producers, and of course the financial resources of the producers. I’m sure our budget provides its share of shock value to those producers. I would point out two important points regarding our budget. First that there are a variety of cost effective software solutions on the market today. And that our value proposition is valued in the trillions of dollars when taken over the lifetime of the shale gas reserves. You have an interesting choice to make, I am selling an alternative that I think provides real value. There is a cost to that value. And I would suggest that today’s existing software solutions have a cost that hasn’t been clearly identified or understood by the producers that are using them. Software is of greater importance to our organizations than what the oil and gas industry currently considers. People, Ideas & Objects is working to change that understanding.

Others might want to approach the Preliminary Specification from a limited scope. If all of the benefit is gained from the decentralized production model, why not implement the necessary components of the decentralized production model. To that I suggest the reader read the Preliminary Specification, which they obviously haven’t. Using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative and profitable oil and gas producer changes everything within the industry. There is nothing that is untouched as a result of this change. We are moving towards the manner in which the industry operates naturally. No more contrived corporate model superimposed over the culture of the industries use of the Joint Operating Committee. It is the Joint Operating Committees and the fact that producers are working interest owners of those organizational units. This change to the Joint Operating Committee is the detail that demands the scope and scale of the Preliminary Specification.

There is value to the industry in proceeding with the development as proposed here by People, Ideas & Objects. We are going to continue on with the developments of the user community and particularly the leadership team up to January 2017. It will be at that time that we expect the investors and the oil and gas producers in the industry to support our budget and proceed with these developments. It is after all in their best interests.

The Preliminary Specification and user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Defining Who Our "Investors" Are

It would seem that it would be worthwhile during our discussion of leadership to take a step back and clarify and qualify who it is that we see are the “investors” that will be the ones that we turn too to support People, Ideas & Objects, the user community and the service providers. Our biggest issue in dealing with the oil and gas producers is that they are currently operated by the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy have made it clear in all of their actions that they will have nothing to do with People, Ideas & Objects. We are their worst nightmare and they know that to deal with us will be the ultimate end of their franchise. We don't do this on purpose, its purely as a result of implementing the technologies that we are that the bureaucracy is the odd man out. They are being disintermediated like they have been in so many other industries, and will be in all the others. It is with that understanding that we know not to cross one anothers path.

When you talk to a CEO or a CFO about the Preliminary Specification they quickly move to a supportive stance. It is there that they can see how they can operate their firm in a much easier and faster manner. When pressed for an expression of their support it becomes obvious of the power of the bureaucracy as the CEO or CFO back down in terms of their support for fear of a mutiny by the bureaucracy itself. The CEO and CFO have a ship to run, they can't run it without the bureaucrats who are operating it today. And so it is they back down and take the opposing side of the argument to ours.

It is however the CEO and CFO that I would count on as a key element of our “investor” class. These people will be the first to turn when the tide has changed and they will be the ones with the resources to make the commitments to People, Ideas & Objects, the user community and the service providers. It is also they who are the ones with the issues that are first and foremost in the industry. Whether that is natural gas prices or the resource restrictions in terms of the number of engineers and earth scientists. It is they who are the ones that are dealing with those issues and it is they who are the ones that will select the solution to the problem when the time has come.

The next cornerstone of our investor classification is the oil and gas investor. This individual, investment house, hedge fund or raider is of a size that they have established a material relationship with the oil and gas producers that they invest in. They are the ones that our competitive advantage of providing the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations will appeal to the most. That is their focus and that is their drive. Their concern is that the industry is not listening to the investor class and are occupied with stakeholders, that although should be of concern, are not material to the focus of the organization. These investors resonate with the Preliminary Specification and are not swayed by the concerns of the bureaucracy or its needs. It will be these people who assert the demands on the CEO and CFO to proceed with the developments of the Preliminary Specification when the time has come.

The last cornerstone of our investor classification is the people who work within the oil and gas producers themselves. And these may be people who are current members of the bureaucracy. As we stated yesterday, organizations don't change but people do, so we can only assume that bureaucrats can also change. Here we have people who are interested in a better way. Who see an opportunity to be a part of that better way by joining the user community and service providers. It is they as part of the investor classification who can invest their time and energy into that better way and develop a new means of earning a living from the oil and gas industry. All without ever having to leave it. The people are spending the time and energy on making the Preliminary Specification the system that it has the potential to be and in turn are draining the energy of the bureaucracy. No one really knows who they are or what their doing, other than in the long term, providing the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

So it is these three groups that make up our investor classification. Clearly we expect the money that supports the software developments and the user community to come from oil and gas production. Investment from the classic sources of investment funds is not what we are after. These are producer related issues, and producers incur the costs of ERP systems as a normal course of their business. Therefore the costs of these developments, the software and the user community, will need to be paid for out of the producers own revenue streams. Primarily at the direction and discretion of what we call our “investors.”

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

The Three Building Blocks

The power in which the industry is operated. That is who is running the show is currently held within the bureaucracy. That low pitched hum which is occasionally interrupted by the grinding of gears is the quiet droning on of our favorite people. If you want to make a change to the business model in which the industry operates? You'll have to talk to, well there is no one. And there is no way in which you can make any changes. It is what it is. You muddle along and hope for the best. The industry has always survived and will be around tomorrow, so just carry on. The problem is it isn’t working anymore. Now that may just be my biased opinion, but the industry has a problem with its profitability. And the bureaucracy has no answers.

What I have proposed is that we replace the bureaucracy and put in place the user community and People, Ideas & Objects. It will be this user community that will have the power to effect the changes to the business model that the industry operates on. What we have proposed is the Preliminary Specification and the decentralized production model as a start. The control of this business model will be in the hands of the user community. It is they who will have the power in the industry when the bureaucracy is removed from the landscape.

It is also the user community that the industry will turn to in order to have their changes made. They will be the ones to go to, unlike the bureaucracy who have no one. The user community will be able to take the industries input and effect the changes in the business model to accommodate the industries needs. That assumes of course that the industry and the specific producers participate in the user community. The user community is open to all within the industry, however, there are requirements of the participants.

The user community also has a budget. And not just any budget, a budget that is similar in its makeup to People, Ideas & Objects budget. Please review our Revenue Model for a better understanding as to the differences in our budgets makeup. In essence we are not blind sleepwalking agents of anyone who will feed us. The Revenue Model is based on the Intellectual Property of the Preliminary Specification which determines what is required in terms of software development, as dictated by the user community, and the user communities costs. It is those determining factors that set out the budget for both organizations and then determine what the fees will be for the producers to use the software. The software and user community that provides the producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

These three components make up the fundamental power that the user community has. Control of the business model, the key point of contact for changes, and their own budget based on its needs makes this user community not your grandfathers user community. With this power comes the associated responsibility of operating the industry. And providing the industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. One day the bureaucracy will be gone. They will either fail or just give up. Either way the industry will be looking for an alternative means in which to operate. I am proposing that we organize ourselves on this basis.

We have at this time selected the Oracle Fusion Applications and the complete Oracle stack of technologies as the technological base for our solution. We have a product vision contained within the Preliminary Specification. And now we have this user community vision in which to build the user community to operate the industry upon. I think we are a formidable alternative to the bureaucracy. We need to organize ourselves to make this opportunity real. The industry, I think, is in desperate need of a solution and the bureaucracy has no plans, hopes or prayers.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

Allocation of our Margins

One thing about being in the software business is the healthy nature of the margins that are realized. For example Microsoft Office earns 73% profit margins for Microsoft. That also assumes you are able to attain the point in your business that you actually earn any revenues. The real downside of the software business is that all of your costs, the actual cost of development, is conducted without the benefit of any revenues. So you have to incur the costs of development before you get to the point of earning any revenues. Such is the way of the software business. And with People, Ideas & Objects large scope and scale, and the small market for ERP systems that the oil and gas producers make up, we have implemented a Revenue Model that is fundamentally different than most software companies. That is, we are developing the software with revenues from the producers. As the scope and scale is beyond the capabilities of the investment community.

Nonetheless the lead times to get to the point where the revenues are realized are significant. We are planning to commence developments in 2019 and complete them in 2021. I started working on developing oil and gas systems in May of 1991 and signed my companies first comprehensive development agreement with Oracle in February of 1992. It is coming up to 23 years that I have had this vision of the Preliminary Specification rattling around in my brain. It represents a life’s work and a life’s investment. I don’t count the amount of money that I have invested in this software nightmare, but it is substantial. The point is I am either crazy or I'm right. And I am very satisfied with being crazy.

So it is to the margins of our budget. I have allocated a 25% Intellectual Property Royalty, or $500 million to 1 billion to myself, the owner of the copyright of all of this material. I know this will cause some backlash in the industry, you understand that I am satisfied with my position in life. Alternatively you can start with your own vision as I did in 1991 and enjoy the smooth and glorious ride that offers. Bureaucrats will hold this royalty out as a reason not to proceed. Denying the investors the almost $100 billion in annual opportunity costs that are lost by using their current business model.

There are additional profit margins of 25% totalling $500 million to 1 billion as well. These are the profits of the firm and are distributed as dividends to the shareholders. It is true that I control 100% of the firm and as a result these dividends will end up in my pocket. I provide oil and gas producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. This is a tangible difference in our business model. The question becomes how do I realize this value that I generate for the industry? The shares are worthless. Once the development is done the revenues will fall significantly and define a much smaller capitalization. Do I have to sell the company to realize the value that I earn? The methodology defined above is the means that I choose to monetize my efforts, and is commensurate with the value that I provide to the industry.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here. 

#Oracle Budget

We now turn to the Oracle end of our budget. Oracle plays a critical part in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Their Fusion Middleware and Fusion Applications are the foundation of the eleven module Preliminary Specification. We also use Oracle’s database, Java, hardware, services and solutions. One could suggest we are an Oracle shop. However with this level of commitment to these product categories we can secure Oracle’s commitment to provide the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

Lets start off with something tangible. Hardware is used by People, Ideas & Objects to run the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification in a cloud computing configuration. Oracle engineers their hardware to run their database and Java technologies at far faster speeds than the competition. Evaluating Oracle on a cost / performance basis is a slam dunk. No one can currently come close to the types of performance that Oracle is able to attain with their hardware and database. This is one of the premier reasons that we have selected Oracle. This is the reason that they are the dominant database technology in the world and will stay that way as long as Larry Ellison remains the head of the firm. Larry Ellison is the Steve Jobs of the corporate world, and Oracle is the Apple. We have therefore budgeted $100 to 200 million in hardware for providing the Preliminary Specification to the oil and gas industry on a cloud computing configuration. This amount of computing power is augmented with additional processing power. With a share of the $25 to 50 million in the services budget being allocated for the use of the Oracle Cloud service for any of our peak computing demand requirements.

The second budget allocation is $5 million for software. This number has no basis in its determination other than it is a best guess as to what the cost will be to acquire the software for the cloud configuration of Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications. There are individual user licenses that are also budgeted and noted below, this is for the one time acquisition costs of the software for development purposes.

There are a number of services that are offered by Oracle that can be accessed through this budget. I mentioned the cloud computing services. There are also Database Administrators, tuning and related services that fall outside of the development domain. These are collected and provided in this budget allocation of $25 to 50 million.

Then we come to the Oracle developers. It has been my experience that you can learn about Oracle technologies through experience, or you can hire their developers to implement that high level of knowledge for you. The ability to hire their developers provides you with the understanding of the technologies at a higher level. One that you would have eventually learned, at substantial cost. I choose the cheap way and have allocated a healthy budget for the inclusion of $150 to 350 million or 450 to 1050 man years of Oracle developers. Undertaking a large development such as People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification and using Oracle Fusion based products demands that we extensively use Oracle developers. They are, in a very significant way, an insurance policy for the oil and gas industry in terms of the overall deliverability of the project.

The last budgeted item is for user licenses during the development for the developers and the members of the user community. These user licenses are for development only. Additional charges will come into play for the runtime use of the application. And the user license charges at that time will be much larger as their will be large portions of the industry using the application, not just the user community and the developers. These licenses include the entire stack of database, Java, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Fusion Application licenses. These are budgeted at $3,700 per man year for a total of $9 to 18 million.

Oracle brings a unique character to the Preliminary Specification. I am pleased to be providing People, Ideas & Objects applications on their technology. When we add the user community to this we become ever so stronger. We are building an application for the 21st century and now is the time to get involved.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Developer Budget Category

We move on from the User Budget Categories to the Developer Budget Category. In many ways this is a far simpler budget in that it maps directly to the user budget. That is each hour of user community time is matched with one hour of developer time. So the allocation of the time of the developers will follow exactly that of the User Budget Categories that we have already spelled out. The costing of the developers is at the same rate of $185 U.S. as the user community. The main difference is that user community is a third party transaction with an independent business, and the payment to the developers is to salaried personnel. The $185 therefore also includes our overhead for office space, administration, computers, networks and software, etc.

We therefore have the same 1,000 to 2,000 man years of time, or $333 to 667 million budgeted for the developers for the term of the first commercial release. As we will see in the Oracle cost section we have additional developer time of 450 to 1050 man years of their developers joining the development. These are for a variety of reasons that we will discuss when we get to that budget category, however it is reasonable to assume that there will be some mixing and matching between the People, Ideas & Objects developers and Oracle developer categories in the user community.

We have two additional budget line items in the developer budget. The first is “Product Owner” which are positions that are part of the developer team. For the type of development we are conducting these people will represent the user community on the development team. They have broad authority and responsibility and can affect changes to the development. They are the user communities representative on the ground in the development team. They will be selected for their industry experience and knowledge of the specific nature of the module or characteristic of that specific development team. Therefore they will be speaking the same language as the user community. They will be senior in terms of their education and experience and understanding of the oil and gas industry. They will also understand the technology. We have budgeted for 25 product owners, one for each of the development teams. Each product owner is provided with support staff and a discretionary budget. The costs for the anticipated three year term of the initial development is therefore $33.6 million.

The second budgeted line item in the developer budget is for research. This is for oil and gas related research in terms of the work that has and will always be carried out by People, Ideas & Objects. We are a research and software development company. It is the ten years of research that we conducted into the use of the Joint Operating Committee that has brought us to the Preliminary Specification. It doesn’t stop here. As we mentioned yesterday the Preliminary Specification is a framework for solving problems. Expanding our research capabilities will help in providing some leadership and direction in terms of where the Preliminary Specification will need to move to solve future issues. We have therefore designated a budget of $10 million for the three year term of the development to provide for the addition of ten people. And therefore the total budget for the Development Budget Category is in the range of $375 to 710 million.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz

Review of the Decentralized Production Model

It has been a while since we reviewed the decentralized production model and I thought that a quick review for the new year would be timely. Our focus lately has been on the value that People, Ideas & Objects brings to its various stakeholders. With $667 million in development funds to the user community, tens of billions in revenues being established in the service provider sub-industry (this being through a reallocation of the G&A of the producers to the service providers), and the opportunity costs of $170 billion for 2013 and 2014 for the producers themselves. This value generation is the opportunity that is open to each of these communities as a result of implementing the decentralized production model of the Preliminary Specification.

Implementing the decentralized production model will be the first material operational solution that the Preliminary Specification has solved for the oil and gas industry. When we move the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy into alignment with the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, strategic and innovation frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. We achieve a speed, accountability, innovativeness and profitability within our producer organizations and Joint Operating Committees. We are also able to solve the operational issues of the industry. This is the value of the Preliminary Specification, the ability to solve problems. Moving the industry away from its muddling along strategy to that of an innovative, dynamic, proactive and profitable industry.

The decentralized production model starts by stripping the prototypical producer down to the C class executives, the earth science and engineering resources, some land and legal, and support staff. The rest of the producer is reallocated to service providers who are focused on a process or subprocess and are using the entire industry as their client base. These service providers are new organizations created as a result of implementing the Preliminary Specification. And are generally owned and operated by the people who are involved in the user community that defines the Preliminary Specification. The service providers form a sub-industry due to their size. With a revenue stream in the tens of billions of dollars, monies that were previously spent by the producers on General and Administrative expenses.

One of the key differences in the decentralized production model is that the service provider will be charging for their service to the individual Joint Operating Committees that originate the transactions. Whether that is for production, revenue or royalty accounting or any other administrative, accounting or overhead item. The service will be provided to the Joint Operating Committee where the production originated and that is where the service fee will be charged. None of the fees for any of the service providers will be charged to the producer firms, only to the Joint Operating Committees.

As a result when the property is shut-in due to low commodity prices, the field data or activity that triggers the service providers to conduct their services, and bill their fees, are not triggered. Therefore no work is undertaken for that property and no service fees from any of the service providers are sent to the Joint Operating Committee that was shut-in. As a result the producer who has an interest in the property saves the reserves for a time when the commodity prices will provide for a profit, incurs a null operation (no loss, and no profit), and removes the excess production from the commodity marketplace allowing for the markets to remain in balance.

The $170 billion opportunity costs calculated above are based on the producers removing 15% of the natural gas production from the marketplace. And in turn they achieve what they prescribe as market rates of $6.70 / mmbtu on average for the year. The decline in production is possible with the decentralized production model because there is a commensurate decline in the overhead that the producer will realize. If they cut 15% of their production they will cut 15% of their overhead costs. Their financials will appear consistent in any production profile as their overheads are now variable under the decentralized production model. For the service provider it may be that they are faced with a 15% decline in their revenues as a result of low natural gas prices. And this is something that they can budget for.

With over 200 years of natural gas reserves, rationing production based on profitability is the only reasonable methodology. That is what the decentralized production model provides the industry. Any producer who produces natural gas at a loss would be penalized in the capital markets for a lack of production discipline. The alternative is to muddle along for another 200 years.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz

Contingencies User Budget Category

We come to the final User Budget Category, that being Contingencies. We will incorporate an overall summary of the User Budget Category in this post as well. How quickly we have spent the $333 to 667 million that has been designated for the user community. 1,000 to 2,000 man years of effort is a sizeable effort, and I think this series shows what the user community can accomplish in terms of ERP systems in oil and gas. Building off of the vision of the Preliminary Specification and the Oracle Fusion Applications provide you with a good foundation that will enable you to achieve our objective of providing the oil and gas producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

The Contingency User Budget Category is set at 6% of the total funds, or $20 to 40 million, or 60 to 120 man years of effort. These funds can be used in any area where we have misallocated our resources and find the need for more. At 6% it is a small percentage of the total funds as I suspect that there may be some areas where there are funds that are left unspent. Those monies can be clawed back into this contingency fund and used to allocate to other areas where there are shortfalls.

There has never been a software development initiative like People, Ideas & Objects. Basing our project in the user community is the only way in which I will proceed. The complexity of the oil and gas business does not make for the traditional ERP systems fit. It is like trying to stick a square peg in a round hole. The industry is too unique to be subject to a standard package of one size fits all industries. The need for the user community to define the processes that it uses, and have the developers build the software based on that user definition is the only way that the user will have what they need to do their jobs appropriately.

What job, and what process have we left untouched in the Preliminary Specification. We are exercising wholesale changes everywhere and on everything in the industry, the service industry and creating the service provider sub-industry. The prototypical producer is changed and how people are engaged with them. It is this level of change that needs to be analyzed and designed by the user community with the resources in the User Budget Categories. It will be the users that determine the actual makeup and means of the industry when the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification goes live in the industry. And it will be the user community, who will also be represented in the service providers, who will be the ones that make the transition to this new vision, a lucrative and profitable career choice for themselves.

If you see yourself in this new configuration, taking on a different role in the industry. One in which your skills, experience, education or leadership can be of value in the user community. Where you can see yourself as the proprietor of a service provider. Providing a unique process management to the entire oil and gas industry. Where your team uses the most advanced tools and thinking to provide your clients with the highest quality services. Then now is the time to prepare and begin the process of building that future for yourself.

We have now started the second year of our ten year plan. A plan which sees the Preliminary Specification operational throughout the tenth year. Our objective for this year is to get the word out and get like minded people involved in this community. We are at the very beginning, but we also provide the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz

Earth Science & Engineering User Budget Category

The second last User Budget Category is the Engineering & Earth Science User Budget Category. We have allocated $20 to 40 million, or 60 to 120 man years of user community effort to this area. There will be some overlap from the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules in terms of budget synergies. However, I don't think there will be any other budgeted areas where there can be some joint development work undertaken.

This is a unique area for an ERP system to consider and one that we pay appropriate attention to. Using the Joint Operating Committee brings about an operations focus for all that are involved. That is also reflected in the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules of the Preliminary Specification. This operations focus brings the earth sciences and engineering into focus in the business of the oil and gas producers. It is therefore necessary that we allocate an appropriate amount of our budget to the earth science and engineering areas to ensure that we have included all of the necessary elements that a producer and Joint Operating Committee will need.

Our research produced the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules. They allow a producer to focus on the development and deployment of their scientific capabilities. And to conduct specific tasks such as moving the knowledge to where the decision rights are held. These elements arise more from the business side than they do from the science. I am not familiar with the science from the point of view of the processes that are used in the day to day use and development, outside of capabilities development and deployment. There are, I am certain, many things that I am unaware of that would build value in the People, Ideas & Objects application modules that engineers and geologists would immediately ask for. This budget is for the development of those items.

We are also not recreating the engineering or geological applications that exist in the marketplace today. We are looking to manage the processes that are prevalent within an oil and gas producer that can be more effectively managed in a user driven application. Recall that we have reorganized an oil and gas producer through the decentralized production model. Where the producer is a highly focused unit consisting of the C class executives, the earth science and engineering resources, some land and legal, and support staff. With the remainder of the resources being relocated into service providers. The manner in which these earth science and engineering resources operate will therefore have changed materially as a result. Both production and exploration administration are located in service providers. Therefore the processes that the producers will rely upon will need to be redefined, redeveloped and the software built.

For all intents and purposes the oil and gas producer has changed in material ways and we are unaware of how those affect the earth science and engineering resources of the producer firm. At the same time this area is fully one half of the critical competitive advantage of the producer. And we should be able to take this opportunity to move the processes of the producer firms and move them to a higher level of performance. These are the objectives of these User Budgets.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz

Accounting Firm User Budget Category

This next User Budget Category is interesting in that we are achieving many different objectives with the establishment of this user budget category. What we have done is allocated 17% of the User Budget, or $56 to 112 million to the Professional Accounting Firms. This would total 168 to 336 man years of effort. These are the firms that are responsible for the annual audits of the oil and gas firms for compliance to the SEC and other regulations.

The objective here is to have the accounting firms sign off on the People, Ideas & Objects systems in terms of their integrity on behalf of the oil and gas producers. This work is done in the normal course of an audit, however, with the establishment of People, Ideas & Objects there will be a sizeable burden that the producers will have to undertake in order to achieve this sign off. By inviting the accounting firms into the development process, and having the costs of the producers aggregated in the manner that we have, we can mitigate the total costs to the producers, achieve the sign off at an earlier time and achieve a compliant system in the process.

Allocating this workload across the accounting firms that are present in the U.S. and Canadian regions will make it possible for them to acquire the talent necessary for these purposes. No one firm will be asked to deal with this exclusively as that would slow the development work down. The need for these people to keep pace with the developers and the user community would be their responsibility and obligation. Our responsibility would be to implement their recommendations and achieve the sign off.

These funds have synergies with a variety of other pools of funds that are within other User Budget Categories. The Compliance & Governance module holds the coordination and application design roles over the compliance and governance of the producer and Joint Operating Committee in the Preliminary Specification. Its budget is somewhat small but we are looking at this as the overall check and balance of the Compliance & Governance module. Other funds are coming from the Compliance (Tax, Royalty, SEC) category which will be relying heavily on the work that has been done in the compliance areas of the SEC, royalties and tax regimes in publishing technical frameworks. Other miscellaneous resources have been allocated such as the development of royalties in the Partnership Accounting Module.

There are significant resources being allocated to compliance and governance in the Preliminary Specification. When you consider our application relies on Oracle Fusion Applications which have this area covered off well, we will provide the producer with an effective compliance and governance product. The service providers who will be providing the software and services to the producers will also be well versed in the ways that the application operates. This is due to the fact that they will be participants in the user community that are involved in these developments. Moving on after development to provide the software and services on the basis of the decentralized production model.

It is one of the indirect advantages of approaching the compliance and governance and using the accounting firms to sign off in this manner. And I do not wish to sound too derogatory here. By having the accounting firms provide the compliance and governance sign off. They preclude themselves from participating in the user community in any other capacity. Which also precludes them from any participation in the service provider community. Theirs is a unique service which is not dependent on the type of firm that they are auditing. They believe that they can take their people and move them into other areas, such as the opportunity that the service providers reflect, and build value. And with their brand and marketing dollars overcome the common sense of some of the producers. I know different, and I don't want them servicing the People, Ideas & Objects software and I don't want them pushing out the user community from the opportunity that the service provider marketplace provides them. Having the accounting firms conflicted in this regard will keep the service provider marketplace open to those with the experience and skills, and investment in the user community, to service the oil and gas producers and Joint Operating Committees.

The Preliminary Specification provides the oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz