10 Things to know when pitching to a VC

Being that we are developing a community of people that are in business, it is not unreasonable that the community based user, developer or project manager comes up with their own innovative way of providing services to the producers. I see this as a very likely occurrence. Many people may have a shortage of financial resources necessary to launch their service oriented enterprise. Acquiring financial resources and pitching to investors may be something that they are not familiar with.

Clicking on the title of this entry will take you to a TED conference video of David S. Rose. In this presentation he shows exactly what is needed to make a presentation to a Venture Capitalist.

First things first, your pitching people, your character, drive and enthusiasm.

Ten must haves in your presentation.

These 10 things should be presented in as little as one half hour, or ideally 18 minutes which is the length of people's attention.

1. Integrity
2. Passion
3. Experience
4. Knowledge
5. Skill
6. Leadership
7. Commitment
8. Vision
9. Realism
10. Coach-ability 
    

Your presentation style.

Do the following

Logical progression. In terms of time don't skip or return to different points. State the things you know or understand and provide validation that people can confirm. What's the upside if the venture capitalist invests. Make the assumption believable.

Avoid the following

Don't state things the VC knows are not true. Cover off each assumption with facts. Don't try to impress them with things you don't understand. Things that make the VC think. Keep the presentation rolling by answering the obvious questions for them. Avoid any internal inconsistencies, label facts so that they are clearly identifiable. Typos, errors or unpreparedness.

Things to put in the presentation.

1. Company logo
2. Business overview
3. Management team
4. Market
5. Product
6. Business Model
7. Strategic relationships
8. Competition
9. Barriers to entry
10. Financial overview
11. Use of proceeds.
12. Capital and Valuation
13. Then leave the presentation running with just the company logo displayed.
    

Top five rules of presentation.

1. Software being used is always in presentation mode.
2. Always use a remote
3. Handouts are not presentations.
4. Don't read your speech
5. Never look at the screen.

I would add the following. When developing the presentation think of your audience and strive to maintain their interest. And on behalf of People, Ideas & Objects, best of luck, and most importantly have some fun.

Technorati Tags: People's User Funding Learning

Don't touch "Mark to Market".

One of the strongest institutions that we have available to us is the U.S. regulatory environment. This includes the SEC, FASB and others that define what the accounting requirements are for companies operating in the U.S. Those that suggest "Mark to Market" accounting has brought the credit crisis to our door are correct. It has seen past the sham that is financial capital and exposed it for the failed system that it is. Changing the accounting rules now will be the wrong action.

I'm not saying that there won't be changes to the accounting rules. In the future the systems will have to be rebuilt based on sound ideas and principles. To alleviate the pain that we feel today by making "Mark to Market" less onerous will only hurt the U.S. and other jurisdictions that rise from these ashes. Leave it alone and the systems will be able to build on the principles and ideas that exist or will exist, like "Mark to Market" accounting.

As noted in Reuters.

One of the reasons that the United States has so far suffered less real economic damage from the financial turmoil to date is because mark-to-market accounting has forced the banking system to take write-offs, pursue new private capital, reveal which banks are more stable than others, and force the issue of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Fair value accounting is today sending a very powerful market signal. It may also signal that the US financial sector is under capitalized and needs to shrink. Bankers of course want to deny that, but wishing does not make it so. And removing mark-to-market is just wishing.

Also as noted in the Peterson Institute and Emac's Stock Watch.

Technorati Tags: People's Market Measurement

That's going to hurt.

What a difference a day makes. This credit crunch is now in its last moments before total seizure. I hate to be the one to be the bearer of bad news, so I won't. This crisis is the biggest opportunity that mankind has ever faced. We are now moving at lightening speed from the total collapse of the old economy that we depend upon. To be replaced by the hugely productive economy based on Information & Communication Technologies.

What we are facing in the oil and gas industry is that all of our assumptions about the future are being turned up-side down. Companies such as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd will cease to exist in as little one year. The gas production and prices, and the oil production and prices as reflected in these articles are collapsing, on a temporary basis, slaughtering firms like CNRL's revenues. On the costs side, the ability to do anything operational in the short term will be impossible due to the lack of cash to pay people. These companies, like CNRL who have a Working Capital Deficiency of $3.2 billion, are toast. And if investors followed my advise they would have sold out of their positions and waited for the fire sale of oil and gas assets to start in earnest very soon.

The bureaucracy is dead, long live the producer.

That is if they had the systems necessary to organize themselves. And that is where "Innovation in Oil and Gas" comes into play. We need to rebuild the industry based on the Joint Operating Committee (JOC) and the Draft Specification. To do nothing on this front will reduce us to barbarians fighting over the littlest things. Without the systems to support organizations, people and society we will regress to barbarianism. I thought this was a good news entry? Well it is and I just want to reiterate an important point of what our actions need to be. Here is President George W. Bush's comments after singing the bail out on Friday.

In October 4, 2008 Sunday Herald the following comments were made. They resonate with essentially the same things that I am saying here about what will happen to the banking system in Europe. There article too is a positive one when you see their point of view.

While it is unlikely that we are going to see a return of the era of the Captain Mainwaring-style bank manager, the culture of spivvery, and high-pressure sales that has permeated most British banks will also certainly become a thing of the past.

In its place we are going to see a banking system that looks much more like the "utility" model which Britain had in the 1950s and 1960s. It will be a low-risk banking system, and one where the profits are going to be much lower than they were in the 1990s and the noughties. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's says that "the survivors are going to be those banks that have learned and applied the lessons to live with new realities, not those which hanker for a past that no longer exists".

Financial regulation is also going to be tightened up, as banks cannot be granted a liberal safety net by the taxpayer and expect to go back to the loosely regulated free-for-all that existed before. Ian Blackford, former managing director of Deutsche Bank and head of its Dutch equity business says: "Our political leaders now have a responsibility to put in place regulation that prevents this crisis ever happening again.

"There needs to be a far-reaching debate on how regulation should work and at what level. These are global problems and they require global solutions. Capital, after all, is mobile."

At a dinner in Edinburgh last Thursday Michael Howard, the former leader of the Conservative Party said that Britain needs to return bank supervision to the Bank of England, where it was housed prior to 1997.

In the long term, these sorts of changes are going to be hugely beneficial to both business and society. It will mean that rather than the abuse of customer relationships that has destroyed most people's trust in their banks, the banks will once again recognise that their main role is to serve their customers rather than to enrich themselves and their shareholders.

One London commuter said: "Outside the City bubble, many people are shocked to find that bankers, once serious folk you'd doff your cap to for a loan, are in fact bonus-fuelled casino operators. What a mess."

The writing is on the wall. We have work to do and that is to define the Preliminary Specification. As mentioned we are looking for 100 people to help identify this system. It is derivative of the Draft Specification and I have established reasonable deadlines for this work to be completed. Please understand as well that I will only be able, at best, to have 1 out of every 20 people who reply, through this process, to sign on. Nonetheless there will be significant opportunities for everyone as soon as the Preliminary Specification is completed. Please be patient. Help me raise the needed revenues for this project, and join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Change Pig Perez Specification

The Future of Capital.

Bruce Nussbaum who writes the "Innovation Design" blog for BusinessWeek has a fascinating article on the effects of the soon to completely collapse Wall Street. Entitled "Congress Readies to Vote on the Financial Package -- Get Ready for the Post-Wall Street World." Of which I encourage that type of thinking, I also recommend subscribing to his blog as it is always rich and strong with content. The starting paragraph of the current Rotman school magazine frames his point of view quite nicely.

BY THE DAWN OF THE 21ST CENTURY, a revolutionary change had taken hold in the realm of value creation: physical and financial assets were no longer the key factors of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, leading companies like Dell, GE and Procter & Gamble depended on superior human and knowledge assets for their competitive edge. p.3

I have, and always will, assert that Intellectual Property (IP) is the only thing of value in the new 21st Century Organization. Either you own or have access to IP, is something that should be the first order of building a "new" business offering in your chosen field and industry. This is why my attitude regarding the Wall Street problems is to let them fail. As Professor Carolta Perez says, financial capital has done its job. It built the Information & Communication Technologies, now product capital has to rise out of the ashes of the financial capital industry. Financial capital is a badly over built industry that is primarily redundant to the needs of the world. When you see the panic that is occurring and understand that productivity in the U.S. is up in the second quarter by 4.3% on an annual basis. You see the dichotomy of the world in which we live. The old is collapsing like the former Soviet Union, and the new economy is now big enough and strong enough to lift all boats.

I’ve said it before: business people don’t need to understand designers better; they need to be designers, designing organizations in which capital of all types wants to congregate. As evidenced by the work of our own Richard Florida, their role is not unlike that of the mayor of a great city, who creates an environment in which multifaceted communities can all agree on one thing: that they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. p.3

The entire magazine is devoted to these concepts. I highly recommend downloading the magazines from the Rotman school. As I read these three latest issues I may find more valuable information that I will post up on this blog.

Technorati Tags: People's IP Community Trends Innovation

Project Charter - Preliminary Specification

Based on the Draft Specification, this community will complete the following tasks in publishing the Preliminary Specification. Ideally the number of members of the community defining the Preliminary Specification should be up to 100 individuals. They will have a broad background in oil and gas in all professions, geographic regions and organizations, including service industry businesses.

The most important attribute of these people is they should be leaders in their field and well versed in the oil and gas industry. These People are accessing this work on the basis that their leadership skills will provide a sound Preliminary Specification, and develop a cornerstone of the "Community of Independent Service Providers" offering to the producers. They are expected to develop the Preliminary Specification on the basis where their cost of time is incurred on their behalf as an investment in defining and developing that service offering.

This investment by the leadership of "Community of Independent Service Providers" is the basis of the beginnings of these organizations. They will be able to provide users (upon approval) of their organizations to
this software and service offering. Where the People, Ideas & Objects and producer companies are their clients. The costs of Users in the Detailed and Final Specification will be fully funded before any work is started.

Establish deadlines for the Preliminary, Detailed and Final Specifications of the People, Ideas & Objects application modules. I propose the following on the basis that our $180,000 budget is raised through donations from producers. (Proposed time-lines.)

• Draft Specification                 Published August 1, 2008.
• Preliminary Specification        Publish May 31, 2009
• Detailed Specification            Publish November 30, 2009 (Commence Software Development)
  
• Final Specification.                Publish April 30, 2010

General overall task of the Preliminary Specification are to define the scope of the People, Ideas & Objects application modules.

• Geographic Scope.
• Minimum Scope: is established as North America and the North Sea.
  
• What other jurisdictions regulatory and compliance requirements fit within the minimum scope.
• Maximum
  Scope: is established as all jurisdictions that produce oil and gas and are willing to support their regulatory and compliance development costs for their jurisdiction.
• Scope of Functionality.
• What priorities and dependencies exist in bringing the application to market in its minimum form. (This is an iterative software development application.)
• What "scale" related issues will this application require in terms of
  
• Technology
  
• Architecture,
  
• User capability,
  
• Community development etc.
• Define in detail the functionality necessary for Release Candidate v 1.0.
• Organizational Requirements.
• Define how the People, Ideas & Objects communities are supported in their regions.
  
• What unique strengths and advantages does the firm and development provide.
• What are the weaknesses and threats of this development and firm.
• Define the expectations and demands of the producers in developing this application.
  
• Refine People, Ideas & Objects Business Model.
  
• Define roles and responsibilities of the Users in the development of this software.
  
• Who holds authority, whom reports to whom. What "hierarchy" is needed to organize the Users.
  
• Define the requirements in terms of policies and procedures of the "Community of Independent Service Providers" qualifications and capabilities necessary to support the software in the producer firm. 
• Process Definitions.
• Define and map all processes in draft.
  
• Algorithm Research.
• We have some algorithms in the modules that are state of the art. Particularly in the Accounting Voucher and Partnership Accounting.We need to establish a group that is focusing on those algorithms development. This Specification should detail the needs of that group.
  

Project Deliverables

This is a creative process in which these Users will be able to fill in areas where the Draft Specification has missing components. The Users are not limited in any fashion in terms of the numbers of modules and
the areas they need to develop.

Detailed tactical and strategic analysis supporting the commercialization of "Release Candidate 1.0".

Preliminary Unified Modeling Language (UML) based on analysis conducted. (Please note UML is also a deliverable in both the Detailed and Final Specifications. Users will have access to the Petroleum Producer Data Model (PPDM) operating on Sun Microsystems Project Hydrazine.

Please note I have purposely kept this Preliminary Specification detail as broad as I can. The People who are this community should exercise the judgment and authority necessary to further define the Preliminary Specification as they require. 

Technorati Tags: People's Algorithms Specification Development

A Community of Independent Service Providers.

With the preparation of this next years fiscal budget. I made the call to recruit 100 individuals to be involved in this first phase of development. These people will be involved in taking the Draft Specification and adding many of the necessary details for when the developers begin the job of the applications development. The deliverable will be the Preliminary Specification which will have rounded out many of the missing details in the Draft Specification and seek to provide creative solutions to the problems they discover.

Who are these people? They are the ones that are currently employed in the oil and gas industry, or have retired and have many years experience. They are the people that have worked for an oil and gas firm in all the different capacities and professions. Landman, accountants, geologists, engineers, field staff and many who were employed in the traditional energy service industry. People who understand and can articulate their point of view on the differences in using the JOC as the key organizational construct.

What exactly will they be doing. Building off the Draft Specification and taking it to the "Preliminary Specification" stage. This may include gathering the details of the various regulatory and compliance requirements of an application, working within the scope of the oil and gas marketplace as they define it. Adding their creative ideas of how an application should provide support to an oil and gas firm. I think it is only reasonable to establish a minimum scope of operations being North America and the maximum is any energy jurisdiction. The one advantage here is the Joint Operating Committee (JOC) is culturally systemic the world over.

These people will also be the critical first group that will join People, Ideas & Objects. What I expect is that they will be the first, or in on the ground floor of the opportunities that will develop for themselves and others. What I expect will happen is they will also be charged with developing the "Community of Independent Service Providers". Who will develop within their own businesses the service capabilities that will work with the software in the oil and gas firms. This first and foremost should be looked at as a business opportunity they can build in the new economy.

One hundred people sounds like a lot, and in many ways it is. However, they are all not going to be full-time. Recall as I have mentioned in the budget I expect this time to be invested by them in establishing their "Service Provider" operations. (In subsequent years work on the software will be fully compensated.) The broad diversity of the service offerings that have to be developed to augment the software is their domain of operation. By signing the license and registering with this community is how to get started. Recall all participants (users, developers, project managers and oil and gas investors) are entitled to leverage off this software applications intellectual property in their own service based offerings. The first 100 that participate in developing the Preliminary Specification will naturally have a significant head start in starting their service operations. People, Ideas & Objects provides the software and the developers, the Users provide the problems and our clients needs.

Where these people will be located is anywhere they are needed. Based on the scope that they decide they will be able to establish Service Providers in their region as they see fit. None of these licenses are exclusive, and therefore being first has substantial advantage. They are also the ones that will establish initial contact with the producers in preparing them to move to the system when it is operational. This marketing will be done jointly by People, Ideas & Objects and the Service Provider. We will be using some form of Salesforce.com applications to ensure that the oil and gas firms are managed by one Service Provider who will sub-contract the work for that oil and gas firm. I will reiterate, being first has substantial advantages.

When should they sign up? What's wrong with now? Follow the process as described here, please note that we need senior oil and gas individuals, this is not something I don't think anyone should attempt that does not have 10 years of oil and gas experience. Not to discourage anyone, but the detail in the Preliminary Specification will be somewhat high level but detailed, if that makes any sense. So please follow the process and sign up as soon as you can. In a lot of ways I think this opportunity fits the somewhat tech savvy early or soon to be retiree of the industry.

If I have not mentioned this next item on the blog before I would not be surprised. It is in the private wiki as one of the project policies. Users, Developers, Project Managers are compensated for their time, however, People, Ideas & Objects will only contract for 110 days out of each calendar year. The reason for this is to increase our scope of understanding of the industry by essentially doubling the number of people in the project. And ensuring that the individual is also actively engaged with the oil and gas firms through their Independent Service Offerings. Learning, anticipating their needs and guiding the developers in the development of the solution to those needs.

I have talked about the response that I have received from the oil and gas companies. I would certainly not wish this treatment on anyone else. Therefore I should state that all of the operations in the wiki and this work of the first 100 will be in complete confidence. Access to the wiki is through the People, Ideas & Objects account that will be provided. The communications are all encrypted in https. Therefore if you were to be using the wiki in your office your boss would never know. (Not that I would encourage that, but I would certainly endorse it.) The only way that your "boss" may find you are involved in this project is if s/he is a participant in this project. There is no need for anyone to be associated with this project and as such be affected by the companies apparent insistence that it not be built.

If you know of an investor in oil and gas that this project may appeal to. Please forward the URL to their attention and encourage them to commence the financial support of this project. And please, join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's User Proposal Call-to-Action

A new revenue stream.

In the back of my mind I have frequently thought there was a role in this software development project for governments. I have now determined that the reasoning for them to support this project is at least as strong as the argument I have made for the disgruntled oil and gas shareholder.

What's going to happen to the capital intensive oil and gas industry as a result of this credit crisis. Need I say more. It should be anticipated that many projects will be canceled as a result. Maybe even some voluntarily. I think in the first year or so the commodity prices will decline, not substantially from here, but remain depressed as a result of demand destruction. We know this does nothing to the reserve life index other then watch it decline further and further. Therefore I think by 2013 we may see the majority of the capital that was injected in the industry from credit and investors being replaced by the higher commodity prices that provide a reallocation of the financial resources for innovation.

To describe the routine that we will be going through in the next five years is not something that is positive. I hope that everyone can hang on to what they have, but these will be as difficult times, and may be much worse then the great depression. There is a purpose and reason for this pain, and it is so that we are motivated to move to a more efficient future. The quicker we get over the pain the better off we will be.

Why would this downturn be worse? Firstly it's more global then local. The Americans are showing the way, not because they are the worst off, but because they are always the first to see a problem and deal with it. Other countries in Europe, mostly, are in much worse shape then the States and yet, do not have the resilient character to pick themselves up as quickly. Those that profess the doom of the U.S. will be sadly mistaken by the events of the next five years. And how the events that come along will seem to favor the Americans, in which they will dominate the world marketplace for decades to come.

This is a failure of everyone and no one. The economic system that we depend upon is no longer efficient enough to feed and provide for the population. The basis of organizations, the hierarchy is unable to meet the demands of it. This is primarily as a result of its inability to change and innovate, and is a form of organization that is static. The auto industry can't change the cars they provide. The solution in the future will not involve a car. The energy industry can't meet demand for energy and the companies continue to see large declines in their reserves and production. These are the problems that are being represented in the credit crisis. Its an unsustainable way of life based on the way in which business operates. This is to a large extent the failure of bureaucracy, just as central planning was in the former Soviet Union.

In the 1700's Britain's population was around 6 million people. Life was terrible with mass hunger and overpopulation being the critical issues of the day. Professor Ludwig von Mises said the industrial revolution was the solution to world hunger and over population. Mechanical leverage from the industrial revolution provided Britain with the ability to grow to 24 million people and be very prosperous in the 1800's. It is this exact same situation we find ourselves in today. We have to re-organize and become far more efficient to feed and provide for the 6.7 billion of us. This will be done by the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) revolution.

Non the less, identifying this second stream of revenue may provide a large percentage of the capital necessary to meet our needs. In the Preliminary Research Report it was determined based on the Theory of Structuration of Anthony Giddens and Model of Structuration by Professor Wanda Orlikowski that software defines and supports the organization. The bureaucracies have, or will very soon, lose the ability to organize themselves and function. This is why we need to build this software and why the governments will need to financially support this project. 

After the collapse, if we are to attempt to resurrect the way that things have operated in the past. Then we will be unable to deal with our current difficulties and adjust. This adjustment will be fundamentally different then the previous five economic meltdowns. The last being the great depression. Today we are able to use the technologies to redefine the new organizations and ways that we are going to work. This isn't technology being implemented for technologies sake. This is now a necessity. We can regress completely to manual systems and live like barbarians, or build the systems that will define and support the organizations of our future. A simple choice.

This is where the second form of revenue is established in this software development project. Governments have a vested interest in ensuring their people are not harmed by this credit crisis. It is they who should act in concert with the previously identified disgruntled oil and gas investor. Both of whom are the direct beneficiaries of this application being built, and I am suggesting therefore they are two groups that share the responsibility of making this project real for oil and gas.

Now the government is certainly not only interested in the oil and gas industry. This principle will apply to all industries and in all walks of life. And that broader role is something that these governments should see quickly in terms of reducing the pain of the credit crisis.

So I am calling on the governments to work with the People in this project and provide some of the funding. This is the governments that have centers in their economy that are dependent on oil and gas, such as Alberta, and those that are part of a larger government, the Canadian, U.S. and other jurisdictions. The point I am trying to make is that some governments have a direct interest and some have an indirect interest in making this software available in the marketplace as soon as possible.

Ideally I would like to see the governments contribute the financial resources necessary to cover off the regulatory and royalty requirements of each jurisdiction represented in the application. I would also expect that the governments would provide an element of dollars that are necessary for the overall application.

Can everyone see how the hierarchy and its legacy continue for the next century? This is a time of renewal not of resurrecting dinosaurs. Getting in the car in the morning to drive to work is so unnecessary in the future. Does anyone expect these actions that are defined by using the bureaucracy should remain? I have provided a sound and workable vision of how the energy industry could function in the future. This is represented in the Draft Specification and consists of the eleven modules. Professor Carlota Perez states that the People need to know that the old ways can no longer sustain them before they will move to the new vision. That time is today, September 30, 2008 and this credit crisis will affect us for the next five years. We should move now.

If you know of someone that falls into either of our two primary revenue streams. Please send them the URL to this blog and the URL to this specific page and ask them to consider the role that software can take in making the "pain" that we will suffer less. And join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Perez Change Software Trends

It's not enough.

The bailout package being discussed in the U.S. is not enough to fix the system. Keep the $700 billion and use it to help build the "new" systems after the failures are purged from the landscape.

Attempting to refill the toilet bowl as it's flushed is, and always will be, futile. The systems supporting our economy are no longer adequate to meet the needs of our economies. The way they are structured is based on many of the principles established in the 1930's depression era. Have we learned anything about economics since then? Has Information & Communication Technologies developed since then? Let the failure occur.

If we read Professor Carlota Perez, who's analysis has shown this is a systemic economic event. That has happened consistently over the past 300 years. We should welcome this decline for the opportunities that it provides. This turning is as violent and disruptive for a reason. Organizations don't change from the old technologies that brought the economies along. They have to collapse in order for the new players and organizations to rise from the ashes.

The entire world economy will be going through the same problems. Europe is stuck in an economy that is static since Margaret Thatcher, and she was only able to bring Britain into the 20th century. With everyone falling, the economic leaders will remain the economic leaders in the next era.

The energy industry is not immune to these events. We have seen some high profile oil-sands projects canceled for one reason or another. I suggest financing is not available. And as I have suggested CNRL's Horizon project will be one of those eyesores that quietly rusts in the middle of nowhere. When credit systems fail, capital intensive industries such as oil and gas will feel it. What should someone who has worked in oil and gas do after they have been laid off from the oil and gas companies? They should join me here in making this software that will define how the new oil and gas industry is rebuilt. Unfortunately this is the only way that business can make the fundamental changes from era to era.

One thing that is systemic in all of Professor Perez writings is the scope and speed of the new environment that we are moving towards. Very quickly we will see the focus of people move away from the housing and consumer focus that brought the system down. They will now understand and appreciate that the greatest miss-allocation of capital (the past ten years) is over and they can begin building a new and more prosperous life from the ashes. It's time to invest in those businesses that will lead the world out of the old economy.

I noted earlier that the Financial Marketplace may have seemed a bit of a stretch in terms of the changes that were proposed in the Draft Specification. With the events of the last couple of months we see that the banking system is inadequate for our future needs. New regulations and technologies will be introduced into the system that will mirror the changes I have proposed in the Financial Marketplace module. Professor Milton Friedman has this to say about the "crisis" we find ourselves at the beginning of;

Only a crisis-actual or perceived-produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. Friedman 2002, Capital and Freedom.

This projects pace has slowed to a crawl. I am unable to move the project any further without the financial resources necessary to make this real. If there is any doubt in your mind as to the need for such a "radical" change, it should be put to rest by these recent events, and those that will be coming. If you know of someone in our revenue profile, an oil and gas investor disgruntled by the bureaucracy, send them the URL to this web log and encourage them to keep this project moving forward. And, join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Change Specification Trends Perez Friedman

Now that Russia has cut itself off from the rest of the world.

Click on the title of this entry to be taken to Bloomberg to view a series of guests discussing the Russian economy.

What happens to their oil and gas production? And more importantly for us, how will that production be replaced. With the lack of capital and a surplus of Kalashnikov's in Russia, I fully expect the Russian people's motivation is the most damaged from the KGB Leader, Vladimir Putin. Therefore it is reasonable to assume, that with no BP or Shell to pick up the slack, that Russian oil and gas production will enter an accelerated steep and possibly never ending decline.

Did Putin believe that the decline of the USSR was a mistake? Does he believe being the sole power of a small inconsequential country is better? Flying planes into Venezuela to be at the command of the little idiot Chavez only shows that Russia may be set for bigger surprises from Putin. These types of activities put Putin in the mad man category.

Russia being the largest energy producer, and its inevitable decline is our (the Wests) problem. This production needs to be replaced and we don't have a lot of time. Maybe we can approach the scale of this problem by using the old bureaucratic standby, but I think the clock is now ticking much faster. If we are going to approach this energy supply problem with the same old organizations throwing more money at it, count me out. I think we need to re-organize and approach the industry from the perspective that the Draft Specification provides.

From now on the problem with energy is that nothing gets better. The problem only grows in size as events take over the pricing of the commodity. The $50 slide in the price gave the consumer the "all clear" and I am certain they'll be back to consuming just as much as they did before. We need to act and the first act in this long and difficult road is to organize the people in ways that can maximize the production and minimize the consumption. These two objectives were forefront in my mind when I was writing the Draft Specification. It is not enough to increase the performance of the industry by 10 or 20 %. We need exponential increases in the performance of the industry. This can only happen by starting from a clean slate.

People, Ideas & Objects needs money. I am frustrated by the fact that I cannot move this project any further by myself. If you know of someone that fits our revenue profile, a disenchanted oil and gas investor who has had enough of the bureaucracy. If so, please pass the URL of this web log over to them and encourage them to commence the process of establishing our much needed revenue.

In systems development you can pick any two criteria out of three possibilities. The choices are cost, time and accuracy of the systems. I have selected time and accuracy as the two most important priorities for this application. The costs are going to be much higher then any of us would like, making my job particularly difficult. Please join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Failure Sponsors

Offshore drilling ban, banned!

If the political climate remains constant in the states, we can assume offshore drilling to survive the next administration. The American people want offshore drilling for oil and gas to fuel their economy. Add the necessary technical leap that is required to fully exploit the resource potential of the Pacific and Atlantic offshore. On top of the operating environment of the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic, heavy oil, unconventional gas. Makes North America the most demanding operating environment. Add to it the retirement of the brain trust of the industry, politics and environmental concerns and you have a sizable task ahead.

One of the key developments in the Preliminary Research Report was that systems define and support the organization. What's SAP's plan for the oil and gas industry? Whats their approach for the high energy cost era? Or do they see the industry as unchanged from the $25 / barrel era?

Its at this point where the first reaction will be to spend more money. I think that will be a mistake. Its a systems first world we live in. If we approach this opportunity with the same old bureaucracies, we're not going to get there. (Increased production volumes). Offshore drilling is expensive and I don't expect any increase in drilling for a number of years. The time lines for new offshore production is long, and we have the opportunity to build the systems that will enable a more innovative, science and engineering focused producer. An appropriate competitive advantage for a producer in this new era of oil and gas.

I propose we build this system to ensure the innovation that is possible gets implemented into the industry. As I have stated here before I believe this system could attain an exponential increase in the performance of the producer. Innovation and performance increases are what have been solved through this five year research project. Now its time to build. Please, join me here.

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