Chandler on Organizational Capabilities

In a 1992 paper entitled "Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise" Professor Alfred D. Chandler's summaries his work. Through this blog's review of Chandler, it is hoped that we gain insight into the role of the organization in the economic development of Western based businesses. Chandler's paper certainly provides that understanding and I highly recommend reviewing it for your own benefit. There are two other references to note here today. Both are in direct contrast to the firms that are noted in Chandler's paper, and lastly we will reference Professor William Lazonick's conclusion in "The Chandlerian Corporation and the theory of innovative enterprise".

The first reference is that Fitch has revised it's outlook for Royal Dutch Shell to negative from stable. Putting their AA+ credit rating in doubt due to Shell's medium term cash flow projections. These projections assume that Shell will be able to increase their production by 600,000 barrels by 2014 and prices will average $60.00. If Shell were able to increase their production by 600,000 barrels per day and earn only $60.00 in terms of an oil price, why would Fitch put them on notice? To me there seems to be more to the story then what Fitch is stating. Possibly they don't see the 600,000 barrels per day as "possible". This downgrade of Royal Dutch Shell strikes me as odd, after all the firm is only carrying a 15.5% net debt to capital ratio. Are the analysts seeing more in terms of difficulty in the oil and gas industry?

The second article that I want to draw attention to is from John Hagel on his blog "Edge Perspectives". His commentary reflects how the future economic conditions will have fundamental changes in the ways that industries are organized. What is clearly stated as the competitive advantages of firms in the past 100 years are no longer present in his future perspective. A future perspective that is consistent with the Draft Specification's view of the oil and gas industry.

Although these three introductions appear at first to not have any relevance to one another, they are all saying the same thing. Chandler notes the past was developed at different times and with different technologies, today the oil and gas producers are having difficulty in times of robust commodity prices and the future as Hagel notes, is always uncertain.

While understandable, these efforts to read near-term indices also present very significant risks.  We continue to be seduced by near-term news, while losing any perspective on longer-term trends. These longer terms trends tell a very different story and suggest that we may be lulled into complacency by the short-term news of recovery.

and

There is absolutely no reason to believe that the long-term performance erosion will not continue.

Those two references of Hagel's are certainly in line with the long term perspective taken at People, Ideas & Objects. We have consistently highlighted the work of Professor Carlota Perez and the accuracy of her prescient analysis of the long wave economic developments. Hagel is stating clearly that today we are experiencing these forces and now is the time to shift our focus to them.

The Power of Pull suggests that we are going through a fundamental shift in the source of economic value creation.  In the past, economic value creation depended on proprietary knowledge stocks.  The challenge for any company was to acquire some proprietary knowledge, rigorously protect it to make sure no one else had access to it, and then as efficiently as possible extract the economic value from this proprietary knowledge stock for as long as possible.  As change accelerates and uncertainty grows, though, knowledge stocks depreciate at a more rapid rate.  In this kind of environment, the key to economic value creation shifts to the ability to participate in a growing number of diverse knowledge flows to more rapidly refresh our knowledge stocks.

The Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP) is exactly what he is talking about. Participation as an independent entrepreneur that develops and implements the "knowledge stocks" of the innovative oil and gas producer is what the CISP is about. These people will also be the ones that work closely with the People, Ideas & Objects developers to instill their knowledge into the tools they will use to define and support the innovative oil and gas producer.

The good news is that there is a pragmatic migration path that can move us from where we are today to where we need to be in a world of pull.  Small moves, smartly made, can in fact set big things in motion. To pursue this path, though, we will need a sense of direction, harness different forms of leverage and deploy platforms that can accelerate the pace of change.

These small moves could be made by following this process to join the CISP. In the past week we provided a comprehensive review of Professor William Lazonicks work on Chandler. I want to close this post with a reference from Lazonick's conclusion that shows these changes are inevitable. Inevitable to everyone but the bureaucracies that are resisting these changes.

In the 2000s, it can fairly be said that the Chandlerian corporation has ceased to exist. In historical retrospect, Alfred Chandler uncovered the dynamics of a historically-specific business model that drove the development of the world’s richest economy. The essence of capitalism is, however, as Schumpeter recognized, change. The work of Chandler has provided us with a deep understanding of the foundations of US economic power in the middle decades of the last century. His work does not provide us with a roadmap for understanding the business models that have become dominant in the first decades of the 21st century. There is a need for us, who seek to build on the Chandlerian legacy, to remain committed to the integration of theory and history. My claim is that, with its focus on strategic control, organizational integration, and financial commitment, “the theory of innovative enterprise” is a potent framework for analyzing the process of change. It is a framework that, through the integration of theory and history, can enable us to “catch up with history” so that we can analyze the present as an evolving reality before the present as history passes us by. p 29

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Lazonick on Chandler Part IV

Part IV of what has turned out to be a phenomenal paper, reviews Lazonick's "Part 3. Social Conditions of Innovative Enterprise" of "The Chandlerian Corporation and the theory of innovative enterprise". I indicated in an earlier post that the Joint Operating Committee and the application of the Draft Specification were consistent with Lazonick's Strategy, Organization and Finance; which make up his framework for "Social Conditions of the Innovative Enterprise". In this post I want to go into more detail as to how I see these three social conditions provide value for the investor / shareholder. Value in using the JOC through application of the People, Ideas & Objects Draft Specification and Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP).

Before we begin I want to make a quick note to highlight one attribute of the Draft Specification. In order to make the Draft Specification functional we needed to develop an alternative governance structure to replace the hierarchy. That is the Military Command & Control Metaphor (MCCM) used at the Joint Operating Committee to give the necessary structure for it to operate. Without this structure it would be difficult to implement any plans or to enable any actions. This MCCM replacement structure adopts a pooling of the resources available from the various producers represented at the JOC. This pooling of resources is further augmented by the objective (ie not affiliated with any one producer) and JOC focused pool of CISP that the JOC hires directly. All of these resources adopt a military styled command structure based on their education, experience, skills and the chain of command determined by the JOC representatives.

3. Social conditions of innovative enterprise

Lazonick provides in his social conditions a clarity in how the system is workable when strategy, organization and finance are aligned.

The theory of innovative enterprise provides a framework for analyzing the roles of strategy, organization, and finance in generating the competitive advantage of one firm over another within the same industry (see e.g., Carpenter et al., 2003; Lazonick and Prencipe, 2005; Lazonick, 2009a: ch. 2).... As I have shown in this work [for syntheses, see Lazonick (2003, 2004b, 2007)], the theory of innovative enterprise permits us to identify three social conditions that may support the transformation of strategy, organization, and finance into innovation across the industries and constituent enterprises that characterize the national economy. Even in the highly globalized world of the 21st century, the social conditions of innovative enterprise differ across nations characterized by distinctive economic institutions for governing the allocation of resources, employing labor, and financing investment. pp. 14 - 15

In the Preliminary Research Report it was noted financial interest at the JOC drove consensus and collaborative decision making. People, Ideas & Objects appeal is to the investor / shareholder in oil and gas. It is these individuals that we are attempting to provide an alternate organizational structure, the JOC supported by this software development capability and community, to manage their assets. I therefore see the participants who are sitting at the JOC the individuals that directly own the working interest or their designated proxy. With that in mind lets begin the review of Lazonick's social conditions of the innovative enterprise.

If the shareholder / investor is the one sitting at the JOC, representing their interests, based on the culture of the industry, they are endowed with the operational decision making authority for that property. These decision rights are critical to Lazonick's first social condition.

In the framework that I have developed, the social condition that can transform strategy into innovation is strategic control: a set of relations that gives decision-makers the power to allocate the firm’s resources to confront the technological, market, and competitive uncertainties that are inherent in the innovation process. For innovation to occur, those who occupy strategic decision-making positions must have both the abilities and incentives to allocate resources to innovative investment strategies. Their abilities to do so will depend on their knowledge of how the current innovative capabilities of the organization over which they exercise allocative control can be enhanced by strategic investments in new, typically complementary, capabilities. Their incentives to do so will depend on the alignment of their personal interests with the interests of the business organization in attaining and sustaining its competitive advantage. p. 15

In reading this I am struck by what Professor Carlota Perez said about "new" organizational constructs being "Common-Sense". Those with a reasonable understanding of oil and gas operations can see the nature of this ownership / control mechanism at work in the strategic control social condition. When a JOC is formed it is by agreement. Included within the agreement is an operating procedure with the means spelled out as to the decision making authority under the agreement for that JOC. Therefore the use of the JOC meets the first social condition necessary in Lazonick's framework.

This second social condition is not present in the oil and gas industry today. There is substantial conflict between the JOC and the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, which represents the operator, conducts all or most of the operations as if it were their own. The JOC is relegated to a few ceremonious meetings to make decisions based on the agreement in hand. It is then the bureaucracy that essentially implements the will of the JOC within its annual operations. There is no pooling of human resources and the non-operator is relegated to spectator status for the better part of the year. This situation can not be sustained when the operators are required to develop their internal capabilities to deal with all of the individual possibilities and contingencies within the areas they operate in. There are not enough engineers and geologists available to meet the needs of each producer building redundant silo's of capabilities that may or may not be required. The Resource Marketplace Module deals with breaking down these silo's and the development of the means to dynamically pool the resources of the producers represented in the JOC. These resources are further augmented by the CISP and the service industries to develop this dynamic capability.

The social condition that can transform organization into innovation is organizational integration: a set of relations that creates incentives for people to apply their skills and efforts to organizational objectives. The need for organizational integration derives from the developmental complexity of the innovation process—that is, the need for organizational learning—combined with the imperative to secure high levels of utilization of innovative investments if the high fixed costs of these developmental investments are to be transformed into low unit costs. Modes of compensation (in the forms of promotion, remuneration, and benefits) are important instruments for integrating individuals into the organization. To generate innovation, a mode of compensation cannot simply manage the labor market by attracting and retaining employees. It must be part of a reward system that manages the learning processes that are the essence of innovation; the compensation system must motivate employees as individuals to engage in collective learning. This collective learning, moreover,cumulates over time, thus necessitating the sustained commitment of financial resources to keep the learning organization intact. p. 15

The Financial Marketplace Module looks to move the financial structure of the industry away from supporting the corporate entity and moves it to directly support the JOC. This implies that, within reason, the property represented would source their bank debt from one bank for all producers. This could be extended to include each working interest owner securitizing the asset on an exchange. (Please see the Compliance & Governance Module for further information on this point.) The point being that strategy and finance need to be aligned. Producers at the JOC are currently conflicted by varying degrees of financial flexibility based on the size of the producer and its financial situation. The size of the producer has no bearing on the innovativeness at the JOC or its upside. A small producer may be more inclined to drag its feet if left to fund their commitments through general bank assignments on the corporation, whereas, the bank representing the JOC could be better positioned to mitigate its risks through a general assignment of the specific JOC.

The social condition that can transform finance into innovation is financial commitment: a set of relations that ensures the allocation of funds to sustain the cumulative innovation process until it generates financial returns. What is often called “patient” capital enables the capabilities that derive from collective learning to cumulate over time, notwithstanding the inherent uncertainty that the innovation process entails. Strategic control over internal revenues is a critical form of financial commitment, but such “inside capital” must often be supplemented by external sources of finance such as stock issues, bond issues, or bank debt that, in different times and places, may be more or less committed to sustaining the innovation process. pp. 15 - 16

Lazonick is talking about more then what the Financial Marketplace Module of the Draft Specification considers. The financing mechanisms are one of the key areas where additional value, flexibility and innovativeness can be generated from. But what Lazonick notes here as the social condition is the role of the CISP . These people are not affiliated with one individual supplier or one individual producer. They are independent as their name reflects. They have not been constrained by the Exxon or Schlumberger way. And I am not stating that those firms ways are wrong, the CISP is independent of that. Their focus is on the needs of the JOC and the ability to be innovative and support this software development capability as well as the JOC.

In yesterday's post I offered the "Velocity of Productivity" as a new concept to consider for the future. This is the domain of the CISP in terms of ensuring that the value of the industry, the JOC and the software development are all consistent with social conditions that Lazonick correctly asserts are necessary for Strategy, Organization and Finance to be in alignment.

Lastly as I indicated in the first part of this post the Military Command & Control Metaphor is a critical concept in making these "Social Conditions for the Innovative Enterprise" work. Without structure there will be failure. What is needed is a means to extend the structure of the JOC to include the producers represented, the CISP and the suppliers who make the industry function. The broadening of the scope outside of the current "operator-only" methodology is a necessity due to the resource constraints, particularly the engineering and earth science resources of an innovative oil and gas industry. What we need to do is introduce a different means of organization in order to expand the potential output of the oil and gas industry. The MCCM and Lazonicks "Framework for Social Conditions of the Innovative Enterprise" are the means to do that.

People, Ideas & Objects and the Community of Independent Service Providers need to see this financial commitment from the oil and gas investor and shareholder. We are offering a more effective manner in which to manage the oil and gas resources of the producer firm, and this effectiveness will not come about without the commitment's from these producers. Management have proven time and again that they will not fund these developments. There's is a situation that compromises the separation of management and ownership to the benefit of management. Why would they support an effective means of managing oil and gas assets.

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Velocity of Productivity

Velocity of productivity is an idea that came to me as a result of watching this YouTube video of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. As with many of the talks that he gives, this one provides some tangible ideas that can be built upon, I highly recommend watching the entire video, particularly the Q & A.



Of interest he notes the explosion in information has happened. During the beginning of time to 2003 Schmidt states 5 Exabytes of data were generated. In just the past seven years we are now producing 5 Exabytes every two days! This fact got me thinking about the type and pace of work that was being done in 2003. How in many ways it seems that the past seven years feels like several generations difference in terms of the scope of the changes. It seems we should ask ourselves how much more productive we are today in comparison to 2003? Once we ask that question, you begin to wonder how we will maintain our productivity growth in the future, or, how will we deal with the demand for increased productivity velocity.

Not only is the volume of productivity increasing, the work that we are doing is changing. Ideas and decisions are the two areas where computers are unable to affect any change. Making ideas and decisions the type of work that we can do effectively is the business of People, Ideas & Objects and the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP). I see the pace or velocity of ideas and decisions being the area that will now be influenced by the Information & Communications Technology Revolution (ICTR). Using the metrics of the information explosion, we can almost map the 200 fold increase in information directly to the volume of decisions that will be made in seven years. Therefore, however many decisions you make today, multiply it by 200 to get a feel for the number of decisions that will be made in seven years. Whether these assumptions are reasonable or not is not the point. Clearly what is in process today is the velocity of our productivity is accelerating on a logarithmic scale.

In the video Schmidt states the only constraint to doing his job as CEO is time zones. Noting that all CEO's should be operating at that level. It becomes obvious to me that if we accelerate our idea and decision making velocity, our only constraint are time zones. Spending time getting to the office in the morning to meet attendance requirements will be a destruction of up to 3 hours of our day. A day where the velocity of productivity does not afford this type of luxury to be expected of managers. When location is not a constraint, "what's an office" is maybe a question that should be asked.

Based on this slight diversion in thinking! I see the economy is responding to what Professor Carlota Perez has always maintained. The old economy ceases to be able to carry the weight of society, and the new economy is robust enough to carry the substantial weight of the old economy and much, much more. We see these factors in many of the technology companies earnings surprises and I expect the pull of a more robust and exciting ICTR based economy will begin to draw people into higher velocities of productivity.

I would like to invoke elements of the vision of the Draft Specification. Three of the modules, the Petroleum Lease, Resource and Financial "Marketplace" modules are using the marketplace as the metaphor for where people interact. The user vision involves the use of Avatars, both virtual and real, in which people can interact within those marketplaces. More information on these elements of the Draft Specification are available through the review of this blogs archives and our User Vision. Without this type of environment, purpose built for the oil and gas industry, our productivity velocity will not reach its full potential.

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Oracle Stack - Oracle Consulting

We continue on our review of the Oracle product and servicing offerings that will comprise the People, Ideas & Objects application offerings and infrastructure. This post deals with the services that Oracle Consulting provides, and as such we may need to access from time to time. The key point that I want to make in this post is the potential for conflict between the use of Oracle Consulting and services that are, or may be provided by members of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP).

People, Ideas & Objects strategy with regard to our use of Oracle Consulting services is of a critical nature. The need to establish the policy that if anything is in conflict between the use of Oracle Consulting and the CISP, the Oracle Consulting conflict will be removed. This policy is to establish the Community of Independent Service Providers as the key resource of People, Ideas & Objects. And as our review of Lazonick's paper "The Chandlerian corporation and the theory of innovative enterprise" has noted, the CISP are a critical resource of the innovative oil and gas producer. People, Ideas & Objects, of all the various communities should lead by example and respect the importance of developing this resource.

The one area that I foresee this conflict policy not having an effect is in the area of the Fusion Application stack itself. Our developers have the opportunity to leverage off of the work done by Oracle and this can only be done in a substantial way by engaging them directly through Oracle Consulting. The same can be said for the support of the hardware at our proposed Cloud Computing facility. Oracle, now with Sun hardware, are unique in providing service and support to their hardware and software offerings.

The area that I see the CISP providing the unique services is in the understanding of the user. This is carried forward by bringing that understanding in defined enhancements to the People, Ideas & Objects application modules. Defining the software and providing the services to support the innovative oil and gas producer. 

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Lazonick on Chandler Part IIIb

This is our third post from Lazonick's paper "The Chandlerian Corporation and the theory of innovative enterprise." In our past two blog posts we have learned some interesting things that are directly relevant to People, Ideas & Objects. In the first post we noted the three generic activities that require alignment; strategy, organization and finance. How the Draft Specification provides for these three activities. And the differences between two corporate strategies defined as "optimizers" and "innovators". Noting that Lazonick defines optimizers as non-innovators. In the second post we determined that the business of the oil and gas business required substantial investment to attain the necessary innovative strategic footing. How today the current bureaucracies are unwilling and incapable of making these investments. And that the investors / shareholders in oil and gas have the opportunity to form their own new and revised organizational ways and means around using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct, and the People, Ideas & Objects software development capability.

In the Preliminary Research Report it is noted that the higher commodity prices are a reallocation of the financial resources to support innovation. It is the product revenues from oil and gas sales that fuel the innovations. Financing of innovation through debt, equity or profits would be too costly and would generally be inadequate in terms of affecting the performance of the industry. A much larger source of funding is required to fuel the type of innovation that the oil and gas needs. Innovation is a profit generating activity. This fact becomes clearer in today's review of Lazonicks paper.

2. The theory of innovative enterprise cont

In the first quarter of 2010 People, Ideas & Objects attempted to fund its budget needs for the calendar year. As we are aware, the total sum of these activities generated $0.00. This in direct contrast to the 30 compelling reasons supporting why we should be funded. I have pointed to this funding failure as a fact that proves the bureaucracy will never fund these developments. The point is that this environment needs to be created and supported. As Schumpeter noted "innovation drives economic development."

The optimizing firm may calculate, on the basis of prior experience, the risk of a deterioration of current market conditions, but it has no way of contemplating, let alone calculating, the uncertainty of returns for conditions of supply and demand that, because innovation is involved, have yet to be created. The fact, moreover, that the optimizing firm will only finance investments for which an adequate return already exists creates an opportunity for the innovating firm to make innovative investments that, if successful, can enable it to out compete optimizing firms. Indeed, in the future optimizing firms may find that the cause of the “poor market conditions” that they face is not the result of an exogenous shift in the industry demand curve but rather the result of competition from innovating firms that have gained competitive advantage while their own managers happily optimized (as indeed the economics textbooks instructed them to do) subject given technological and market constraints. p. 9

Therefore I see the existence of two fundamentally different oil and gas industries for the next 10 years. Those that are optimizing and atrophying, and those that are innovating and growing. A key difference is the use of the People, Ideas & Objects software that supports and defines the innovative oil and gas producer. The critical role of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP) in enabling oil and gas innovation. And the direct investments in innovation that are needed.

An innovative strategy, with its fixed costs, results from the assessment by the firm’s strategic decision-makers of the quality and quantity of productive resources in which the firm must invest to develop higher quality processes and products than those previously available or that may be developed by competitors. It is this development of productive resources internal to the enterprise that creates the potential for an enterprise that pursues an innovative strategy to gain a sustained advantage over its competitors and emerge as dominant in its industry. p. 10

Lets be clear, the costs of these software developments are minuscule to the costs of developing the innovative oil and gas industry. The global oil and gas industry is currently a $3.8 trillion / year industry. I see a significant portion of those annual revenues being dedicated to the processes of innovation. A critical enabling resource within the industry will be the Community of Independent Service Providers, they are the ones that will have the skills and resources necessary to support the innovative oil and gas producer. They are how the energy industry evolves and matches or supports the innovations made at the producer level. Achieving the CISP's overall objective of providing their producer clients with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. What is needed for both the software and communities to develop is to have access to these financial resources.

Such development of productive resources, when successful, becomes embodied in products, processes, and people with superior productive capabilities than those that had previously existed. But the high fixed costs that such investments entail mean that in and of themselves these investments place the firm at a competitive disadvantage until such time that, by developing and utilizing these investments, it can transform the technologies and access the markets that can generate returns. An innovative strategy that can eventually enable the firm to develop superior productive capabilities may place that firm at a cost disadvantage because such strategies tend to entail higher fixed costs than the fixed costs incurred by rivals that choose to optimize subject to given constraints. p. 10

I can not for the life of me see the energy industry as it exists today changing to the one described in the previous quote. It isn't in their organizational DNA. The process of creative destruction, or as I have detailed the two oil and gas industries, one optimizing the other innovating, is the only means that change of this scale can take place. As the optimizing firms atrophy and their earnings decline, assets will be sold to the innovators, creating a substantial opportunity for the innovative producer through this process of renewal.

If the size of investments in physical capital tends to increase the fixed costs of an innovative strategy, so too does the duration of the investment required for an organization of people to engage in the collective and cumulative—or organizational—learning that is the central characteristic of the innovation process. p. 10

and

The revenues (and not just the profits) that the innovating firm generates can be critical to maintaining its organization intact. When the innovating firm generates revenues, it has financial resources that can be allocated in a number of ways. If the gains from innovation are sufficient, the firm’s revenues create the possibility for self-financing....For the innovating firm, financial resources not only fund new investment but also enable the firm to keep its “learning” organization intact. The innovating firm can use the gains of innovative enterprise to reward its employees for their application of skill and effort to transforming technology (unbending the cost curve) and accessing markets (shifting out the demand curve). p. 13

We have commented on this blog many times before about the mechanical leverage that man has achieved over the past century. 18,000 man hours of labor is contained within each barrel of oil. To convert this factor into the number of man years of physical effort that is offset each year for each American, that number is 385. That is; each American receives the equivalent benefit of 385 man years of physical effort per year. Truly surprising and something that has to be maintained by ensuring that the oil and gas is available to continue to provide the offset. The point in raising this is to ask the question, at what point in time do we achieve an equivalent level of leverage in terms of intellectual thought? And as importantly, how do we get there? I know the first two steps are to gain a software development capability and secondly begin the development of the Community of Independent Service Providers.

The innovation process, that is, can potentially overcome the “constrained-optimization” trade-offs between consumption and production in the allocation of resources as well as between capital and labor, and even between enterprise and society, in the allocation of returns. It is for this reason that innovation can form the foundation for equitable and stable economic growth, or what I have called “sustainable prosperity” (Lazonick and O’Sullivan, 2002; Lazonick, 2009a). p. 14

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Oracle Stack - Oracle Fusion Applications

Continuing on with our review of the Oracle product offerings and defining which of their applications and architectures are to be included in the application modules of People, Ideas & Objects. In a previous post, we adopted wholesale the Oracle Database and Middleware product offerings. In another post we noted the Application Integration Architecture and how the Community of Independent Service Providers could use these tools to aid in the accounting integration of a producers system. All of the discussion of the Oracle products and architectures is being aggregated under the Oracle-Stack Label on this blog. Once our review is complete we will be updating the Draft Specification.

Oracle Fusion Applications are a difficult product to commit too since they don't exist as of yet. However, what we can determine from Oracle is that the project is providing the kind of application infrastructure that is necessary to build the Draft Specification and deliver it through the cloud computing paradigm. Oracle Fusion Applications and Middleware are using the best parts of the Agile / Scrum development methodology, and therefore consistent with our approach to development. There are no cultural differences between the Oracle methods and those that were proposed in People, Ideas & Objects developments.

Critical to the success of the Oracle Fusion Applications is their use and application of the Oracle Middleware stack. This is the way that applications are built in most architectures and is consistent with what we were proposing to do before we joined Oracle as a customer. Java Enterprise servers provide the necessary infrastructure and control of information that makes not using a Java Enterprise server, redundant. Recreating the wheel each time a project is started is counter to the Java way.

It is clear in many of the videos and documents that I viewed that the web is the centre of the user experience. All of the application demonstrations and presentations reflected this web centered delivery. Using standard web browsers, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Applications gains this ease of use and universality of access. Making the user experience robust in the cloud computing paradigm. We will need to determine if the web platform provides the level of access control and security necessary to meet our potential producers needs. It is reasonable to assume that if Oracle is using the browser this extensively, they've cracked the security problems and are satisfied with the control. The user having browser access would be a performance and ease-of-use improvement over using Java Web Start, which is the current method defined in the Draft Specification.

One of the key attributes of becoming an Oracle customer is the access to the understanding and knowledge they have in the ERP application market-space. Oracle is the largest enterprise software company. They have experience in developing, deploying and supporting their ERP application offerings. This experience is based on a history of PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Siebel , BEA and Oracle Financials. Our costs may be substantially higher by using Oracle, but what we gain in doing so brings our product offering to a higher level of quality. According to videos that I viewed on YouTube Oracle has over 2,500 application developers just in the Fusion Applications development. As a result, we inherit the efforts of these people through the Java re-use attributes.

To view one of the best documents on Oracle Fusion Applications go here. Where on page five the following is noted.

The goal of Oracle Fusion Applications is to help customers transform their business into a next generation organization. This next-generation organization will have more adaptable business processes, more productive people, and more manageable systems. Next generation adaptability will come from a native service oriented architecture that allows for easier integration with other applications and configurable business processes. Embedded business intelligence, a rich, pervasive, and personalized user experience, and Enterprise 2.0 business processes will power next generation productivity. Finally centralized security, audit, and controls, and the ability to deploy applications on premise, as a service, or through business process outsourcing will deliver next generation manageability.

This quotation shows that Oracle and People, Ideas & Objects are wholly consistent in terms of our approach to defining and supporting the software for the innovative oil and gas producer. Therefore, the commitment to these products and architectures is made quite easily.

Next on this topic we'll review the Oracle Consulting offerings. Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Lazonick on Chandler Part III

In the first post on Professor Lazonick's paper we discussed the differences between optimization and innovation in terms of corporate culture. How in oil and gas we need to move from optimization to an innovation footing. To do so requires a substantial investment for the oil and gas producers. An investment that begins with the development of the software defined in the vision of the Draft Specification. An investment that up until today, the oil and gas industry has been unwilling to make. What I think Lazonick makes clear in this second part of our review of this paper is that the means to which to make the changes are within our grasp. All that is missing is the willingness to make the necessary investments. That willingness is a product of the innovative firms corporate culture.

2. The theory of innovative enterprise cont

Professor Lazonick begins with a comparison between what he calls the neoclassical firm and the innovative enterprise. The role of the entrepreneur and the assumptions supporting each. In oil and gas I see the bureaucracy believing theirs is a management discipline that deals with all aspects of the industry. That their management capabilities are the critical resource to the profitability of the industry.Lazonick notes;

There are two assumptions of the neoclassical theory of the firm that limit its ability to understand innovative enterprise. First, the neoclassical theory assumes that the entrepreneur plays no role in creating the disequilibrium condition that triggers the reallocation of resources from one industry to another. In the theory of the innovating firm, by contrast, entrepreneurs create new profitable opportunities, and thereby disrupt equilibrium conditions. Second, the neoclassical theory assumes that the entrepreneur requires no special expertise to compete in one industry rather than another. All that is required of the entrepreneur is that he follows the principle of profit maximization in the choice of industry in which to compete. In the theory of the innovating firm, in contrast, the entrepreneur’s specialized knowledge of the industry in which he chooses to compete is of utmost importance for his firm’s ability to be innovative in that industry. p. 6

My experience in dealing with management of the oil and gas industry is accurately captured in Lazonicks text. What management has learned is they too can control the disruptive nature of the entrepreneur, by not allocating any resources towards it, and hence avoid the disequilibrium that is created. Or so they believe. This behaviour has become systemic and has the companies actively avoiding the necessary investments in the business of the oil and gas business. Optimization is the word that everyone marches to and any producer that makes the necessary investments ininnovativeness is deemed risky.

The limiting assumption here is that the entrepreneur does not choose the firm’s level of fixed costs and the particular productive capabilities embodied in them as part of his firm’s investment strategy. In the theory of the innovating firm, the level of fixed costs manifests strategic decisions to make investments that are intended to endow the firm with distinctive productive capabilities compared with its competitors in the industry. p. 7

I referenced this article from the Calgary Herald the other day. It suggests the National Energy Board has determined that Alberta Natural Gas production will decline to 8.5BCF / day in 2012 from 12.7 today. Are we as an industry unaware of the consequences of inaction in the investments necessary for innovation? AsLazonick notes the costs of optimization eventually turn to eliminate the profit elements. The oil and gas industry in Alberta is experiencing these increased costs, of which they attribute to greedy suppliers, and the declining production values. Why, in discussing this with Canadian management, it clearly is not their fault. Imputing they are only a small part of the market.Lazonick discusses this U-shaped cost curve of the optimizers.

The assumption is that the addition of variable factors of production to the firm’s fixed factors of production results in a declining average productivity of these combined factors (i.e., the firm’s technology, which is also the industry’s technology). In deriving the U-shaped cost curve, neoclassical theorists give two quite plausible reasons why productivity declines as output expands. Both reasons assume that the key variable factor is labor. One reason is that as more variable factors are added to the fixed factors, increasingly crowded factory conditions reduce the productivity of each variable factor as, for example, workers continuously bump into one other. The other reason is that as more workers are added to the production process, the entrepreneur, as the fixed factor whose role it is to organize productive activities, experiences a “control loss” because of the increasing number of workers that he has to supervise and monitor. p. 7

It is reasonable to assume that by 2012 the Canadian producers lack of investment in innovation, and the increased costs associated with the U-shaped nature of the optimizers fixed and variable costs, will eliminate them from the marketplace. As I have indicated here on this blog before, Canada, and that is all of Canada, represents a negligible 2 percent of the readership of this blog. I can say with almost 100% assurance, when the scope of the Preliminary Specification is determined by the users, that Canada will not be represented in the functionality of the People, Ideas & Objects application. Conversely, the U.S. makes up 88% of the total users represented here. Anyone want to guess where the innovative, or profitable, elements of the oil and gas industry will be located?

Hence organization—in this case the relation between the entrepreneur as manager and the work force that he employs—becomes central to the neoclassical theory of the firm. Within the theory of the optimizing firm, the constraining assumption is that the entrepreneur passively accepts this condition of increasing costs, and optimizes subject to it as a constraint. In sharp contrast, in the theory of the innovating firm, the experience of increasing costs, as shown on the left-hand side of Figure 2, provides the firm’s strategic decision-makers with an understanding of the limits of the initial investment strategy, and with that information they make additional new investments for the strategic purpose of taking control of the variable factor that was the source of increasing costs [for an elaboration of this argument, seeLazonick (1991: ch. 3, 1993)]. An innovating firm would not take a condition of overcrowding or control loss that results in increasing costs as a “given constraint,” but rather would make investments in organization and technology to change that condition. In effect, for the sake of improving its capability to develop and utilize productive resources, the innovating firm makes strategic investments that transform variable costs into fixed costs, which the firm, in order to innovate successfully, must now endeavor to transform into low unit costs. pp. 7 - 8

Therefore investment in the productive capacity of the oil and gas industry starts here. Development of the innovative organization is deemed a necessity due to the demands of the marketplace and the increased complexity in the underlying earth science and engineering disciplines. Today we live in a sophisticated marketplace that demands the changes to organizational structure be contemplated and built within the software first. This is only the beginning of the investments that are necessary. These investments are a significant undertaking for the industry, and they are past due.

An innovative investment strategy is inherently uncertain, and investments in innovation must be made despite the existence of uncertainties concerning prospective returns. Any strategic manager who allocates resources to an innovative strategy faces three types of uncertainty: technological, market, and competitive. Technological uncertainty exists because the firm may be incapable of developing the higher quality processes and products envisaged in its innovative investment strategy; if one already knew how to generate a new product or process at the outset of the investment, it would not be innovation. p. 9

In Part III of this paper we will begin to look at the risks associated with an innovative strategy. Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Oracle - Stack Application Integration Architecture

We continue along with our review of Oracle Corporation product offerings in order to revise the Draft Specification. It is clear that the addition of Oracle products brings a level of capability to People, Ideas & Objects that is impressive. This is our second post on this topic, with our review being aggregated under the Oracle-Stack label on this blog. When we are complete, in terms of defining the Oracle Products that will be part of People, Ideas & Objects offerings, I will update the Draft Specification to include the changes. So far this has been a fairly easy process with the wholesale adoption of the Database and Middleware stacks of Oracle products. Today we move into the Application section of their product offerings. Specifically we look at their Application Integration Architecture (AIA).

One of the areas that Oracle has been busy with in the past decade is in the area of acquisitions. Might be the understatement of this century. They now own a substantial portion of the ERP and CRM business environments and are in possession of many of the top applications. PeopleSoft, BEA, Siebel, J.D. Edwards and Sun are just a few of the many acquisitions that they have made. These acquisitions have come with a substantial number of customers, particularly when you consider they also owned their own ERP systems in Oracle Financials. To get ahead of the competition they realized they needed to build a new generation of applications for their customers. Oracle Fusion Applications is that architecture and Oracle Application Integration Architecture is how those customers on PeopleSoft, Oracle Financials, Siebel, J.D. Edwards, SAP and others are going to move to Oracle Fusion Applications.

From People, Ideas & Objects point of view, we see that there are a number of systems that are used in the oil and gas marketplace. We are also like Oracle in that we are developers of custom applications based on the vision of the Draft Specification and the reality of Oracle Fusion Applications. The more I read about the Oracle product stack, the more I feel this is the correct direction to move. Oracle Fusion Applications appear to be bringing to market a different concept of what ERP systems are comprised of. Application names that end in "Hub" and "Engine" are exactly what we need to build Partnership Accounting, Accounting Voucher and other modules.

As has been indicated in many previous posts. The Community of Independent Service Providers are a key element of how the user community and People, Ideas & Objects developers interact. One of the key areas that we will be looking to the CISP for is the accounting systems integration. By using Oracle Application Integration Architecture tools they could move a producer from their current system, whether that is SAP, Oracle Financials, Qbyte or others to People, Ideas & Objects much quicker, with less cost and difficulty by predefining and pre-programming much of the interfaces across the disparate systems. With Oracle's stated objective of eventually moving all of their customers to Oracle Fusion Applications, making the integration from those applications as seamless as possible, is only common sense. What is different this time is the scale at which Oracle has approached the transition and that is reflected in the Application Integration Architecture offering. People, Ideas & Objects has access to these tools and a community of service providers, the CISP, to make these transitions as painless as possible.

Two resources are the most appropriate to review to get a handle on this unique and exciting tool set. Listen to a two part interview of Oracle Vice President Jose Lazarus, here and here, talking on AIA and the "Evolutionary Path to Fusion" white-paper. Some of the key thoughts behind the product are noted below.

• Supports transactions across multiple systems.
• Delivers integrated business process.
• Pre-built integration.
• Part of Fusion Applications.

Jose Lazuras talks about the Oracle product strategy for AIA. Their core strategy is to simply limit costs and risks of integrating multiple applications. In February of 2008 they expanded on this product strategy by introducing their "Foundation Pack" which is a programming module for integration purposes. If I didn't already have a job at People, Ideas & Objects I would certainly look into joining as a member of the CISP working on producer integrations. 

Lastly one can define what a product is by also defining what it is not. With our review of Oracle products it is determined that the People, Ideas & Objects application will be based on Oracle Fusion Applications (more on this in the next post on the Oracle-Stack) and therefore, will not be built on the following Oracle products.

• Oracle E-Business Suite
• PeopleSoft Enterprise
• Siebel
• J.D. Edwards Enterprise One
• J.D. Edwards World
• Agile
• AutoVue

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Lazonick on Chandler Part I

I introduced Professor Lazonick's paper the other day, it can be downloaded from here. I will be reviewing this paper in multiple posts. Professor Lazonick is from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and based on a review of the bibliography for this paper, has been writing on the topic of innovation for over two decades. This is the first that I am aware of Professor Lazonick's writings, and we will definitely have to take a look at some of his other papers.

Lazonick starts off with an appropriate reference to Joseph Schumpeter about the importance of innovation.

More specifically, since, as Joseph Schumpeter (1934, 1950) recognized, innovation drives economic development. p. 1

Economic development from the point of view of greater productive capacity to produce oil and gas. How does the oil and gas industry produce more with the same volume of inputs? This is highly dependent on innovation and the capability to innovate that the industry develops. Lazonick notes Chandler;

Chandler (1990: 594) then goes on to articulate in two paragraphs, which I quote in full, what I consider to be the essence of his theory of innovative enterprise, including its contribution to the growth of the economy as a whole, that he had distilled from his trilogy. p. 2

Such organizational capabilities, of course, had to be created, and once established maintained. Their maintenance was as great a challenge as their creation, for facilities depreciate and skills atrophy. Moreover, changing technologies and markets constantly make both existing facilities and skills obsolete. One of the most critical tasks of top management has always been to maintain these capabilities and to integrate these facilities and skills into a unified organization—so that the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. p. 3

Such organizational capabilities, in turn, have provided the source—the dynamic—for the continuing growth of the enterprise. They have made possible the earnings that supplied much of the funding for such growth. Even more important, they provided the specialized facilities and skills that gave the enterprise an advantage in foreign markets and in related industries. Because of these capabilities the basic goal of the modern industrial enterprise became long-term profits based on long-term growth—growth that increased the productivity, and so the competitive power, that drive the expansion of industrial capitalism. p. 3

2. The theory of innovative enterprise

The Preliminary Research Report, the Draft Specification and all of the work done at People, Ideas & Objects points directly at the Joint Operating Committee (JOC). The reason for this is that People, Ideas & Objects have determined that the JOC is the ideal organizational construct of the innovative energy producer. Lazonick summarizes why an organization like the JOC is that innovative construct for oil and gas, better then I have seen elsewhere.

A business enterprise seeks to transform productive resources into goods and services that can be sold to generate revenues. A theory of the firm, therefore, must, at a minimum, provide explanations for how this productive transformation occurs and how revenues are obtained. These explanations must focus on three generic activities in which the business enterprise engages: strategy, organization, and finance. Strategy allocates resources to investments in developing human and physical capabilities that, it is hoped, will enable the firm to compete for chosen product markets. Organization transforms technologies and accesses markets, and thereby develops and utilizes the value-creating capabilities of these resources to generate products that buyers want at prices that they are willing to pay. Finance sustains the process of developing technologies and accessing markets from the time at which investments in productive resources are made to the time at which financial returns are generated through the sale of products. p. 4

Chandler noted that "strategy follows structure". One of the key attributes of using the JOC is that it enables the strategy to be unique and specific to the property represented. In order for the value to be earned, each facility, each zone of oil and gas requires that a different strategy be implemented. One that is unique and develops the value based on the facts and the situation at the property.

With the structured hierarchy, and its close cousin the bureaucracy, the focus is on the corporate entity. This is reasonable until we discover the conflict associated with many corporate entities represented in each JOC. To eliminate the conflict at the JOC it is important to remember that consensus at the JOC is driven by financial interests. If the strategy and structure are both focused on the same organization, this conflict between corporate entities disappears.

The last attribute is equally important. To establish finance at the JOC does not seem to be an issue until it is realized the oil and gas finance mechanisms are focused on the corporate entity. The Financial Marketplace module of the Draft Specification moves the finance function from the corporate entity to the JOC. This enables proper matching of investments and returns based on the strategy and organizational alignment noted.

As this discussion of strategy, organization and finance show, the culture of the oil and gas industry is based on the Joint Operating Committee. The closer we move to that conceptual model, the greater the alignment, efficiencies and other attributes become. In addition to the focus on the culture of the JOC, there needs to be a revision in another attribute of culture of the energy industry. The culture that we want to change is what Lazonick and Chandler call the optimization culture, and is applied to the oil and gas industry in this post. 

I see the two cultures as being mutually exclusive. One, the JOC, being developed to deal with the unique requirements of the partnerships represented in oil and gas. And the optimization culture exists as a result of the "easy" energy era that existed in the 1980's and 1990's. There was a demand to survive commercially during this "easy" energy era. Innovation was the last thing that people thought of. Optimization for the survival of the firm was the skill that was rewarded. Lazonick notes;

The problem is, however, that the optimizing firm is not an innovating firm; indeed it can be characterized as an un-innovating firm. p. 5

How do we change from an optimizing to an innovative culture? What we do know is that software defines and supports the organization. Therefore to change the organization requires that we build the software first, and that is what we are doing at People, Ideas & Objects. Review of the remainder of Lazonicks paper will provide more answers, and I think that Lazonick and I are not talking about a wholesale change from optimizing to innovating. I would rephrase it for the purposes of the communities represented by People, Ideas & Objects as from where we are today; innovating on top of optimization, to change it to a culture of optimizing on top of innovations.

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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Focused on the Value

Number eight of eight in our "Focused on" series looks at the value proposition of People, Ideas & Objects. Noting how the costs of ERP systems have escalated. Where the business models in which they are sold provides People, Ideas & Objects with the opportunity to provide substantial competitive advantages.

The People, Ideas & Objects Value Proposition

Big ERP application costs have soared in the past few decades. Based on selling a generic solution to each producer, the business of selling big iron applications have been lucrative for the chosen few vendors. On the other hand producers are frustrated by the extensive one-off costs associated with customizing, supporting and operating these applications within their firms.

What if the software development costs associated with customization were aggregated for their use over the entire industry. People might argue that a producers competitive advantages would be diminished by everyone having access to the same software. I argue that the innovative oil and gas producers competitive advantages are based on their earth science and engineering capabilities applied to their asset base. Each producer holds a unique and mutually exclusive asset base to all other producers. As a result of this argument, the costs of custom development, although large in terms of aggregate, are infinitesimal in terms of a specific producers production base. This is the future of software and the value that People, Ideas & Objects is designed to provide.

In the marketplace today support costs are substantial as each producer must attain a capability to deal with any and all contingencies. Does the quality of a Java programmer have a direct impact on a producers reserves or production profile? Of course not, then why does the innovative oil and gas producer need to employ the Java programmer directly?

People, Ideas & Objects offers a compelling and competitive value proposition. Our funding is based on the software development and cloud computing costs, plus an element of profit for People, Ideas & Objects. A fundamentally different business model to the big iron ERP vendors. A business model that deals with the two critical conflicts in software, those conflicts being the source code and the software developers customers. Traditionally as more customers use the software, the costs to change the software code become progressively larger, and the costs to deploy the changes more difficult. People, Ideas & Objects eliminates these two conflicts by providing a software development capability and service based on cloud computing. If users determine that an application function is redundant and should be replaced, they won't get an argument from us.

As a result of the Information & Communication Technology Revolution (ICTR), software defines and supports organizations. It can be the glue that holds things together, it can be the cement that stops any change or innovation, and it can be the tools oil and gas investors need to develop their own organizational definitions. An organizational definition that provides enhanced ownership control, compliance and governance over the current bureaucracies methods. A software development capability as defined by People, Ideas & Objects is a necessity to operate in the dynamic and innovative oil and gas industry.

Our appeal should be based on these eight "Focused on" priorities and values of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not initially be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are. If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here.

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