The Preliminary Specification Part XL (R&C Part VIII)

To finish up our first run through the Research & Capabilities module, there are a few minor points to put across. As with all the modules, we will return to our review of the Research & Capabilities to look deeper into the functions and processes of the Preliminary Specification. One minor point is that it would be logical to organize the information contained within this module by geologic zone.

One of the key points about the use of this module is that the oil and gas producers receive 100% of the funds from the production of oil and gas. This entitles them to be the gate keeper on all subsequent activity with respect to how that money is expended. And that includes the “what” and “how” of service industry product and service innovations and offerings. In today’s capital markets little is tolerated for research and development that is not directly funded by customers. To expect that the service industry will divert its profits, or will raise capital to fund its research and development efforts is foolish. It is clear that there has to be a direct link between the research that is undertaken by the service industry and the customers (the producers) wallet.

At the same time producers don’t want to participate when the cash is simply thrown against the wall to see if it will stick. There has to be a clear direction and understanding given to the service industry as to the direction and need that the oil and gas industry has. For the past few years, at least in Canada, we have heard many of the independent producers calling out the service industry as greedy and lazy and taking advantage of the situation in the field. Implying that the demand for service in the field is so strong that the only means to control it is for the service companies to increase the prices they charge. I see this situation occurring as a result of a lack of investment in innovation by the service industry.

This situation in the field has led to “cost control” measures by the producers that have further constrained the communications between the service industry and the producers. To suggest that the industry should be funding service industry innovations is the last thing that producers want to hear at this time. But it is the long term solution to producer problems. Micro-managing and cost-controlling will get the job done to the satisfaction of no one. As the demands in the industry increase, the ability to increase the capacity and capabilities will be further constrained because no one is working on those capacity related problems today. When the time comes, the problems of today will be even significantly larger tomorrow.

What is needed is the Research & Capabilities module of the People, Ideas & Objects application to provide the communication between the service industry, the entrepreneurs and the oil and gas producers. Communication about the needs of the producers, backed up with dollars that are willingly spent in order to develop the innovation, capacity, service or product. Providing direction to the service industry certainly sounds more constructive then calling names, controlling costs or micro-managing.

Tomorrow we will begin our review of the counter part to the Research & Capabilities module, the Knowledge & Learning module. This module is for the Joint Operating Committee itself and is similar in nature to the Research & Capabilities.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXIX (R&C Part VII)

So far in our review of the Preliminary Specifications Research & Capabilities module we have touched on how the module helps the user analyze the business from the long term perspective. Adding value by managing the transition from the hierarchy to the aligned organization under the People, Ideas & Objects software application modules. Today we want to discuss the additional perspective of viewing the marketplace of the service industry itself, and how value is developed through the interfaces of the Research & Capabilities module. With this post we want to focus on the service industry and how the user of the Research & Capabilities module initiates the development of new and innovative products and services.

They say that need is the mother of all invention. As we have discussed before the user of the Research & Capabilities module is predominately a senior individual within the producer firm who rose through the ranks from engineering or geology. And therefore knows the industry well and the characteristics of the producer itself intimately. Within the Research area of the module the user is able to review the “ideas” that are being generated in the marketplace of the service industry vendors. These ideas are the bases of claims to copyright law and patent filings by their originator, and are published in blog like format through the service industries access to the Research & Capabilities module.

There is nothing precluding a producer from participating from posting ideas to the marketplace. Its possible that they could engage in licensing arrangements with service providers to sell products and services based on their ideas. However, that is not really the business of the oil and gas producer. Competing on the basis of a better drill bit or packer is not going to provide them with any greater opportunity to further their business. The ideas to extend the product or service requires the full scope of the oil and gas industry to participate as customers for the ideas and technologies in order for the technology to be proven, commercialized and to bring value to all the producers in the industry.

Competing on the basis of ideas is the only method that the oil and gas industry will move forward to solve the difficult problems of providing the market demands for energy. No one will do the hard work needed to solve the difficult problems if their ideas are going to be taken by someone who will in “me too” fashion just steal them and commercialize them and ignore the developer of the ideas. The oil and gas industry has to understand this and respect the rights of the person who develops the idea. That these idea generators are the keys to the long term prospects of the industry. If people see that the industry will respect an idea, then they will know that they can risk everything on the chance that it may work out, and if it does, they will earn the benefits of it. If they find that the industry quietly shrugs its shoulders and says “oh well” so and so got scooped on their invention, too bad. Then they will continue on in much of the same fashion they are today. What industry needs to do is respect the inventor and deal only with them. By doing so, and as a result, they will find the market will flood with new ideas, products and services.

The Research & Capabilities module is a window on the activities in the service industry. An opportunity to peer into the research that everyone is doing. Publication of the ideas is how you earn the copyright. Therefore by using the Research & Capabilities module the developer of the ideas is earning the copyright on the ideas and securing their rights. From there they should be able to solicit interested producers to help fund the further development of the product or service and move the development of it along faster to market.

Lastly the Research & Capabilities is a marketplace module that provides for collaborative interactions. This marketplace will reflect producers expressing needs and entrepreneurs trying to solve problems. It joins the other marketplace modules, the Petroleum Lease, Resource and Finance Marketplaces where people will be spending more of their time and energy working in the future. As our phones continue to record transactions and conduct other “things” that we used to call work. It is these interactions that are the areas where the real value is generated. And are the areas that computers can’t do.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXVIII (R&C Part VI)

What evidence do we have that the transition from the way things are done today, to what is suggested in the People, Ideas & Objects Draft Specifications Research & Capabilities module is valid? For the majority of producers it is a bit of a stretch that they will reorganize their firms in such a manner that will allow any “leakage” of proprietary capabilities from either the firm or the Joint Operating Committee. And that the parsing of the short and long term perspective across the JOC and the firm in the manner that has been discussed in these blog posts. It certainly will take some convincing in order to accept. And here I thought that “trust me” might work.

First of all this intuitively makes sense. From the Joint Operating Committee alignment of all the frameworks to having them focus on performance as the driving motivation. This also begins to make sense when we have the Joint Operating Committee pursuing the optimal short term horizon. Making the operational decisions based on the collaborative understanding of the partnership that makes up the Joint Operating Committee. And the producer firm undertaking the long term horizon of the firm by interacting with the Joint Operating Committee, the remainder of the industry and the service industry to build the needed earth science and engineering capabilities needed for the firm. However, as possibly the strongest and easiest evidence that I can provide that this is substantially correct is this quotation from Professor Richard Langlois.

The question then becomes: why are capabilities sometimes organized within firms, sometimes decentralized in markets, and sometimes coordinated by a myriad contractual and ownership arrangements like joint ventures, franchisees, and networks? Explicitly echoing Hayek, Jensen and Meckling (1992, p.251) who point out that economic organization must solve two different kinds of problems: "the rights assignment problem (determining who should exercise a decision right) and the control or agency problem (how to ensure that self-interested decision agents exercise their rights in a way that contributes to the organizational objective)." There are basically two ways to ensure such a "collocation" of knowledge and decision making: "One is by moving the knowledge to those with the decision rights; the other is by moving the decision rights to those with the knowledge." (Jensen and Meckling 1992 p. 253). p. 9

It is difficult for me to determine who, Professor Richard Langlois or Professor Giovanni Dosi, is the most influential in terms of the research that has been undertaken by People, Ideas & Objects. If the above quotation is inadequate to provide you with satisfactory evidence then I suggest that you review the papers of Professor Langlois, as we have in these 56 blog posts. His is a focus on organizational capabilities, and has provided us with sound direction in developing the Draft Specification.

To be specific, what we are doing in the Research & Capabilities module is “moving the knowledge to those with the decision rights”. And this is where the alignment under People, Ideas & Objects begins. What the bureaucracy is trying to do is “moving the decision rights to those with the knowledge”. And that is where the conflict is being created.

But more important then that, is that we have a sub-title for the Research & Capabilities module, and that is “How to ensure that self-interested decision agents exercise their rights in a way that contributes to the organizational objective.”

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXVII (R&C Part V)

Yesterday we talked about the role the producer would have in determining the long term horizon of the firm. How the Research & Capabilities module would provide a window on the various Joint Operating Committees to provide the ability to apply systemic earth science and engineering innovations at each JOC with out the risks of unnecessary duplications or repeated following of blind bunny trails. Today I want to discuss the risks and rewards of the leakage of earth science and engineering information from the firm through the Research & Capabilities module. As it would be apparent that the level of discussion and collaboration through the partnerships in the Joint Operating Committees, through the industry itself and the service industry in particular would lead to significant leakage of the producers proprietary earth science and engineering knowledge, understanding and capabilities.

In the Preliminary Research Report we learned an interesting point about the producers proprietary earth science and engineering knowledge, understanding and capabilities.

In Brown & Duguid (1998) they make the following observations: “The leakiness of knowledge out of and into organizations, however, presents an interesting contrast to internal stickiness. Knowledge often travels more easily between organizations than it does within them. For while the division of labor erects boundaries within firms, it also produces extended communities that lie across the external boundaries of the firms. Moving knowledge among groups with similar practices and overlapping membership can thus sometimes be relatively easy compared to the difficulty in moving it among heterogeneous groups within the firm. Similar practice in a common field can allow ideas to flow. Indeed, it’s often harder to stop ideas spreading then to spread them.” (p. 102) p. 32

We all know this leakage of information to be inherently true. When someone discovers something that is “news” within the industry, it is generally well known within industry associations for the geologists or engineers as soon as it is known in the firm. It is either imputed through what is known, or the leakiness is as porous as it is. What is a producer firm to do to ensure that the information they have does not leak. I think that the point lies in the meaning of “capabilities”; which is “an aptitude that can be developed”. Simply it is not possible to stop the leakage. The question therefore becomes, is it best to develop your aptitude by curling up with a text book or to participate in a marketplace.

According to McKinsey the solution requires...

... a company must develop organizational overlays in the form of markets and networks that help its professionals work horizontally across its whole extent. These overlays make it easier for them to exchange knowledge, to find and collaborate with other professionals, and to develop communities that create intangible assets.

These tacit interactions are what are captured in the “Research” area of the Research & Capabilities module. Interaction with the larger communities to develop the knowledge and understanding around the science of oil and gas not only expands the capabilities of the producer firm but will also expand the overall science. We learned two other important points regarding innovation in the Preliminary Research Report.

1. That new science fuels new innovations, and new innovations fuel new science.
2. Technical trade-offs facilitate the ability for industries to innovate on the changing technical and scientific paradigms.

People, Ideas & Objects research assumes that one technical trade-off in oil and gas is accurately reflected in the oil and gas commodity pricing. That these prices are providing the resources to fuel innovative oil and gas producers. Therefore the faster we iterate on the science and innovation, the more appropriate a producers strategy should be focused on a capabilities approach.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXVI (R&C Part IV)

If we reduce the business of the oil and gas producer down to the activities of the Joint Operating Committee. And concern ourselves only with the day to day activities of the property then we can generally be satisfied that we will know where our next meal will come from. But what about everything else. This is the classic conflict that a business must satisfy, the struggle between the long and short term horizon of the business. How much should be sacrificed in the long term and how much should be sacrificed in the short term. It should be noted that the name of the module is Research & Capabilities, this blog post focuses on the capabilities component of the module.

What is the firm capable of and how can that capability be enhanced? And more importantly since we are so dependent on our partners in the Joint Operating Committee and the service industry how is this apparent contradiction resolved? The traditional steps of the producer was to build the in-house capability. The assumption that is used in People, Ideas & Objects is that the resource constraints do not permit the luxury of each producer building these capabilities. The need to collaborate with partners to build the capabilities needed for the Joint Operating Committee is how these needs are met.

But we are talking about more then just the capabilities that each Joint Operating Committee demands when we are talking about the capabilities of the producer firm and the use of the Research & Capabilities module. McKinsey put it well in this quotation.

Ongoing multi-year tasks such as launching new products, building new businesses, or fundamentally redesigning a company's technology platform usually call for small groups of full-time, focused professionals with the freedom "to wander the woods," discovering new, winning value propositions by trial and error and deductive tinkering.

We have detailed that the focus of the producer firm is on its asset base and its earth science and engineering capabilities. This area of focus of the Research & Capabilities module is therefore a key focus of the producer organization. We are not talking about the people that will be deployed in the day to day of the various Joint Operating Committees. These are the core scientists of the firm.

We discovered something very interesting in our research. When we deploy teams of people in a fashion like we are with People, Ideas & Objects use of the Joint Operating Committee. The earth science and engineering capabilities of each Joint Operating Committee will atrophy. They need to be fed a constant stream of new and innovative ideas and possibilities to remain “current” with the science. This of course has to be steered by the mother ship so as to not duplicate errors or replicate blind bunny trails unnecessarily in each and every Joint Operating Committee.

Now it may seem that I have contradicted myself by stating that the firm needs to develop the capabilities necessary “in-house”. But I didn't say that. The Research & Capabilities module should be considered to be from an industry perspective. That although each firm will have specific people defined to support each firms needed capabilities, the service industry will take on a greater role in providing much of the innovative capabilities that are developed through the mindset employed by the producer firms.

Lastly I would want to talk about the scope of the Research & Capabilities module. Although it would have specific application in the earth science and engineering areas it should be used in other areas to build capabilities in other areas of the oil and gas business. One area that I would think would build value would be for producers to sponsor the development of People, Ideas & Objects software development itself. Just a thought.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXV (R&C Part III)

In our last post we went through the four points from the McKinsey article as to why we should use the Research & Capabilities module for the long term perspective of the innovative oil and gas producer. In this post I want to revisit the first point of that article and highlight the significance of the opportunity that is presented by separating the long term perspective into the Research & Capabilities module, and the day to day into the Knowledge & Learning module. In the McKinsey article it is noted;

The first design principle is to clarify the reporting relationships, accountability, and responsibilities of the line managers, who make good on a company's earnings targets, for all other considerations will get short shrift until short term expectations are met.

By making the Joint Operating Committee the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. By aligning the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee with the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy. By providing an extension of the governance structure over the partnership with the Military Command & Control Metaphor. We have isolated the Joint Operating Committee as the day to day operation of the oil and gas producer. This frees up the remaining portion of the producer to concern itself with the long term value generation of the firm.

Recall in the last post that these Joint Operating Committee’s are autonomous in the sense that they are focused on providing the greatest performance. They are driven through the Performance Evaluation module that allows them to determine where and how they can build the greatest value each month. Because they are operated by the partnership, which is motivated equally by financially gain, the producers will have faith that the “line managers will make good on a companies earnings targets.”

The Research & Capabilities module is looking at the interests the producer has in any number of Joint Operating Committees. This number may total into the thousands. To concern themselves with the operational performance of each would be a daunting and impossible task. And based on the previous paragraph their involvement is limited. However, there may be systemic corporate similarities that can be applied to each that bring value to the overall producer firm. Systemic similarities that can only be seen from the perspective of the firm, and in the long term. These are where the business value can be generated through the use of the Research & Capabilities module. McKinsey notes;

Dynamic management and improved collaboration, as we show later, are better ways of accomplishing the purposes of these ad-hoc structures. A company that aims to streamline its line management structures should create an effective enterprise wide governance mechanism for decisions that cross them, such as the choices involved in managing shared IT costs.

It is through an iterative and collaborative approach to dealing with the various Joint Operating Committees that the users of the Research & Capabilities module is able to extract the value in the long term. By passing on new innovations or experiments for the JOC to try. The ability to influence any and all variables and to see any aspect of the firm and to analyze it is the domain of this application module. To define it as a set of fixed functionality will ultimately be the result of what the user community is able to provide, however, I am certain that they will also recommend that the application module remain open to analyzing any and all data.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXIV (R&C Part II)

Yesterday we discussed how the Research & Capabilities module would be used to help build value by managing the transition from the hierarchy to the aligned producer organization under the People, Ideas & Objects software. Where the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee were aligned with the hierarchies compliance and governance. Making this transition will create opportunities for people to make changes to the work that they do in order to be more efficient and effective. What and how the software will do this little bit of magic is best described in a McKinsey article that is referenced in the Draft Specification.

In a four part recommendation McKinsey sets out in broad strokes what is required.

• Streamlining and simplifying vertical and line management structures by discarding failed matrix and ad hoc approaches and narrowing the scope of the line manager's role to the creation of current earnings.

The process of using People, Ideas & Objects software will achieve all of these objectives. By aligning all of the Joint Operating Committee and the hierarchies frameworks, imposing the military chain of command and having the financial interests of the producers drive the management of the Joint Operating Committee we are “narrowing the scope of the line manager’s role to the creation of current earnings”. These are the focus of the Partnership Accounting, Accounting Voucher, Petroleum Lease Marketplace and Performance Evaluation modules.

• Deploying off-line teams to discover new wealth-creating opportunities while using a dynamic management process to resolve short and long term trade offs.

These are the critical new roles that are being discussed in these “new” modules “Research & Capabilities” and “Knowledge & Learning”. Providing valuable insight to their users about the business that is above the day to day noise. Where the long term vision of the organization can be set, executed and realized through these two advanced software modules.

• Developing knowledge marketplaces, talent marketplaces, and formal networks to stimulate the creation and exchange of intangibles.

Within the Preliminary Specification, if we include the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning marketplace definitions, we have five marketplace modules in People, Ideas & Objects. Marketplaces are things that people will be doing more of in terms of participation in the future. Computers can assist, but again are generally very poor at making decisions, bargaining, knowing what to do, etc. The other three marketplace modules in the Preliminary Specification include the Petroleum Lease, Resource and Financial Marketplaces.

• Relying on measurements of performance rather than supervision to get the most from self directed professionals.

We have already had our first pass through the Performance Evaluation and Analytics & Statistics modules. Handing the Performance Evaluation module to the team that is running the Joint Operating Committee will enable them to manage the property in the best possible fashion. They are going to be able to figure out what it is that makes the most sense in terms of value, and begin to generate more of it. It is as simple as that. Except it is a very complex business. And that’s why you have your best earth science and engineering staff on the job. And the best business / geological / engineering minds running the Research & Capabilities module.

It should be coming clearer that it is no longer the 20th century. That to manage an enterprise requires a different approach, and the first thing that is needed to manage that enterprise is the software to enable that approach. With real shortages in the quality human resources necessary to maintain the markets demand for energy, it will be the producer that is able to maintain a high performing organization based on criteria such as these.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. 

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXIII (R&C Part I)

The last thing that we want to do in the Security & Access Control module is to make it difficult for people to collaborate. Innovation is about ideas, and the free flow of ideas is the point of our next two modules review. Making it difficult for people to access the system should not be the result of all of these security requirements. People and Ideas once authorized and authenticated should be able to complete their work, not be involved in mindless security or access control warnings.

We now move on to the Research & Capabilities module of the Preliminary Specification. This is a dual specification module in that it shares strong similarities with the Knowledge & Learning module. The difference is that the Research & Capabilities is a firm, or producer, facing module and the Knowledge & Learning module is a Joint Operating Committee module. The best way to think of these modules is that they are “marketplace” modules. The Research & Capabilities module looks at the producer firm in the context of the greater oil and gas industry from the point of view of a market.

This module is difficult to conceptually understand as it is not in practical use in oil and gas today. If we think that the Joint Operating Committee is the day to day operation of the oil and gas producer. The Knowledge & Learning module will provide a means in which the producers will be able to optimize the earnings of the JOC. The Research & Capabilities should therefore be seen as the means in which a producer can exercise long term value accretion from the firm. The firm of course being a holding of many JOC’s.

The Research & Capabilities module provides a window on the producer firm that is above the noise of the day to day. One that provides the user with the ability to see where the value may be added to the firm. This module moves the work that people are doing away from recording transactions. The management science falls into the category of "interactions" which includes transactional, tacit knowledge, and transformational activities of the producer, its partners and the vendors or marketplace. The Preliminary Specification deals with the automation of transactions to free up the resources of the firm and market. The generation and application of ideas is the area that the innovative energy producer needs to have their resources spending most of their time. The producers will use the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules to obtain windows on these activities.

In the future we need to concern ourselves with the kind of work that computers can’t do. These modules are involved in these new "types" of jobs that humans can do far better then computers. Making judgments, based on good data and information, and deciding on the best course of action. The scope of the application module is unlimited. The proprietary data and information that is accessible by the users of these modules would limit their use to a handful of senior individuals within the firm. However, that does not preclude them from receiving the full scope of engineering resources in terms of software developments. I could see substantial value being developed through the intuitions being confirmed in these applications modules.

What the People, Ideas & Objects application does for the producer firm is align the Joint Operating Committee’s legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks with the hierarchies compliance and governance frameworks. This alignment provides new synergies in terms of operational performance in both the Joint Operating Committee and the producer firm. It also provides increases in the speed, innovativeness and accountability of both the firm and JOC. The Research & Capabilities module will be able to monitor and control these frameworks to see where the value can be gained and is maybe being lost. As we move away from the hierarchy this will be the tool that provides the window on “what” and “how” the transition will best be done. This is what I think will be one of the first uses of the tool.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXII (S&AC Part V)

People, Ideas & Objects development of the Military Command & Control Metaphor (MCCM) of the Security & Access Control module is not without some historical context. Before the hierarchy, which I perceive as somewhat of a commercial development of the 20th century, there was only the military structure in terms of large organizations. The main difference between the two is rather subtle but significant. The military structure is much broader and flatter then the hierarchy. That is one of the ideals that we are seeking, but the more important feature is the ability for the chain of command to span multiple internal and external organizational structures.

If we analyze the U.S. Military we find a number of interesting attributes of using the military chain of command that will provide value in the use of People, Ideas & Objects software applications. First is the title and assignment of an individual in the military.  For example, “Sgt. Richard Knuth, Company A, Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division”. A similar title and assignment for the people within a Joint Operating Committee would help to clarify the role and responsibilities, authority and capabilities the individual would have within the JOC. For example this individual might have the following “Richard Knuth, Chief Engineer, Field Straddle, Elmworth. Irrespective of which firm this individual is from each of the participants would recognize that the authority of a Chief Engineer was the same throughout the industry and that the designation of Chief Engineer entitled the individual to authorize the appropriate actions.

Now this is not fundamentally different from how the industry operates today. What is different is the ability to operate in a fashion where the interactions between the producers in the JOC are done as if they were all employed by the JOC. Where multiple producer firms are contributing many full time staff to the JOC. This interaction between producers through the JOC can only be replicated if there is a recognizable chain of command between the firms that make up the JOC. In addition to the recognizable chain of command each organization must have additional governance concerns handled, and compliance plays a big part in this as well. (We will talk more about these in the future in the Compliance & Governance module.) That although it would be an easy thing to implement from a people point of view, the actual implementation of pooling the staff from multiple organizations becomes complex when we consider all of the implications. However, with the Information Technologies that exist today, and the issues of the shortages of earth science and engineering talent we have few choices but to pursue this pooling concept.

The nature of the people that will be working through the chain of command that is layered over the Joint Operating Committee will include all of the disciplines that are involved in the oil and gas industry. The contributions of staff, financial and technical resources will include everyone that is employed by the industry today. I can foresee many of the office buildings being refurbished to accommodate the staff of a single JOC. There the staff from the different producers would be seconded to work for the JOC, working at a single JOC not at any particular producer firm.

In previous blog posts discussing the Military Command & Control Metaphor (MCCM). I noted this inter and intra organizational use of the MCCM was similar to that used by NATO. That armies of the various countries could work together and recognize personnel from each others armies and immediately recognize and use the same chain of command. Unfortunately then came Libya and the failure of NATO may be well at hand. And the unfortunate parallel may be seen as a striking example as why the MCCM might not work in People, Ideas & Objects. I think otherwise as the Joint Operating Committee is the financial framework of the industry. This means that all of the members of a JOC are equally driven by their financial interests. And that financial interest drives consensus. Therefore, the analogy to Libya would be inappropriate as their objective is not financially driven and the NATO members can not form a consensus on what the objective is. The point in using the NATO example was to show the ability to recognize the chain of command spanning multiple organizations. Not to submit that countries driven by politically different philosophies could agree militarily.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification.

The Preliminary Specification Part XXXI (S&AC Part IV)

Looking at the security aspects of the Security & Access Control module we find that today’s technologies provide levels of security that are substantially higher then just a few years ago. With the security needs of the industry being so high, I believe the following security policies would be more then satisfactory to those needs. And it is suggested that these are the base case, as time passes we will be able to build on these specifications.

For people to be available online anytime and anywhere presents problems from the point of view of authentication. What we can do is ensure that only registered devices have access to the applications, information and data. These devices would include desktop computers, notebooks, phones and iPads etc. Where only certain registered devices on certain IP addresses are available to access the People, Ideas & Objects applications. In addition user name and password protection for access would be required. But in addition, we would require two step authentication where we text a code to their registered company phone, which would then have to be keyed into the device they were trying to log into. These three steps ensure that only authorized users were gaining access to the system.

Next we would ensure that all network traffic was encrypted. It has not been determined as of yet how the application will be presented to the users (browser or otherwise). However, once logged out of the system all data and information will be cleared from the cache and the device will have no information or data stored of the session. It should be noted that one of the advantages of the tools that we are using is that we should be able to present to the user the same desktop environment that they had left when they last logged out.

In our Hardware Policies and Procedures we have discussed how the People, Ideas & Objects application is hosted. This separate company is proposed to be jointly owned by industry, People, Ideas & Objects and Oracle. It is also proposed to be operated by the oil and gas industry primarily to meet their needs of maintaining the control they need for SEC regulatory compliance of their ERP systems. With industry having de-facto control of the “Cloud” infrastructure. This provides them with the means to maintain the physical control necessary to maintain their SEC needs. People, Ideas & Objects will be able to deliver a runnable binary of the application for them to operate without the need to be physically on-site.

And as I mentioned the other day it was an oversight that the Draft Specification initially indicated that the data storage and data base systems were not encrypted. Oracle provides high levels of encryption of both the storage medium and the database, at the data level itself. This will in turn provide no one at the industry operated cloud infrastructure with the ability to read any of the producers confidential data or information.

Implementing the technologies in this fashion will provide the industry with the security that they need to ensure that their data and information remains secure. These technologies are only the beginning of what will be implemented in the People, Ideas & Objects Security & Access Control module as they are all standard fare for the base level technologies used in Oracle. It is a simple manner of selecting them for use.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.