What the Plan, Where's the Strategy?

It’s one thing to be critical of the oil and gas producers, a skill and talent that I apply faithfully. To do so without offering an alternative would be futile and counter productive. My argument is only against the bureaucrats who are everybody’s favorite people and the group of individuals who are particularly responsible for the demise of the oil and gas industry. They’re also the ones that are moving rapidly towards extinction as a result of Information Technology, and are the odd man out in businesses everywhere. Maybe they’ll find some use in their next life. The ability for bureaucrats to self identify and take responsibility for their actions would be to much to ask. They’re always attempting to hide in plain sight and have defined characteristics that are obvious to those that are familiar with their breed and are able to identify them quickly. Their days are limited no matter what happens with People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers. They were placed on the endangered species list many decades ago. And don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way attempting to solicit support or sympathy for them. They deserve everything they’re about to experience.

There was an article from World Oil the other day that caught my attention. “Large Investment Groups Throw Weight Behind Oil Rally.” Makes me think I might be wrong about the difficulties in the industry and the investors withholding their investment dollars. However reading through the article provides some clarity.

Duquesne also added shares in companies including Marathon Petroleum and Devon Energy last quarter.

The stake in the VanEck exchange-traded fund was valued at $44.1 million, while the Marathon Petroleum shares, its fourth-largest addition, were worth $34.8 million, according to the filing. The biggest acquisition last quarter for the family office was Facebook and Gilead Sciences.

Soros Fund Management’s biggest addition in the energy sector is Devon Energy, valued at $30.8 million. The hedge fund also bought stakes in Andeavor, RSP Permian Inc. and Kinder Morgan.

Based on these and contrary to what I’ve been saying all along about the industry heading for a very difficult time. It is relatively easy to suggest at this point that we’ve arrived. The media are putting a spin on this disaster, for whatever reason, but the facts are facts and they point to a comatose patient with no heartbeat.

So how is it that the industry can come up with a plan to deal with the situation. A plan and not an excuse to defer any and all action to some quarter in 2022. They don’t have until the end of 2018. The first thing the industry needs to do is to buy time. That requires either bank or investor money. Which demands a plan and strategy to deal with the issues and future. There’s no time to start to think about this. It should have been started many years ago, or maybe even a decade ago. It took me a long time, 10 full years of research, in order to prepare the Preliminary Specification. Producers can’t throw more people at this either. These usually have to come from one mind. Which is part of the reason that it takes a decade or more. Does anyone know of anyone who would have been fool enough to prepare a plan and strategy that deals with the issues and opportunities in oil and gas and can be implemented today? Anyone?

My sarcasm is ripe today. The producers could collectively adopt the Preliminary Specification and proceed with that plan and strategy simply by funding our budget. Always a catch 22. That way the investors and bankers would be able to see the future of the industry and how it would be returned to a profitable industry. By implementing the decentralized production models price maker strategy the days of flooding the market everytime the oil or natural gas price rallies for two consecutive days would be at an end. That any of the investors or bankers money they did put into the industry would be returned with both the capital and earnings being competitive against other industries performance. And that performance would be based on a reasonable accounting that they could understand and trust.

I am aware that People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification is not the only plan and strategy that is available in the oil and gas marketplace. There are others. Take for instance the publication of Crescent Points revised strategy yesterday. Their newly installed CEO will be cutting staff by 17% and selling assets. Which is a business model that exists in certain industries. Think of pawn brokers or scrap metal recyclers. There’s also Strategic Oil and Gas who recently published their second quarter report that looked towards a future where investor and banker support was critical to their strategic interests. Only to declare a few weeks later that a special committee of the board of directors was formed to evaluate strategic alternatives. Or in other words, they’ve all but given up. My point is that there are many plans and strategies, ours seems to be the only productive and profitable one.

In somewhat related news, the probability that we’ll be able to launch a successful ICO diminishes each month. We’re still working towards one for September 2019 however it becomes progressively more difficult as the market remains relatively immature. The ICO method of funding will be with us for the rest of the century. And it will be a significant method to fund IT related projects. The diminishing capacity that I see is that to have our funding capability from that market in September 2019 may be premature. It may be as much as five years from now before the capability and capacities will be available, which would bring our ICO into the category of a less than highly probable event. The question the producers need to ask is, does this alternative appeal in terms of timing? Even with that delay though, that’s still twice as quick as the producers coming up with their own workable plans and strategy over the next decade.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XXX

Since the publication of the Preliminary Specification we have worked on the development of the user community as our first priority. This continues today and I’m happy to say that it will always be our first priority. High quality software begins with the user and that is where we are, the beginning. Building something today with the scope and scale of People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification without an empowered user community would be futile and wasteful. The issues and opportunities in the oil and gas marketplace at this time are too critical to be wasting time on approaches that we know will never work. It is the user community that will provide the speed of development and quality of software that are necessary at this time to deliver the software product and services the producers and industry require.

During this series discussion we have taken the time to highlight the competitive advantages that the user community and their associated service provider organizations will be providing the oil and gas producer and industry. They are significant and substantial. To simply list them is the most effective way to capture their level of competitiveness in the industry. These advantages include;

• The quality of the software and services they build. Cost is not a competitive differentiator when producers are losing so much and are facing an existential crisis.
• Specialization and the Division of Labor being applied consistently in the areas of administration and accounting. All economic value has been, and will always be generated by these two tools.
• Automation of business process. The capabilities and capacities of the user community and service providers to effect the change required within the industry. To expand oil and gas profitability and reduce costs through automation is a competitive advantage.
• Innovation based on the users accounting and administrative expertise. The Preliminary Specification lays the foundation for an innovative oil and gas industry, they will have an innovative accounting and administrative capability as well.
• Application of the new technologies as they become commercial and are proven to generate value or reduce costs. New technologies such as;
• The application of Artificial Intelligence.
• 5/G or the Internet of Things.
• Focusing the efforts on what computers do well. Storage and processing. Leaving the things to the user community that humans do well. Such as leadership, issue resolution, decision making, creativity, collaboration, research, ideas, design, planning, thinking, negotiating, compromising, innovating, sensing emotions and financing. To name a few.
• Integration of our software and services within the oil and gas, and support industries. 
• Leadership. More on this below. 

Members of the user community will hold an active and dynamic position within oil and gas and will be driven to ensure that producers achieve the most profitable means of oil and gas operations everywhere and always. Only they have control of the decentralized production models price maker strategies Intellectual Property through their user community license. Only they can solve what ails the industry today.

We see the user community is configured differently with competitive advantages and tools like the Intellectual Property that make it capable of undertaking the tasks ahead. As I’ve described, the work that will be done on behalf of the oil and gas industry will be different than anything else the user community member may have approached before. It will be a dynamic and exciting role in a very difficult period for the industry. The key attribute of the user community member will be their leadership capabilities. Dispatching 3,000 leaders to solve the many areas at issue is the only way this will be done. Leadership has been defined as simply as the readiness, willingness and ability. Joseph Schumpeter said of leadership “Fixers and troubleshooters rather than production man.” Four specific behaviours are responsible for 89% of the effectiveness of leaders. These four are 1) being supportive, 2) operating with a strong results orientation, 3) seek different perspectives, 4) solve problems effectively. If you find this work as I’ve described in this series interesting the industry needs you. The issues don’t seem to be going away on their own do they.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XIX

As a user community member you may already know and understand that People, Ideas & Objects will be using Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications as the base of the ERP system we will be providing to the oil and gas producers. These Oracle products have now been conveniently repackaged within a new offering called Oracle ERP Cloud. It will be this base of functionality that Oracle provides in which we will build the Preliminary Specification modules off of. Everyone being clearly aware of these applications and are good at seeing what the Preliminary Specification vision is as it is expressed today will be able to imagine in their own minds what it is they’re building. I’m being facetious of course. Nothing of the sort is expected, it would be a fundamental failure from the word go. What the user community must have from the first day of their development is a useable demonstration of the People, Ideas & Objects software in its initial development stage of being only the Oracle ERP Cloud. And each and every iteration of the development of the software. Then they can see the areas that they can use to bring about their ideas and weave their needs into the Oracle ERP Cloud and Preliminary Specification through our software developers. A constant, iterative approach.

As I mentioned this demonstration facility will be provided on the first day of development and be available to all of the users within the user community 7/24. Users will be able to generate generic data that can be used and reused to test the features that are being developed while the user is working to get the software right. As mentioned earlier, the use of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) will allow user interaction with the software developer, review of the code, the ability to implement changes and run the code. Choosing an IDE is more of a personal preference. Google “Integrated Development Environment” and you’ll be provided with a wealth of information, videos and offerings. As an enterprise builder we would be somewhat limited to the Netbeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ and Oracle JDeveloper offerings.

Software development has changed from what most people understand. There will be times when a user community member may experience changes to the software their working with on a daily basis or even more frequently. Software is no longer released once a year based on a long list of changes that are opaque to the users. Small changes done incrementally over time is the superior method of building software today. When the user is driving those changes and is able to check the results of those changes against a working demo of the application there are few bugs that see the light of day in a commercial release of software. When we are discussing the development of the Preliminary Specifications on top of Oracle ERP Cloud we are discussing a well defined application scope and scale with an overall vision that is understood by each and every user member. There is no reason for People, Ideas & Objects to be releasing a buggy, poorly defined and slapped together hodge podge of an oil and gas application. We will have the resources, tools and methods to overcome the niggling details that the devil puts in our way.

Since People, Ideas & Objects will be a cloud provider of its software. And Oracle is providing their software on the cloud today. Members of our user community during our initial software developments will be able to access the work they’re doing and have done on most devices. Therefore demonstrating the work that they’ve done will be able to be presented to the producers as soon as the first week of our developments. The producers would then be able to participate through the user community member and have their specific needs and desires met in that way. Although it would be logistically difficult to have 3,000 user community members participating in this way, with 200 or so producers, more efficient ways of doing the same will be able to be discovered.

I’ve mentioned this next point a few times before and it’s just as valid today as it was then. I can’t necessarily peg the work that we’re doing here at People, Ideas & Objects as exclusively software development. That is our role and that is what we are focusing on. My point is that the cross between a software development / custom Integration will be hard to discern at times. Particularly for the user community member who will be undertaking the integration of the software through their service provider offering at some point in time. This is a result of the high levels of participation of the user community, possibly the producers tagging along too, and the developers all working to solve the issues the oil and gas industry is facing. To say that one day we will move from a decidedly software development phase to an integration phase in my mind will never happen. Integration should be one of the key issues that the user community member should be considering at all times and asking themselves, how can I speed up the implementation / integration of this feature within industry? Which raises the question when is it that the user community member begins the development of their service provider offering? Even without an assigned service provider process is there work that can and should be done by the producers in anticipation of the integration.

It’s within this post that we see the dynamic and critical role that is undertaken by the user community member. Without them nothing is going to happen, and nothing will happen unless its an idea or thought of the users first. Such is the interesting nature of this work and this time we find ourselves in. It should be clear that this is not your grandfather's user community.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

Labor Day

Third Friday

User Community Developments, Part XXVIII

When we understand the power of Intellectual Property (IP) and the means in which to deploy it competitively we begin to see new opportunities in the marketplace. Publishing the Preliminary Specification has been an effective competitive weapon for People, Ideas & Objects. It has helped to recruit and establish the user community, and through our user community vision, secure their foundation with the power and control to make the needed changes in the oil and gas industry. These competitive advantages will soon be in the hands of the user community. IP is the only means of competitive value that I feel is worth having in the 21st century. You either own IP, you have a license to IP or you will work for a firm that has access to IP. These will be the only manner in which people will be able to work in the future. Software, which is one of the strongest forms of IP is in my opinion the only business that will exist in 2050. No other industry will still be around. Such as it’s not enough to own the oil and gas asset any longer, it's also necessary to have access to the software that makes the oil and gas asset profitable. Therefore as a potential user community participant with a license to this IP you have a choice to invest in the user community or you could buy a producing oil well. Where’s the value? It’s your choice to determine how you’ll operate in this century. Our user community will need to learn and understand how to effectively use this new tool they will soon have.

We have three general methods in which to organize the user community. The work will initially be highly collaborative between other users within the community. Then in addition to collaborating within the community it will also be collaborative with our software developers. Users will at times need to be physically in front of our developers to ensure that their needs are met. They will need to be speaking to producers to relate what they’re doing and what the producers needs are. And they will be collaborating amongst themselves all over the continent. Therefore do we establish office space in Houston and designate private offices for each user community participant? Or we could do the open area concept and crowd everyone into a third of the space. The final method that we could use is to have the user community participant do this critical work in distributed teams. In any one of these three methods the use of video conferencing and one to one video communications would be more than adequate for the majority of the work that needs to be done.

I read an interesting article the other day in TechCrunch regarding the use of distributed teams. The key finding was that in order to make up for the lack of face-to-face communications the demand falls to each participant having to use their writing skills to overcome the distance. Therefore reading and writing become the primary means and mode of communication. Alleviating the office politics and increasing the documentary value of the users contributions. What we need to do, as I stated earlier, is capture the ideas that have already formed in people's subconscious, verify it, codify it, collaborate with others to validate its authenticity and merge with the other ideas from other users. Doing this in text is more precise and thoughtful, is easily searched and reviewed. Capturing ideas and who specifically contributed the ideas within conversations in an open office area becomes much less efficient in contrast. To house people in individual offices in order to write these submissions seems contrary to efficiency and redundant when the Internet is at least 24 years of age. Therefore distributed teams is the method that we will be employing throughout the user community on a permanent basis.

In terms of how People, Ideas & Objects will determine the allocation of specific service provider licenses to which member of the user community. The contributions that are made during the development process will be the determining factor. No one is going to go through all the submissions and be able to allocate the appropriate license to the right individual. That would be a superhuman exercise and not possible. It is however well within the scope of what Artificial Intelligence is able to determine. The AI algorithm would review the Final Specification and determine the key attributes of the system. This may involve some help from us humanoids. It would then be able to go back and determine the first mention of these key ideas and the individual who originated it. It would then review the sum of all of the users contributions, compare those with the other users and their areas of specific idea generation. Then apply the known processes under management within the Final Specification and award the licenses for the management of those processes to the highest contributor of each individual process in terms of the ideas and contributions that were made. It sounds easy when I put it like this, however, we will have a budget set aside for the development of this algorithm the moment we are funded. That way by the time we have to apply the AI to the situation it will be tested and the bugs worked out. These AI recommendations would also be subject to the final approval of the user community.

We are capturing the user communities contributions in Google Docs and a Wiki based on Google Sites. We are using Google GSuite for our collaborative environment. It is by far the best in terms of determining who generated what idea when. All that users will have to do to secure their thoughts is to prepare their initial submission in a Google Doc (Word) document and then copy and paste that to the Wiki. The AI algorithm will be able to see the Google Doc was where the original thought came from, who wrote it and at what time. If we used Microsoft Office Word and Excel these applications are still unable to consolidate the contributions of many contributors to a document into one file. Usually someone has to babysit the consolidation to ensure everything is captured and hence losing the originators time stamp and contributions. In this sense Google is light years ahead of Microsoft. People, Ideas & Objects software code itself will be stored in GitLabs and be available for the user community member to review through an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This will be read only access and will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future. Review of the code is something that will be expected of the user community member as a final verification that what they are expecting is what in fact being conducted.

Establishing the development environment in this manner provides significant value to the dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas producer. The desire to get things down quickly will be the motivation of the user community member initially. Providing a base for discussion and collaboration within the community in a short period of time. It will also provide somewhat of a competitive spirit between user community participants that will keep the pace of contributions high. Competitive, yet each user community members license guarantees each user community member will be provided with a service provider organization, after all that is the grand prize in this process. Therefore collaborative, competitive and civil all at the same time. With AI providing the recommendations of which user community member to be assigned to which process the user community member knows that the work that they do, the area that they know the best will lead to their recognition in terms of the allocation of service providers. Enabling them to specialize on a process and work hard to earn it. The last point to make is that user community members may have an interest in one service provider or in many service providers. Their total interest in many service providers not exceeding, or falling below 100%. (For example if the user had an interest in three service providers they may have 40%, 40% and 20% interests.)

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XXVII

We touched on some of the detailed work that needed to be done by the user community during our software developments. This of course could only occur once the user community had fully formed. Which would be difficult when we don’t have any office space in which to house them. Bringing up the issue of our budget, which needs to be fully in place before the user community participants are going to fully commit to this project. They can’t risk their careers by having the bureaucrats cut the funding half way through leaving those individuals without the opportunity of user community participation and establishing a service provider. Restarting the project after a budget cut and pause would be impossible. Which is why we need the full funding in place. Otherwise the bureaucrats will only create a failure to prove the Preliminary Specification is unworkable and establish themselves as the only solution for oil and gas management. Casting the user community participant to the catacombs as punishment for participation.

Nonetheless the time travelled in the first paragraph of this post is seemingly years and we still haven’t hired one developer. It appears that the time that we deliver commercial software to the marketplace will be at least a decade from here. This post will dispel this timeline with the facts of how we we’ll be approaching these developments within a far more reasonable time frame and deliver software on a much more timely basis. What delays our commercial release date at this point is the formation of the user community. We have been undertaking this task for five years and are continuing with that work. Therefore, in my opinion, our date for commercial release has been fixed in time for these past five years and will remain fixed as we continue to work on developing the user community. One of the primary reasons that user community developments in oil and gas ERP systems have never been successful is that the budget and time commitment to them are inadequate for the users to consider them. User community commitment is not something that people will review and in the following week commit too. They’d like to see the details of the plan. How will it work, what’s their role and how do they fit in. These are detailed in the user community vision. A vision that endows them with the power and control to effectively deal with the changes that need to be made. Users also need to see the budget and commitment of the producers, in this case, in order that they can rely on more than just empty promises. Right now they don’t see the commitment from industry only the need for action. These take substantial amounts of time for people to consider. They have to consider the opportunity and what it will cost them if they make the change and what will it cost if they don’t make the change.

Three thousand individuals, the size of the user community we believe we need for the Preliminary Specification, which is a substantial amount of people. Identifying the scope and scale of the community helps people to realize their role is probable and possible to be contributing to a successful venture. If we’re looking for a hundred people to undertake the scope and scale of the Preliminary Specification people would know intuitively that that’s not enough people to do the job and failure would be the outcome. I believe generally in my discussions with potential members of the user community that we’ve struck the right balance in terms of scope and scale of the tasks ahead of us. As the issue of oil and gas profitability becomes more evident to more people each day there is a greater realization of the need. Overall a large number of people within oil and gas have read the Preliminary Specification in its entirety. I know, I’ve been told a million times only put your ideas down in a half dozen points on a presentation because no one reads anything. What I’ve found since my first publication in 1996 is that people read.

People, Ideas & Objects competitive strategy at this point in time is the cognitive dissonance created in the potential user community participant who has read the Preliminary Specification. They know of a different and, I’ll state for marketing purposes, a better way. They can see the logic and integrated nature of how the Preliminary Specification functions. And they also need to function in the day-to-day of the existing environment that is not functioning profitably, which is being gracious, and are forced to use systems that are inadequate. This cognitive dissonance is the motivation that the user community participant will likely use to act when the budget is secured. The motivation being their own sanity. To continue without the hope of the change is too difficult for them to even contemplate. Therefore they may have already made the conscious decision with their families and are making tactical changes to their situation to accommodate the pending change. This is how you develop a user community.

So in terms of time I don’t see a decade passing before the user community is formed and we release commercial software. We’ll discuss tomorrow the “how” aspect of the user communities method of operation. Then we’ll be able to know the time necessary to do this work that has already passed. That is, the work has already been done in the subconscious minds of the people who are the potential user community participants. Now we only have to capture it in textual form.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XXVI

Since we’re on the topic of the user community and service providers we should discuss their role during our software developments. Understanding the reorganization of the industry and producers conducted by the implementation of the Preliminary Specifications decentralized production model. When it comes time for the user community to prepare the processes that are under management by the service providers we are presented with a complete blank slate. The only thing that is settled is that there will be many service providers conducting the accounting and administrative tasks for the industry as a cloud based service. The how, what and why is more detailed than that and is gained as a result of reading the entire Preliminary Specification. The objective here is to prepare the most efficient way to organize the industry and producer in order to obtain the full scope and scale of the opportunities that these configurations provide. Understanding too that this blank slate is the reason that we’re unable to commit to any prescribed, specific process that will be managed by any specific user in a service provider organization at this time. That will be the last task we conduct in terms of who is assigned what process to manage. The criteria we will use to make those determinations will be based on the significance of the contributions made by each user community participant during the software development process.

So let’s look at a task that will be conducted within the industry nonetheless. I want to set out in the beginning of this post that this is only a discussion to stimulate some thought and will not be incumbent upon the user community for them to follow along with these as directions. The Preliminary Specification is a requirement, however it is the larger picture reorganization and reconfiguration of the industry, producers, departments, service industry and other organizations. With major processes defined and how they’ll operate. These are implemented as defined in the Preliminary Specification. The following is just a discussion in this one post around one individuals thoughts.

Let’s assume that the task the user community are developing are the processes needed to be established in order to pay vendors? What we also know is that there will be an approval process that will continue to be required by the producer. There is also a Purchase Order system within the Preliminary Specification. This process is complicated by the removal of the operator designation approving costs on behalf of the Joint Operating Committee. In the future, do the working interest owners approval of the AFE’s budget include the specific program with the vendors named and their winning bids as part of the AFE that is approved by the members of the Joint Operating Committee? Is this how the costs are then subsequently approved for payment for capital projects when submitted by the vendor? And what about operations, how are these costs approved, or are they analyzed for reasonableness and consistency from prior periods? With the mass of data how can Artificial Intelligence, a competitive advantage of the user community, be applied here? Where any exceptions that are identified are highlighted for subsequent review by a specific service provider(s).

How do we organize the process of paying the vendors? What are the needs, expectations and ideas that the service industry representatives have in this process? Will there be service providers who are dedicated to the service industry representatives processes? And as we state in the Preliminary Specification “who are we building systems for?” if not for everyone in society that is affected by the oil and gas industry. Only then can we begin to define the real efficiencies and effectiveness of what we’re doing.

Paying the vendors is not going to be handled by only one service provider. A further specialization within this area is going to be required. Maybe we have many service providers that are involved in the process of coding accounts and paying bills. Are these processes organized based on the specific producers that the service provider will support. Or will the service provider support the vendor with the A named vendors assigned here, the B’s assigned there etc. Or will there be the need for service providers on both sides of the transaction? And what about automation. You can buy an App that scans the receipt of your recent purchase and code it into the accounting system that you use personally. How much automation can be implemented in terms of these entire process and where do the service providers fit in terms of how and what they do to ensure the oil and gas producers achieve the most profitable means of oil and gas operations?

This work by the user community needs to be defined in order to commence software developments. They are therefore our current primary impediment to our release date and hence the reason that People, Ideas & Objects have focused on the development of our user community as our priority over the past five years. They are our customers as they are the ones who do the most critical work in terms of ensuring that producers are producing profitably and the users service provider organizations are constantly iterating and improving the software and service that they provide the industry. There won’t be any software developed prior to the formation of the user community and the development of the necessary level of detail for the developers to begin developments. I am not imputing that our software developers will only begin developing after the user community puts a bright red bow on their work. Developers will have their own initial work loads to do before they interact with the user community and they will have many phases where their output will need to be, let's be kind, amended by the user community. One of the competitive advantages of the user community is quality, they will need to learn how to attain that from our developers.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XXV

There are two more points to make today, the first is that it seems that we’ve always focused on the process management software that the user community will be involved in designing and using within their service provider organization. I just want to make note to ensure that everyone understands that the producers staff themselves will also have access to the People, Ideas & Objects software for the use of their needs for reports, data and information. Just as the use of a Bloomberg terminal provides the user with all kinds of tools and useful applications to analyze the data that is prepared by others, producers will be accessing the People, Ideas & Objects software in a similar manner. People, Ideas & Objects software will have the data and process management results provided to the producers from the service providers in their reports. However there will also be some roles for the user community and service providers to be involved in providing the software and services to the producers themselves. For example integration. Outside of the process management areas that we’ve consistently discussed. This other aspect of how our software will be used will be highlighted in subsequent posts from now on as well.

The second point to finish off this series is that People, Ideas & Objects sees the user community that we’re developing here as our customers. As a service based operation we are focused on ensuring that our customers provide their oil and gas clients with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Together we will search for ways in which to ensure that the producers attain real profitability and maintain that in each and every year. We owe it to our future to ensure, based on a reasonable accounting, that oil and gas is produced profitably from this point forward. How are we to explain to those of us in the future the reckless and unprofitable production that has occurred in these past four decades. I don’t think we could, it’s selfish and irresponsible to use a resource that’s non-renewable in such regard. We also need to look at the larger societal benefit of the oil and gas industries profitability. Without profitability no one has benefited as a result of the industries activities. No one other than the consumer who has had the capital costs of their consumption provided as a discount due to the bad accounting conducted throughout the industry. Without profits we now see the results of what profitability provides which is a healthy overall impact towards society in general. The oil and gas economy is in desperate condition when you subject it to a critical review. The lack of appropriate commodity prices, for over a decade in natural gas and four years in oil, has destroyed any and all value that was ever built before.

This is the state of affairs the bureaucrats have left things in. Their ability to identify the issue and accept the situation doesn’t exist. Recognition of the problem should be the first point on the journey to its resolution. Instead the bureaucrats will come up with ever more creative excuses of “another cold winter” or “market rebalancing” among many others to justify their “muddle along” and “do nothing” strategy and operating procedure. The investors gave these bureaucrats their chance to rectify the situation during the past four years. The investors strike cut off any further participation in funding the producers demands for capital. It now seems that 2018 is the year that the investors concluded that the situation will not rectify itself and as a result are actively collecting the majority share of cash from the producers for the foreseeable future.

It is therefore back to the producer. It’s in their court to conduct themselves in some manner to convince the world they mean business. We’ll talk more about that in tomorrow’s post but they don’t have much time as the drain on cash is such that these producers will need to be begin downsizing into cannibalizing mode in order to continue. Or shut the doors. That maybe a decision these bureaucrats have already made. After all what do they have to lose. They’ll still be making the big bucks. This outlook stands in direct contrast to what is said by these producers and the press that covers oil and gas. The issue they should maybe address is that generally I’ve been more correct in determining the outcome of the situation then they have.

On the brighter side of life we are not allowing anyone who is interested in the user community to risk any part of their careers or current financial position. The risk associated with joining the user community is very high and until we have our budget funded we will only be accepting applications through our process that is defined here. None of these applications are known by anyone other than myself as there are probable, highly detrimental consequences to anyone who is seen to be affiliated with this project. The bureaucrats are vindictive and they apparently spend a lot of time talking amongst themselves. I guess that’s what you do when you have nothing productive to do.

It is therefore necessary for people to assess the oil and gas industries future for themselves. What will it be like in 5, 10 and 25 years? How will it escape from this rut that it’s in? Is the user community something that appeals to you? These are the questions that should be answered and if you desire to stay in oil and gas, I would suggest a decision would need to be made as to which side of the fence you would prefer to be on.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.

User Community Developments, Part XXIV

The process that will be under management by the service providers may be relatively simple in the larger scheme of things. Consider the service provider who will provide lease rental payments and only lease rental payments. There’s not a significant amount of detail in order to complete the process, just that it’s done in a guaranteed way and on a timely basis. The volume of data associated with most service providers will be quite significant and will bring in other areas of the service providers capabilities and competitive advantages. Areas that are incapable of being applied today. Capabilities and competitive advantages such as specialization and the division of labor which alone will provide the service provider with the capability to do more with less. Having the user community member heading up the service provider organization, changes in the process and the software can be made through the user community members access to the Intellectual Property and software development team of People, Ideas & Objects. It is within that small domain of the service providers process where the ability to focus on a constant iteration of continuous improvements can be undertaken. With the cornerstones and competitive advantages we’ve discussed, these can all be applied to provide that one competitive advantage that is missing today, in my opinion, that being the quality of the software and services necessary to ensure we provide the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

Reading this series on the User Community Developments reflects the importance and difficult nature of the user community members role. They will need to be quite diverse in their skill set and capabilities. The two characteristics that we’ll be looking for which will determine who it is that are awarded the user community positions are their leadership and entrepreneurial skills. When we look at the undertaking of resolving the profitability issue in oil and gas by implementing the Preliminary Specification we are taking on a very difficult task. One that is as difficult as the issues in oil and gas itself. Big issues are not solved easily and this issue is moving the industry towards very difficult times. The benefits of moving to the Preliminary Specification are substantial and worthwhile to make the changes. Critical to these changes functioning in the marketplace are the user community member and their service provider operation. The ability to undertake this change is far easier when we’ve deployed three thousand leaders / entrepreneurs who are endowed with the capabilities and competitive advantages defined in this series. If we tried to do this from a top down approach it’s easy to understand how it would be bogged down in the bureaucracy of a large organization and unable to complete its task in anywhere close to the time frames that are necessary or predictable.

The use of Information Technologies at very high levels is also how we resolve these issues in the short, mid and long terms. Demanding that the user community member bring those skills and capabilities to their organizations. We have talked about the competitive advantages of automation, application of Artificial Intelligence, 5G / the Internet of things and the integration of these technologies in the process that they manage. And then to add just that extra bit of difficulty make them highly innovative in all that they do. Our budget has determined that the standard rate we pay for all of the work done by the user community members interactions with our developers is set at $190 u.s. / hour. We have no influence in the pricing of the service provider offerings. We have however stated unequivocally that they will not be competing on price as the domains of the service providers that will be licensed by People, Ideas & Objects will not overlap and the service provider will never have another service provider appear in the marketplace undercutting the price of that service providers offering. The competitive advantages that are detailed in this User Community Development series are not the kind of competitive advantages that can be prepared and offered if the service provider organizations are also competing on price. In addition, the situation as it is today, in the hands of our competitors, compete based on price and the profitability of the oil and gas industry in the past four decades has been non-existent. If the producers want they can stay with what they have. However if they want to achieve the most profitable means of oil and gas operations they will need to make some changes. It’s not enough to own the oil and gas asset, you’ll also have to have access to the software that makes the oil and gas asset profitable.

Yet at the same time I would think that the overall community of users and the larger group of service providers would be highly competitive in the areas that we’ve detailed as their competitive advantages in this series. Learning from each other the tricks and nuances of how and what are necessary in order to maximize the value of specialization and the division of labor, or iterating on the automation that they see in other service providers processes. These are how our quality offering and value proposition will continue to expand each and every year that People, Ideas & Objects, our user community and service providers are operational in the oil and gas producer marketplace.

The Preliminary Specification, our user community and service providers provide for a dynamic, innovative, accountable and profitable oil and gas industry with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Setting the foundation for profitable North America’s energy independence. People, Ideas & Objects Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in our future Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will fund these user defined software developments. It is through the process of issuing our ICO that we are leading the way in which creative destruction can be implemented within the oil and gas industry. Users are welcome to join me here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don’t forget to join our network on Twitter @piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email here.