British PM Gordon Brown, gets it.

I have a quote from our local paper, The Calgary Herald, regarding British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's call on world leaders to create a new financial architecture to replace the Bretton Woods system.

Sometimes it does take a crisis for people to agree that what is obvious and should have been done years ago can no longer be postponed, Brown said in a speech at the London offices of Thomson Reuters.

and

"I'm slightly less terrified today than I was on Friday," said Princeton University economist Paul Krugman, named as the winner of the Nobel prize in economics on Monday. "We're going to have a recession and perhaps a prolonged one but perhaps not a collapse."

What governments, in this current economic meltdown, seem unable to say is no to any request for funds. If they had learned to say "no" many years ago to the guy with no income no job or assets (ninja) who wanted a mortgage, then we wouldn't be in this state.

I first raised the issue of a credit crisis in a blog entry entitled Beyond the Red Horizon. In the entry I suggested that CNRL would have difficulty in getting their heavy oil production on line due to the looming credit crisis and severe credit levels that the company holds. Particularly the $3.2 Billion working capital deficiency. (What were they thinking?) The companies shares are down $41.76 since I wrote those comments. Trading at $40.47, a mere shadow of its former self. I think they should get prepared for the real hair cut that will soon affect the company. (Yes, even though we have lost $30 trillion globally.)

This firms management have placed the company in a situation where they have absolutely no options. They will soon be unable to meet payroll, unable to pay their field service providers and many other normal business operations that are now beyond the scope of the companies capabilities. No matter how you add it up, the situation is unworkable. Yet Murray Edwards, one of the many Vice Chairman of the firm, says absolutely nothing in this recent interview with Forbes. He has a responsibility to his shareholders to be a little clearer on this topic, don't you think? These kind of comments only let the credit crisis monsters get an eye on where to go next. If you have shares in CNRL get out before they are run into the ground. And thank Murray Edwards on your way out.

The preliminaries in the fowl winds of this credit crisis are now over. The bullets have all been fired and now the serious business of this meltdown will begin. I would expect the rolling and violent stock markets will continue with a strong downward trend. What will now begin to happen is the currencies and value of the countries will face the same types of horrendous devaluation forces. (Bankrupt countries like Iceland.) I don't like discussing these issues, it is however somewhat comforting to be knowing what will happen next, and I hope to be providing some forewarning.

In all of this calamity it is important to note that opportunities are opening up to everyone. This is a brand new clean slate with the wealthy people like Murray Edwards unable to save their money from destruction, and no time or energy to pursue these new opportunities. Get in and earn yourself a healthy position in some kind of assets that will eventually be sold or auctioned. We are going to need to re-build the industry brick by brick and stick by stick. Just as Gordon Brown stated, "Sometimes it does take a crisis for people to agree that
what is obvious and should have been done years ago can no longer be
postponed."

Join me here in building this software to manage the oil and gas industry. We have limited choices, use manual systems, give SAP another try, or build this software and re-build the industry for those that are prepared to take these opportunities.

Technorati Tags: People's Pig Failure Management Trends

Capital vs. Talent, the Battle Rages On.

In the current Fall 2008 issue of the Rotman school magazine. They have another article that I think provides support for the work that we are doing in this software development project. Entitled "Capital vs. Talent, the Battle Rages On" it has some very sound ideas, so lets dig in.

The article argues through a quick review of some of the recent history of how industries have lost some of their value through a rise in the talent that makes the firm operate. Noting that capital has not been able to effectively deal with talent costs since Warren Buffets days at Salomon Brothers. A few decades ago Buffet removed $110 million from the bonus pool of the managers, and as a result created tension between the ownership and their management. This eventually led to the talent moving from Salomon Brothers and the rest as they say, is history.

Today similar issues are systemic throughout the business world. Warren Buffet's recent investment in Goldman Sachs came with agreement of the "C" class executives to limit sales of their shares to 10% of their holdings until 2011, or when Buffet realizes his investment.

The CEO and the Wall Street brokerages have received ever increasing pay and at the same time derision from most people. Why are they entitled to so much compensation? I have recently written about the Piggies consisting of the four mid sized oil and gas companies. These pigs have granted themselves up to $3.3 billion of "in the money" stock option compensation, which I calculated just before the down draft of our current markets took hold. These points go toward how I see the current systems, and particularly the financial systems, are failing in a manner that is somewhat consistent with the former Soviet Union's collapse.

That is to say, you get to a point where the efficiencies of the way things are done begin to breakdown. The speed of the bureaucracies are woefully incapable of addressing the issues and the pace of business. Particularly the market demands of an innovative oil and gas producer. Soon the volume of resources are not able to address the needs and the breakdown begins it's downward spiral.

This is what is happening to our systems today. The problem that is unique to this time and place is that economies are dependent on high levels of division of labor. Without the efficiencies of those systems available to us we are relegated to manual systems. And we can't replace the old systems with anything new, as those systems like this software development project, have not yet been built.

The article in Rotman writes;

From giant pension funds to small retail investors, capital has increasingly lost its patience with talent, whether it be CEOs, fund managers, lawyers, investment bankers, athletes or actors. Capital is particularly upset because it really liked the previous world – which crested for it in the 1960-to-1980 period and has headed downhill ever since. The truth is, capital is no longer the undisputed ‘scarce resource’ of the economy, and accordingly, its bargaining power has dramatically waned. p.5

This stating that management who controls the company has taken care of its own interests, and forgotten the other stakeholders in their decisions.

As a result, capital will increasingly find itself in a negotiation with a wide variety of its employees, with each dedicated to finding out exactly how much he or she can extract. Instead of feeling like it is getting a fabulous deal from its best customer service representative (CSR) – who currently earns the standard compensation package for CSR’s – capital will find itself paying top dollar to keep that fabulous CSR engaged. However, anyone from the talent side who has a desire to plum the depths of ‘how much’ rather than ‘enough’ needs to heed certain rules of value maximization. p. 6

Here we have in a nutshell the importance of this software development project. The talent to run the oil and gas industry is independent of the producers that engage them. Recall the competitive advantages that a producer firm is concerned with is their land base, and the capabilities in terms of its science and engineering. The administration, reporting and compliance attributes traditionally handled by an ERP system are a cost of business that does not serve to increase the producers competitive advantage.

However, the competitive advantage that People, Ideas & Objects has as its objective is to provide the oil and gas producer with the most profitable manner in which to operate their land base and capabilities. This point drives the fundamental nature of the changes that we are seeing. A move away from growth to capturing value, and from processing transactions to designing transactions to optimize that value. Please review the Accounting Voucher module to see how these attributes are implemented in People, Ideas & Objects.

The article then goes into a detailed description of how talent can maximize their value.

Achieve and Maintain Distinctiveness

Thus it is important for talent to thwart any attempts to simplify or codify the knowledge structures underlying the talent in question. The more the basis for talent development is heuristic in nature -- i.e. based on experience and judgment – and the less it is algorithmic i.e. “I studied the manual” – the better for talent. Putting up barriers to the replication of its distinctiveness is critical to the maintenance of talent differentiation. p. 6

Very difficult to do when the systems that exist today are set in concrete and not able to adapt. What is needed is the users of the People, Ideas & Objects software application have a dedicated software development capability available to capture the "experience and judgment" of the users. 

Establish the Clear Line of Sight to End Customers

The key is for the talent to make sure that the customer can see and appreciate its contribution to the value proposition, because then the customer will induce capital to acquire the requisite talent -- often with little regard for the cost. p. 7

As the head of People, Ideas & Objects I have the user clearly established as my customer. And I know that the user has the producer clearly identified in their sights.

Attach to Deep Pools of Capital

Talent positions itself as absolutely critical to all aspects of the business, and in doing so, it attaches itself irreversibly to the pool of capital that leverages its activities. p. 7

Capital, the difficult part. The oil and gas industry has several trillion dollars in annual revenue. It is an industry that will be learning more in the next few years then what it learned from the past 140. Having a dynamic capability to support this industry will provide value to those that are able to make the producers the most profitable. Work involved in developing the software for People, Ideas & Objects allows the users to earn some of their revenue from People, Ideas & Objects, but their revenue is also from the producers in which the users provide their services.

In terms of revenue I also assess the producers a fee for use of the system, in which goes to pay the developers, project managers, account managers and users.

Develop Creative Extraction Formulas

To specify what may be a creative solution for the users in extracting their value from the producers, I fear that I may limit the creative aspect in an area that is not my business. You can also see with my recent post where it is clear that I am going through the process of identifying the sources of revenues that I need to finance this development. The users should consider these same issues and develop their own service offerings and revenue solutions.

Defenses for Capital

After all they are our customers. And we don't want to repeat the same mistakes that the current management has done in killing their golden goose, the oil and gas investor. However it will also be worthwhile to see how investors may try to mitigate the effect of an environment that we are building in this community.

Maintain Closer Involvement

It will be the darkest of days that capital is completely uninvolved in the enterprise. p. 8

Well it certainly seems dark doesn't it. I have suggested a means to resolve this with my recent publication of what an oil and gas investor should do. This will accelerate management's demise forcing them to place the firms assets on the market for sale. Once there the investor can buy the actual property and actively manage it through the People, Ideas & Objects software and its Community of Independent Service Providers. 

Commoditize Classes of Talent

Sorry that train has left the station. The need to commoditize talent I think is understood to be in the best interest of investors in most other industries. But in a dynamic oil and gas environment the investor is going to want to have the talent that can roll with the punches. That is what is clearly being offered in the People, Ideas & Objects software and Community of Independent Service Providers.

Build Talent-Independent Assets

Here the authors are suggesting that investors dabble in other businesses that are capital intensive, and hence reduce the influence of talent. I don't understand this point, but I can assure you the oil and gas industry will remain dynamic for the next 100 years and the attitude of the investor needs to cooperate with the talent in order to A) make the transition from the bureaucracies and B) motivate them to build and deliver the systems and services that will accommodate innovative producers.

Collectivize to Fight Talent

I won't address this point as I think that the article captures the right spirit but may be tactically trying to optimize the relationship in the investors benefit. And although that has happened throughout the last century, I fail to see how it could be done today. We all need each other. Its management that we don't need. The attitude of the article appears focused on not allowing the same problems with the bureaucracy re-occurring.

If you are interested in this development please follow the process here to make application to participate in the Preliminary Specification. If you are aware of some investors in oil and gas that fit the description in this post, please forward the URL to them and encourage them to participate in making this development real. And please, join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Change Management User Funding

Access Management for Web Applications

A series of blogs has been put up by Maria Sum at Sun Microsystems. The seven part series discusses the Sun products for security and access control. These are the products that have been selected in the Draft Specification for the Security & Access Control  module.


In the Draft Specification, the Security & Access Control module is also the first module to be built. Using Sun Identity, Federated and Access Management frameworks. How this is implemented in the People, Ideas & Objects application modules is that we will be building the application module almost immediately. It will then be used by the community to test and develop the module to the needs of the community. Making the module so that it is Single Sign On (SSO) and that everyone in the community has a hands on understanding and use of the module right from the start.

This is certainly a different way of developing the application, usually the Security & Access Control are the last things that are cobbled together as an after thought. Sun has something to say about that and the use of their product frameworks.  

Typically, the number-one problem in developing Web applications is that identity is often an afterthought," Jamie observes. "Developers tend to focus on the logic, UI, and other aspects until it dawns on them, toward the end of the cycle, that they must secure the applications for, say, user login's and protect the data. Then come the important questions of what tools to use for verifying and authorizing access, what maintenance tasks are involved, whether to adopt federated identity—all afterthoughts at the eleventh hour.

The security of the information held within the People, Ideas & Objects application modules is of a mission critical, highly sensitive and confidential basis. Add to the fact that we are interacting between the community, the producers and their partners and all members of the service industry the security of the system becomes the number one priority. This also brings up the nature of the code that is compiled into the module. This needs to be open and reviewable by those that use the code. It is not enough to say "trust me", people, producers and suppliers have to be able to independently verify that the security level is achieved through their own review. And in People, Ideas & Objects the source code is available to the community and producers for just this purpose.

As with most of Sun's products this independent review of the source code is available to their products. Sun is strongly committed to Open Source Software and therefore their code is openly reviewable as well as that of the People, Ideas & Objects application modules. These products include the following four components.

• Sun Java System Access Manager
• Sun Java System Federation Manager
• Sun Java System Directory Server
• Sun Java System Identity Manager

By implementing the application early, we are able to use the SSO as the method that our community accesses "Google Apps for People, Ideas & Objects Domain" and "SalesForce.com". Permitting our Users to sign on once and have access to all of our systems with one very secure sign in page. Early use will educate our users on its value and features and debug our implementation. Ideally we will need to have the authentication, verification and audit procedures and policies in place before the system is provided to our customers. A system that is used by all members of the community first, and then as production code for our producer clients.

I want to stress a major point of how this application, as defined, is implemented in the greater scheme. If producers are not satisfied with the level of security offered, they are able to deal with the Users and Developers directly to get the solution they want. Try that with either Oracle or SAP. It is reasonable therefore we will have the most secure system possible operating in the ERP market space. And yet, by using Sun's products in this fashion we inherit the following.

Again, Jamie emphasizes, The goal is to free up developers to do their primary jobs instead of fiddling with security.

and

Jamie strongly advocates access management being part of the application design. Applications that work centrally with access management are the answer, he says; otherwise, "you end up creating a load of mundane and unnecessary work for professional-service engineers and system integrators." Typically, as in health-care applications, you "retrofit or use a wedge to incorporate SSO into applications."

This is the model that Sun uses to provide the product. What Sun's Chief Open Source Officer calls the try-prototype-buy support model. Making the extensive costs of developing a high level system such as this much more affordable for development. Interestingly Sun states this in two different phases of a development projects life cycle. When you have time but no money, free is great, and when you have more money then time, the Sun services are there to provide the support.

In Part 5 of the series Sun engineers talk about the "build" model of how the applications go from Open Source to commercial release. The feature differences between the different builds and the expectations from each product. They also state that the application when used in an environment such as People, Ideas & Objects, should have the most recent version of the Sun products.

Lastly I don't expect this preliminary operating feature consider the Military Command & Control Metaphor, or digital signing of documents like agreements and A.F.E.'s in this first build of the module. 

I will be adding this information to the Draft Specifications for the Security & Access Control module in the wiki. To begin this development we need to have our targeted audiences, the oil and gas investor that is disgruntled by the bureaucracy, and governments that need to resurrect the economy, provide the financial resources. If you know of someone that meets that requirement, please send them the URL to this website and encourage them to contribute, and join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's Sun Specification Software

How does the oil and gas investor fit in?

How does the investor fit into this software development project? Like a glove. The People, Ideas & Objects system modules we are building add a few new dimensions that will be of interest to oil and gas investors. First, as their soon to be former management cries over its un-cashed and now worthless stock options, the investor has to take control. The days of the separation between management and ownership is over. In this posting I want to provide support for the idea of the investor as the one sitting at the virtual Joint Operating Committee (JOC) table.

In the Preliminary Research Report Professor Giovanni Dosi instructed how the focus needs to be on the situation in hand. Companies apply strategic policies on a blanket basis to all the properties they own. Irrespective if the policy is of advantage to the asset or not. This can no longer be the case if we are to have innovation based on the local focus that Professor Dosi suggests is required. Recall the JOC provides this level of focus. All aspects of each and every JOC are unique to the characteristics of all others. We need to tap into this uniqueness and build upon it. When the participants are engaged in discussion there is no ambiguity as to which property is under discussion. There is also no ambiguity as to which direction the property should take. Even though the strategies of participant are individually unique, consensus is driven by financial motivations. If these JOC participants are the actual investors, we have eliminated the management, and tied the incentives of the property to the decisions made by those that are the benefactors.

The Financial Marketplace module provides some of this uniqueness. Having the ability to secure bank financing based on the JOC participants ownership interest in the JOC. Not on the basis of the corporate entity. If each property were individually secured by the bank that provided all of the services just for that JOC, then we would have a highly focused team where the application of the policies are in the best interest of the JOC and irrespective of any other (corporate) considerations.

Another critical element in this software is the movement of the Compliance & Governance module to be aligned with the cultural, financial, operational decision making and legal frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee.In today's corporate environment compliance is used by management as the justification for the managements existence. The Compliance & Governance module is a fall out of the decisions made in the JOC. This alignment will provide the accountability that is missing in today's corporate environment. As I've stated in the Preliminary Research Report, the separation of governance and operational decision making is the recipe for a breakdown in accountability.

In a related discussion Carl Icahn had an interview on Bloomberg in which he was talking about the extent of the governance issue in the United States. He extends the scope of the current meltdown to not only
the financial side, but also on all corporations lack of accountability. Icahn also states "There is no accountability in companies and boards. You've let the fox guard the hen house." I'd be willing to bet that Icahn knows the better solution would look very similar to the People, Ideas & Objects Draft Specification.

Technorati Tags: People's Specification Management Failure

Easy Come, Easy Go.

Or is it.

I documented the $3.3 billion in stock options for the four little piggies, (Encana, CNRL, Nexen and Petro-Canada.) in a posting dated July 16, 2008. As of Friday's October 10, 2008 closing prices the value of those options now total $57.2 million. (Values based on 2007 weighted average options and prices.) The problem is that the investors in these companies have experienced a far more substantial haircut in their share holdings. (Piggies are down 53.4% to 65.5%).

From my point of view these alleged management types are better understanding the market and the scope of their greed. This provides justice to those who were so slovenly in the past. I wonder what Monday's trading will have in store for these wonder pigs. Recall they were in the forefront of rewarding and congratulating themselves for the higher stock valuations from commodity price increases. Therefore we should ensure that they are also compensated for the damage to these companies from the decline in commodity prices. These pigs brought that upon themselves, and in the future these management should understand that you reap what you sow.

But wait, not only are they incompetent, they have also lost their motivation. I wonder if they'll quit before anyone has the chance to be fire them? I've always believed a firm that loses greater then 53.4% of their market value is considered a non entity. That large of a loss in a firm is a reflection of the future of the firms opportunities. All the Kings Horses and All the Kings Men. (Ricky Gervais provides some insight and comedic relief.) 

The investor class is now forced to act in recovering their assets and value. Kick these bastards to the curb and lets start building the oil and gas industry for the 21st century. As I said these managements are now unqualified, unmotivated and unproven to hold the offices they occupy. They have damaged the firms to the point where they will be walking corpses for the next several decades, and that is being optimistic. Fire the bunch, you certainly can't trust them. I don't trust them, as any group of companies that would attempt to steal ones Intellectual Property, as these firms attempted to take the idea of using the Joint Operating Committee, are crooks.

Pig courtesy of http://designedtoat.com/pig.htm

Technorati Tags: People's Pig Call-to-Action Management Failure

Evaluating SalesForce

For the past few months I have been seriously thinking about the manner in which all the people that may be involved in this project will communicate. And of particular concern how they will communicate to the oil and gas investor / producer that will be using the software and community of independent service providers.

As I may have mentioned, the collaborative environment provided by "Google Apps for our Domain" is the best solution in the marketplace today. It hasn't all the features that other applications have, but Google has been able to prove that everything is always in development. And therefore it will eventually get much better then the competitions. I have been using their service for this project for about a year. And the interface elements of Google's design are such that they are intuitive and clear. Much like the Apple interface.

A few months ago Google announced their "Apps" product was available and integrated into SalesForce.com a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program. I thought I would try the product on the free trial basis.

When it comes to management of customers and marketing, the oil and gas industry has no idea what these terms mean. After 30 years in oil and gas I can say, that as a producer, I have never seen a customer. So when we take a state of the art application such as SalesForce.com is in the CRM marketplace. I did a bit of scratching to figure it out.

It recently came to me how the application is integrated into People, Ideas & Objects. We need to create full time "Account Manager" positions that service the client producer with their needs. These individuals will need to be very familiar with how oil and gas operates and can see the substantial differences in the application being mirrored within the client producers firm. Attaining that mirroring should be the Account Manager's key objective. They will have the SalesForce.com application as their key resource in determining the needs, and marshaling the resources of the community of independent service providers. Providing the services and our software to the producer. That way the community can be coordinated in their approach to the producer firm. I don't want producers being inundated by the same query more then once. That is inefficient and costs the producer unnecessarily.

How this gets achieved is through the application and the Account Managers organizing the resources for the firm. SalesForce.com provides a comprehensive solution that is well built and capable of approaching the demands that we will eventually be expecting of it.

Naturally this imputes that the Users, Developers, Investor Sponsors and Project Managers that are active in the development of this software will also need a license to SalesForce.com. Or, alternatively can access the system through a Partner and other Portals. Their they can deal with the Account Manager, the development team, other users and producers as needed and be fully up to date as to the status of the software application and its integration within the producer firm.

A couple of things that I thought were interesting and of value was a way in which the producer (Through the Account Manager.) and users could post a suggestion and the rest of the community votes on the feature. If we had the ability to prioritize our developments in such a simple manner, it would help to maintain that our focus remains in the marketplace. The second interesting feature was the idea and solution features.

Therefore the need to have the services of Google Apps for our Domain ($50.00 / user) to deal with the "Office" type of applications, email, calendar, and most importantly the wiki. And have SalesForce.com ($1,500.00 / user) provide the glue that holds this community together throughout the regions we may find ourselves operating in.

Technorati Tags: People's Google Software Users

Google Chrome and Single Sign On (SSO)

One area that Google may be working on is having their new Chrome browser able to remember it's state during your last session. Imagine for a moment that you were able to move from machine to machine and have the same environment displayed just as you had left it. A working environment that remains constant through-out your day-to-day travels and changing work stations.

In People, Ideas & Objects I think this is a worthwhile type of feature for our users. The current specification states that we are using Java Web Start as the windowing agent of the application. Java Web Start provides a similar level of state recall for the application. The difference to the two products, assuming both products are built with these features, is that the Chrome browser provides a web application interface and People, Ideas & Objects being a stand alone ERP application.

The Chrome browser is open-source and uses WebKit as its core. This allows us to embed the browser within Java Web Start and as a result, have Chrome embedded into the People, Ideas & Objects desktop. Providing access to applications such as Google Apps and Salesforce.com as one application.  I will therefore add this feature into the Draft Specification.

This software development project is at somewhat of a standstill due to the lack of financial resources. We have identified the oil and gas investor as gaining substantial value as a result of this application being built. Value in the form that their oil and gas assets are managed in the most profitable manner. If you know of an investor who fits this description, please send them the URL to this website and have them consider filling this role.

Technorati Tags: People's Google Specification Development

10 Things to know when pitching to a VC

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

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

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

Ten must haves in your presentation.

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

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

Your presentation style.

Do the following

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

Avoid the following

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

Things to put in the presentation.

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

Top five rules of presentation.

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's User Funding Learning

Don't touch "Mark to Market".

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

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

As noted in Reuters.

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Market Measurement

That's going to hurt.

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

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

The bureaucracy is dead, long live the producer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Change Pig Perez Specification

The Future of Capital.

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

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's IP Community Trends Innovation

Project Charter - Preliminary Specification

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Project Deliverables

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Algorithms Specification Development

A Community of Independent Service Providers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new revenue stream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Perez Change Software Trends

It's not enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Failure Sponsors

Offshore drilling ban, banned!

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

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

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

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

Technorati Tags: People's Energy Funding Offshore Science

Professor Clayton Christensen on MIT video

To be honest I am not a fan of Clayton Christensen's. I find he is standing on the shoulders of giants and not adding much more then a clear message. Lets call him the Oprah Winfrey of innovation. Nonetheless, this video provides some very interesting insights in the topic of innovation and where we find ourselves in the oil and gas industry at this time.

Professor Christensen has written many books all evolving around the theme of disruptive innovation. He sites three ingredients that are needed to develop a disruptive innovation.

Technological Enabler

As I mentioned here a while ago, the real innovation of this software development project is the virtualization of each and every worker in the oil and gas industry. It is impractical and inefficient for individuals who may work for a variety of JOC's and the companies that are represented there, to move from job to job during their day. Although most of the head office staff only have to go a block or two, people in the field would have farther to travel. Impractical by any measure. In order for people to physical meet and discuss the business of the JOC, the industry would be reduced to a standstill while people reconciled their calendars. The virtualization of the working environment and the introduction of Asynchronous Process Management (APM) (a cornerstone of the People, Ideas & Objects technical vision) deals with these two problems.

Business Model

It's not known if Christensen is talking about the People, Ideas & Objects business model or one of the companies in the oil and gas industry today. In terms of this projects business model, in comparison to the big SAP and Oracle applications, we provide a comprehensive vision of how we see the oil and gas industry operating. The Draft Specification captures this vision and provides an understanding of how an oil and gas producers business could operate. Oracle and SAP have made the sales to the oil and gas business, therefore they doubt anyone else would buy it, and that, other then they are not welcomed by the producers, is why they don't show up on the radar screen.

People, Ideas & Objects are making this application on a development cost plus basis. This application is not sold as an application but as a service. The costs of which are allocated throughout the global oil and gas industry. What was a major cost and effort to host and install Oracle or SAP are tasks borne of the bygone (bureaucratic) era. In addition to the software as a service, the community that is involved in building the software application provide the services to the industry in running and managing the oil and gas producers enterprises, or should I say JOC's.

The costs associated with these activities will be billed by the community members service based organization, and an assessment of a fee for the use of the software. The software will be billed on an assessment basis of x dollars per barrel of oil equivalent per year. At $10 / boe / day a firm with 200,000 boe / day would therefore pay $2 million for their use of this system. This is based on the development requirements as determined by the community.

The oil and gas industries growth strategy and / or business model for the past 30 years has been to muddle along. Great when the oil and gas was easy to find and produce. Muddling along doesn't provide a business model that can compete when the sciences and engineering are the key differentiating competitive advantages. The focus needs to be on the science in order to achieve profitable operations. Science and an ERP application like People, Ideas & Objects.

Someone tell me how a generation of oil and gas companies, reared on muddling along, are going to change their strategy to one based on the sciences in the time that the market needs more oil and gas? They haven't in five years that I have been trying, and Ill bet the ever decreasing size of the producers production will eventually trigger their own Wall Street type of collapse. As Nelson and Winter noted recently, industries evolve, companies come and go.

Commercial System

See Business Model discussion about how this community works.

Christensen goes on to note companies will either reject or co-opt a new technology. I can assure you the oil and gas industry has rejected this technology. I think I have also provided a strong case as to why their demise should be accelerated. This is the task I am calling for the shareholders of oil and gas companies, to withdraw their support of the bureaucracy and fund these software developments to ensure their best interests are managed properly. Otherwise face an uncertain future that may be as tumultuous as what Wall Street is feeling.

"Facilitated User Networks" is the third type of disruptive business model that Christensen notes. Stating they are lower in costs and more effective in terms of performance. I think this software development project meets that definition and criteria, and the oil and gas industry sure needs lower costs and higher performance. Design of the Draft Specification is clear, clean, crisp and concise. Anyone with 5 - 10 years of oil and gas experience can see the way in which the industry will operate and how their role fits within this community and the larger oil and gas environment.

The investors that have traditionally invested in oil and gas are of course the people who know and understand the business. There are others who have attained larger holdings and may have had some influence on the management in the past. These are the shareholders and investors that I think would have an interest in funding this project. If you know of any, and can send them the URL to this weblog, it would be appreciated. This project is now at a stand still until such time as funding is provided. I have established a modest budget to keep the "doors open" but up to this point I have received no indications of any funding. Please join me here.

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