Sunday, December 06, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
The issue in a nutshell.
Energy research and development challenges are becoming more complex, demand integrated and individual approaches, and are in need of wider funding sources, concluded a forum at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists annual meeting in Houston.When I read these types of articles I get frustrated and angry. Frustrated and angry at the do-nothing bureaucrats who currently occupy space at the oil and gas companies. The last six years has seen my efforts to promote this software development project, community and associated research, with absolutely no support, and not one penny from the oil and gas companies. The Journal's discussion goes on to quantify the amount of effort that needs to be undertaken.
John McDonald, Chevron vice-president and chief technology officer, reminded SEG delegates that the world took 125 years to consume the first trillion barrels of oil and is using the second trillion in 25 years. It is estimated that another trillion barrels remain to be discovered, ostensibly at a cost of $20 trillion over the next two decades.This current bunch of bureaucrats suggest and expect we just hand $20 trillion over to further line their pockets? Where is the outrage? How is it that I was able to write the Preliminary Research Report in May of 2004? Was I the only individual in the oil and gas industry to realize this? Of course not, what was known in May 2004 was that this was a trend that was developing in the industry. And as I state in that report, the industry needs to move away from the banking mentality of guaranteed returns on their oil and gas investments. And begin developing the necessary resources and organizational structures necessary to support an innovative and performance based organization to address the underlying sciences.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
John Hagel on Pursuing Passion
If we have not found a way to make our passion our profession or to discover passion in our profession, we will very quickly succumb to the growing economic and competitive pressures that are shaping our global business landscape. The pressures will inexorably mount. Without passion, we will increasingly experience stress, our energy will be steadily drained and we will ultimately burn out under the mounting pressure. At best, we will be marginalized as we find ways to achieve “balance” and safety valves for the mounting pressure at work.The definition of passion is broken into two distinct types. Hagel says there are "true believers" and "explorers." The true believer is described as "Their passion is enduring and it does focus, but it can also blind – leading the entrepreneur to reject critical input that does not match their preconceived views." Not a productive environment in my opinion. Collaboration is a major means of how ideas are developed today. To ignore the ideas of those that are involved is somewhat disrespectful. I'd like to think that this project would be defined as an "explorer" which Hagel describes as.
These are people who see a domain, but not the path. The fact that the paths are not clearly defined is what excites them and motivates them to move into the domain. It also makes them alert to a variety of inputs that can help them to better understand the domain and discover more promising paths through the unexplored terrain. They are constantly balancing the need to move forward with the need to be present in the moment and reflect on the experiences and inputs they are encountering.I have prepared the supporting research that proves the Joint Operating Committee provides the innovative and organizational performance that the oil and gas producer must have. From this research I have been able to sketch out a vision of how a system based on the JOC would operate. The Draft Specification is the beginning of the involvement of the Community of Independent Service Providers. This is where the passions of many people will take the Draft Specification and build the software applications they will need in their day to day work in the oil and gas industry. Hagel notes;
Passion is also about pursuit. It is not passive. People with passion are driven to pursue and create. They may read books and observe others, but they are not content being bystanders. They feel an overwhelming urge to engage, to experience for themselves and to test their own capabilities. Passion compels us to act.
A global community of professionals dedicated to optimizing the performance and profitability of innovative oil and gas producers. We are focused on developing IT systems based on the Joint Operating Committee. The legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural and communication frameworks of all producers.
A community of people open to new ideas, who know that energy is the life blood of our global economy. People of action who demand more from IT, please join us.I hope that I have designed a path for others with passion to follow. The comprehensive nature of John Hagel's article is best read in it's entirety, and please review his passion manifesto. The one comment that I would leave you with, if you are in oil and gas, is People, Ideas & Objects is the place where you can find your passion and act to make a difference in the industry. Please join me here.
Technorati Tags: People's Hagel Passion Community CISP Ideas
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
McKinsey on Enterprise 2.0
McKinsey: How is Enterprise 2.0 changing the way we work?
McAfee's answer to this question is in line with the collaborative developments of WikiPedia. How the initial start attempted to control the contributions of people, and only after scrapping the process and leaving it to self organized teams did the value, quality and quantity increase.McKinsey: How do you get this started in an organization?
There’s a lot of debate about that question right now. And the debate is typically between people who advocate [a top-down approach and those who advocate] almost a purely bottom-up approach—in other words, deploy the tools, stop worrying about what’s going to happen, and get out of the way as the management of the company and let it percolate up from down below. Or, if you hear about a grassroots effort, encourage it, support it financially, but, again, get out of the way, let the bottom-up energy happen.
McKinsey: What else can undermine adoption?
McAfee notes the unreasonable time frames put on by management. People, Ideas & Object software developments, or any collaborative project, will not be zipping along before the end of the quarter. Such expectations are how the hierarchy greases the wheels with the consumption of human energy and spirit.Another failure mode is to be too concerned about the possible risks and the downsides. If we get wrapped up in those, we’re not going to take the plunge and actually deploy any of these new tools and turn them on and encourage people to go ahead.
McKinsey: What is the CIO’s role in encouraging Enterprise 2.0 and managing the risk?
McAfee notes;A lot of them see their roles as essentially conservative, though. In other words, “My job is to not increase the risk profile of this organization before everything else.” That’s a legitimate concern, it’s a legitimate job for the CIO, but all my experience so far tells me that Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t increase the risk profile of an organization.This is probably why I get in so much difficulty with companies. I ask sarcastically what's a CIO? I don't see them surviving in the long run. Much like secretaries and draftsmen these positions may disappear rather quickly. These types of comments should be directed to the CEO or the CFO as they have the proper authority and responsibility to make the decision.
McKinsey: What does this mean for middle managers?
McAfee notes;If you’re a middle manager who essentially views your job as one of gate keeping or refereeing information flows, you should be pretty frightened by these technologies, because they’re going to greatly reduce your ability to do that. They’re going to reduce your ability to filter what goes up in the organization and what comes down in the organization. And they’re going to greatly reduce your ability to curtail who your people can interact with, talk with, and receive information from. So if you’re inherently a gatekeeper, this is a real problem for you.
McKinsey: How should companies measure the success of Enterprise 2.0?
McAfee notes;Again, you see a lot of energy, you see a lot of people very willing to take a few seconds to answer a colleague’s question—even if it’s a colleague they don’t know. So when I see successful companies tackling this tool kit, I see them doing a little bit of thinking upfront about what problem or opportunity they’re trying to address, then deploying an appropriate technology in response to that. They then measure progress: How much uptake are we getting? What’s the traffic look like on this? Which is very different than measuring ROI, I think.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Pemex makes the change.
Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos and the Secretaria de Energia (Sener) are preparing risk contracts that will be offered to oil companies—international and domestic—in order accelerate the search for oil and gas, according to local media.These risk contracts have been used with a multitude of other methods by the NOC's before. The one constant is the Joint Operating Committee (JOC) is the means to manage these contracts. Recall the JOC is the legal foundation of the oil and gas industry. This is on a systemic and global basis with IOC's, NOC's etc. Pemex establishes the following framework for these contracts;
Sener explains that it is urgent "to speed up the discovery of new oil fields and the incorporation of reserves, as well as increase Pemex's execution capacity, particularly through new contracting schemes so that specialized companies can support its activities."
In 2005 a Vice President of Petronas speaking before the Asian Energy Forum presented the firms corporate strategy. He emphasized several elements including growth and maximizing returns for shareholders. Growth has brought the move towards a global strategy with the desire to be an overseas investor in upstream and downstream sectors as well as encouraging foreign investment in Malaysia, while maximizing shareholder profits; he also noted the company's efforts to benefit local needs through a long term program involving Malaysia, host countries and other firms.
He asserted that it is important for Petronas to work with credible partners for several reasons:
- Risks mitigation
- Access to market
- Access to proprietary technology
- Political strength
- Government to government relationship p. 21
This is not a case of nationalization, although nationalism was a factor in its original formation. It has been a generally solid and well-respected partner to both private and state entities around the world. While it has become involved in a wide range of agreements with other companies and states in which its equity percentages has varied, Petronas itself is 100% state owned. It has no present intention to privatize. p. 35
The Baker Institute Energy Forum is a multifaceted center that promotes original, forward-looking discussion and research on the energy-related challenges facing our society in the 21st century.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Eric Schmidt's Google IO Keynote
And let me tell you that it's time, it's time for us to take advantage of the amazing opportunity that is before us.Yes now is the time when all the planet's line up. The technology, the business environment and society demand a greater efficiency. Schmidt notes in terms of the maturity of technology.
Why is it time? Because people are frustrated. They're tired of the complexity of all the systems that have been built up over the last 20 years. They do not work.
Scalability and Power is just at the beginning of getting this right. The message is that this is the real beginning of the real win of cloud computing. Of the real win of applications. Of the real win of the Internet. Which is changing the computing paradigm - the one we have all grown up with - so it just works. It works no matter what device you are using, whatever operating system your using, as long as your connected - even if you are not connected - your online and have everything you need.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
More constructive changes.
Technorati Tags: People's Military-Command CISP Governance Capabilities
Posted by Paul Cox at 7:12 PM Comments
Labels: Capabilities, CISP, Governance, Military Command
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Changing deck chairs on the Titanic
Posted by Paul Cox at 4:58 PM Comments
Labels: Change, Collaboration, development, Economics, Google, Perez
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What about those prices.
Technorati Tags: People's CISP Economics Development Change
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A revolution is at hand.
Times have changed. There is a strong and supportive attitude toward our armed forces. When the challenges to our peace and freedom are weak we don't seem to have an adequate respect for the military. It's times like these when we are at war and the war is everywhere, we see the military in a different light. I for one am glad that we have stood for freedom and peace for as long as we have. Those that wish to diminish our freedoms should think twice.
Lenin once defined a revolutionary situation as one that occurred when the rulers could not go on in the traditional way and the ruled did not wish to continue in that old way. Engels was more metaphorical, saying that revolution was the midwife that delivered a new life out of an older body.
Throughout the 1980s, democratic insurgencies in the Philippines and South Korea, as well as the long resistance of the anti-apartheid forces in South Africa, showed that when the ruled do not want to go on in the old way, all they really need do is to fold their arms.It's time for the management to cease, fold their arms, and join us here .
Technorati Tags: People's Change Call-to-Action
Posted by Paul Cox at 7:26 PM Comments
Labels: Call to action, Change
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Our Competitive Advantages
This post is about the technological competitive advantages of People, Ideas & Objects. The unique advantages that technological developments bring to our approach to ERP systems development. It's important that users and producers understand how our advantages can deliver the systems as defined in the Draft Specification. If people are not sure if what we are doing is even technically possible. Then it is difficult for them to see how a start-up can take such an opportunity and deliver on it. In a nutshell, yes we can. The proof has been written about elsewhere and I will refer to these so the individual can do their own research. This is important, as I do not expect anyone to have to take a leap of faith that this risk is not being identified and addressed.
Contrast the competitive advantages that are being developed in People, Ideas & Objects to the competition. Oracle has spent $39. billion to bring out their Oracle Fusion product. How has this product been built to deal with the issues of the innovative oil and gas producer? SAP has a checkered past in the industry and they too have what I would consider critical faults in their offerings.
The first thing is to define the priority of the development. In systems you can have any two of three priorities. Either 1) the speed of development, 2) the quality of the development or the accuracy of meeting the users requirements, or 3) effective cost control. Making this decision is academic when we consider the scope of the application, the financial resources of the oil and gas industry and our fundamental value proposition and business model. The speed and quality can be attained in a start-up, I'm not certain that it can be built into a large organization such as SAP or Oracle. Our speed and accuracy are something that have been available to SAP and Oracle in the past. Asking them to overcome the speed and focus I know is too much.
The key technological advancements that make People, Ideas & Objects the most competitive in the oil and gas marketplace are as follow.
Java
Frameworks
Open Source
Data Model
The PPDM data model has the combined efforts of the industry in defining a data model for use by members of the petroleum industry. Our use of this work, which is substantial, eliminates a difficult area of concern. PPDM increases the quality of the subsequent developments. At the same time I think PPDM's data model has not been rigorously tested in the marketplace. And therefore we will be looking critically at the data model to see if it can be enhanced through a more strict interpretation of Relational Theory. And if it can be optimized for the innovative oil and gas producer.
Modular Specification
Agile / Scrum
One of the key attributes of Agile Scrum teams is the focus and role of the user. It is critical and the methodology makes itself accountable to those users in quick, short, intense development periods. I'll talk more about this methodology in the future, one of its key advantages is that the team can be distributed as far, and as wide as is required. Enabling the best of the best developers to be recruited and involved in this development. The key mode of communication between users and developers is the User story.
User Driven
User Interface
I don't use Windows systems. Two hours with one of those machines and I get frustrated either at the slow pace of my work or the fact they seem to break every time I push them. Using Mac's as machines and Unix / Linux are the only ways in order to deal with computers.
I have a wonderful ability with computers. When I started in oil and gas in 1977 I was introduced to them and they have been my friends since. In fact all my best friends are computers. The way we interact with them is critical to the productivity of the user. To ignore the user interface is to miss out on much of the computers value.
Users need to see the approach we are taking is going to be successful. Committing to a losing cause is in no one's best interest. How their involvement in the quality of systems is clear. What is not clear is how an application of such scope and functionality can be approached and built. The performance of technology, its reliability and maturity are providing productivity gains that are surprising to everyone. I'm seeing a distinct move away from the Oracle and SAP style of application offering. The need for fast, innovative firms is being demanded throughout the world. This can only be provided by a software development capability dedicated to the innovative firms. Please join me here.
Posted by Paul Cox at 6:34 PM Comments
Labels: Capabilities, Community, development, User
Monday, November 09, 2009
Nouriel Roubini on the carry trade.
A big part of this software development project is a lesson in how change is adopted in business. For People, Ideas & Objects to succeed requires the status-quo be replaced by the new. People need to realize the way things are done are no longer working. Our current economy provides the understanding that the current bureaucratic firms are consistently being faced with difficult situations. It appears to me that the efforts in trying to keep these dinosaurs operational is far in excess of what is needed to start over.
Our economic problems seem more and more to be a product of not accepting that the status-quo should be replaced. In the past ten years it seem we have lost the capital discipline necessary to carry out the further development of the economy. Housing is not an investment. Investments provide returns, not happy family moments. Climate change and alternative energy do not provide returns. They are man made cost centers that will be funded by taxes or the consumer.
Investments need a return and are productive in nature. They should not rely on luck but skill, and they should be based on cold and unbiased financial criteria. I don't want to come off preaching but these lessons seem to have been lost, particularly in the U.S. Professor Nouriel Roubini is well known for his precise calling of the economic crisis that started last fall. Today in the Financial Times he is calling for the "Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust."
To suggest the economies have recovered is a bit of stretch for me. Stuffing $12 trillion into the global economy, keeping interest rates as low as possible, only shows how bad things are. At some point these factors will change and I suspect the U.S. will be no longer permitted to abuse their number one asset, the U.S. dollar as reserve currency. It is easy to forget the stimulus that has been injected provides a strong cushion to the effects of the economic damage. It is clear there is damage and that damage will need to be repaired by time, policies and capital discipline.
Arnold Kling states
In spite of all the sophisticated rhetoric about "quantitative easing" and "new tools for monetary policy," the only way that I can understand what the Fed was doing is to say that the goal was to stimulate bank profits, not the economy. If your goal were to stimulate the economy, you would inject enough reserves to do that and not pay interest on reserves. That might require buying some long-term bonds or mortgage securities, but not the hundreds of billions that the Fed actually bought.Reading Nouriel's article in the Financial Times makes it clear speculators are using the U.S. dollar as the funding currency in the carry trade. Enabling them to speculate on any type of asset they can access with the excessive liquidity in the market. This isn't gambling, it's gambling with the game fixed in their favor.
Everything the Fed has been doing over the past fifteen months makes sense if you think of their goal as transferring wealth from taxpayers to banks. If you try to explain it as an attempt to implement an expansionary monetary policy, you won't even get past my high school students.
The point of this blog post is that the hard work we face is necessary. These efforts to support the economy will fail and take the status-quo management with them. Someone has to pick up the pieces, and for oil and gas, that is People, Ideas & Objects. Please join me here.
Technorati Tags: People's CISP Economics Development Change
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Forbes says no to big software!
I have to say I'm impressed. We haven't covered any Forbes articles up until our first one yesterday. And today they knock another one out of the park. Maybe they are focusing on the business value of technology, and if so it would be a welcome change. The author of this article has a strong background in IT as noted here.
Roger Burkhardt is the president and CEO of Ingres and serves on the board of directors. Prior to Ingres, Roger served for six years as the CTO of the New York Stock Exchange. He and his team were responsible for the transformation of the NYSE to a fully electronic model, and conducted much of their IT work using open source.Just as I have stated here many times before, People, Ideas & Objects is a ground floor opportunity. One that has offered a compelling vision for people to rally around and build the solution in the Open Source, higher quality and lower cost environment. Saying so long to the Oracle and SAP big bang style of application integration.
The recession has cast a bright light on the tactics used by Big Software companies to lock in their customers through multi-year license agreements. In these agreements, annual fees go up, but can almost never be reduced--even if the customer's business has downsized.Which brings up an interesting point, one that I had not noted before. The services provided by the Community of Independent Service Providers are under the control of the producer. If the producer needs to scale back, then that can be arranged with the contracts they have with the individual service providers. With the rental of the software based on a per barrel of oil equivalent per year basis. If a firm makes an acquisition or divests a property these are reflected in the rental rates in the current year. Nothing unexpected, nothing constraining, just a cost plus allocation over the entire industry.
According to Sims, open-source software is not only as good as proprietary vendor software, but in many cases, he claims it's even better. In addition, he says he has saved his company over 50% in IT costs annually since he replaced proprietary software from Oracle, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard with open-source solutions.You don't have to take it from me, but he has a point. Please join me here.
Technorati Tags: People's CISP Value-Proposition Development Change
Posted by Paul Cox at 9:44 PM Comments
Labels: Change, CISP, development, Value-Proposition
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Some uses of Google Wave
I am one of those that became enchanted with Google Wave after I saw its initial demonstration. Few technologies have the potential to be game changers. Applications like email and the browser were in the same class of announcement as Google Wave. That we can implement the application in the People, Ideas & Objects - Draft Specification modules. And use it as a means of collaboration during development, make the application a critical part of our developments. I highly recommend that you view this video.
Several groups have been granted early access to Google Wave. It has been received particularly well by the people who have had access to the application. In a Forbes article, author Dan Woods notes the recent response to the application and the implications to ERP software vendors.
But the flexible collaboration of Google Wave is out of reach for the current generation of enterprise software. In addition, the flexibility and configuration of the data structures offered by Google Wave would make modern SaaS software seem restrictive. This freedom will require governance and a new way of thinking, but that is a topic for another day.If we look at the Draft Specification, it has the "freedom will require governance" problem. The Joint Operating Committee by definition is represented by many different producers. All of the modules have this fact as a critical aspect of how this application will be able to deal with the unique aspects of the oil and gas industry. The JOC is the cultural means of the industry. The Draft Specification is the only application capable of recognizing and building on these attributes.
The combination of the Security & Access Control Module, Governance & Compliance Module and the Military Command & Control Metaphor are how People, Ideas & Objects provide this "freedom will require governance" model. This is a key point. Unless these attributes are built into the application at the start, then the ability to retrofit a ground breaking application with these attributes doesn't exist, in my opinion. I noted this essential attribute and noted the risk that the industry would face as a result of technologies advancement, without explicit management support, would lead to the leakage of control over the firm. Leakage over the day-to-day and strategic attributes of the firm. As technologies become easier and simpler to introduce, the role of management can be circumvented AND hence their responsibility to make sure this does not happen. As I mentioned in Technologies Darker Side in the Preliminary Research Report, companies were advised of this risk, and I reiterate the risk here and now. If the management of firms remain negligent to this risk, there will be consequences to the investors of the firm.
Please join me here.
Technorati Tags: People's User Video Google Knowledge
Monday, November 02, 2009
Who has the money.
It should be no surprise to any one that the money that supports these developments and the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP) comes from the oil and gas producers. I have spent a significant amount of time doing the research that supports the Draft Specification. The distribution of the ideas contained within that document has been heard far and wide. Time now to put this project into a commercial venture. This post sets out to detail how the money that supports the software developments and the community of people that will use the software in their future day to day operations.
Let me state clearly that the Users, People, or Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP's) are all one in the same. And the key focus of the quality and value of the software that is being made. I would hope that the involvement of the user has been clearly expressed in my writing over the past few years. User involvement is the critical and difficult component of how this business will succeed. Clearly, to my way of thinking the sustained commitment and enthusiasm of the user base has to be supported by a strong financial motivation. This post is how the user can make a lucrative and long term career and profession around this "ground floor" opportunity.
CISP's or users have two sources of revenue. One is from the producers they work with for the services they provide, and the second is for the work with the developers from People, Ideas & Objects. Making the application operate in the manner that the User needs in order to be effective in providing their services to the producer. The User being the critical hub of all activity in this community. All of this is high value added work and I can not think of many positions that would be more involved and interesting. Whether the individual who joins this community desires to be a sole proprietor or expand to a substantial firm, these options should be considered open and available.
All the work that will be commissioned by People, Ideas & Objects will be through a work order system. The Users participation will be very heavy at the beginning phases of development. Then when the specification is deemed by the Users to meet theirs and the producer's needs, the developers will begin the process of writing the system. It will be at that point the amount of time that the Users will be involved will decline slightly, limited to guiding the developers through the initial building process and defining and directing the future changes and enhancements they want in the system.
The users revenues from the producer will be for planning and implementing their system, training their staff, running their applications, monitoring and maintaining the firms use of the People, Ideas & Objects software. Anything and everything of an administrative, accounting, land, production, legal etc at the producer client. They will be well educated and senior enough to fully understand what the producer wants and needs. They are the people who know how to do the job, and they can detail these requirements to the developers to build the tools they need to do their job. Our collective objective is to ensure the producer is provided with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.
The services to the producer are billed and managed by the users organization. People, Ideas & Objects does not foresee the need or desire to be involved in these operations. We are software developers.
So how does People, Ideas & Objects source their funding. The producers that use the software will be subject to a "rental" fee based on their production profile. And yes if a start up producer doesn't have any production then there is no software rental fee. And of course, for users that conduct work with People, Ideas & Objects developers, their clients lack of production does not preclude payment for their services in developing the software.
These rental fees are assessed on an annual basis and for 2010 the assessment will be $1.00 per barrel of oil equivalent per day. So a firm such as Exxon which has 3.921 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, their 2010 software rental assessment would be $3.921 million for the year. Conceptually when we include the National Oil Companies, International Oil Companies, Independents and start up operations. We could conceptually have a revenue stream of approximately $120 million. However that is probably far in excess of what will be realized. And that does not preclude us from increasing the $1.00 charge in subsequent years to a multiple of that.
These fees will be assessed on producers that have contracted with People, Ideas & Objects to participate in the further development of the Draft Specification. The obvious question is why would a producers do this? I think the development of this software under the direction of the user community. With the overall objective of providing the producer firm with the most profitable means of oil and gas exploration and production. The business model that charges the costs of development over the entire industry, once, is compelling and a significant reduction compared to the fees that are paid for SAP and Oracle. Simply there participation is a value adding process to their firm. Having the Users and developers working to most effectively run their firm.
Therefore any producer that wants to begin this process is welcome to join. I know that it is in the best interests of the Users not to identify themselves to a producer. I would caution anyone to do so until this process is moved further ahead. We are fighting the vested interests of management and they like nothing more then to attack any new and innovative way of doing their job. They have different ideas and they will use their budgets to exercise their desires. So please be careful. I will publish within this community a list of any producer that wishes to join this process and have paid their software rental. And to say that we may never see a producer step up is a real possibility. That is why I attempt to deal with the investors and stakeholders of the producer firms. They are the ones that must direct the management to fund these developments. If you know of someone who fits that description then please forward them this information. And please as always join me here.
Technorati Tags: People's Community Development Process Organization User Value-Proposition
Posted by Paul Cox at 7:28 PM Comments
Labels: Community, development, organization, Process, User, Value-Proposition
Friday, October 30, 2009
New Feed Address
Please change your "Innovation in oil and gas" feed from whatever you are using now, to this new feed address.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/kuLF
Thanks
Technorati Tags: People's Technology Change
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Change at Conoco
The Houston Chronicle reports today that ConocoPhillips have revised their corporate strategy.
ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva signaled a dramatic shift in course for the nation's third-largest oil company Wednesday, saying that after years of bulking up through acquisitions, it is now focused on being a smaller, leaner business that takes better care of its shareholders.Everything that People, Ideas & Objects is about is represented in that statement. Going back to the Preliminary Research Report, the changing nature of the energy industry has been evident for a long time. Nothing has been done about this during the past 10 years. Why would anything be done when the high energy prices made managements look effective. Now that the writing is on the wall, expect to see many CEO's become enlightened. I am surprised though at the comment that ConocoPhillips would take better care of its shareholders. It is the shareholders of these producer firms that I expect will direct the financial support towards People, Ideas & Objects and the User community. Providing them better control over their oil and gas assets.
A point about communication. If you or someone you know works at ConocoPhillips, or any other producer. Please introduce them to the Draft Specification and encourage them to get involved here. For me to establish a direct communication with ConocoPhillips, or for that matter any producer, is counter productive in terms of the Community of Independent Service Providers. It is the Users who are the critical contact with the firms. They are the ones that will use the People, Ideas & Objects application modules and their services to make the producer the most profitable that it can. It is the User community that will direct the developers in the development of the applications they need. For me to communicate directly with the producers is counter to the interests of this user community.
But the change is necessary in light of the global recession and the difficulty of accessing new oil and gas reserves around the globe, coupled with the massive costs of extracting them, he said.
Mulva's comments underscore challenges facing major oil and gas companies and may even call into question the bigger-is-better, integrated business model that has prevailed in the oil industry for decades.
Who knows maybe they will be successful. Or the properties they sell off will continue to fuel new and more innovative firms.Now, ConocoPhillips appears to be embracing a business model more akin to smaller, independent oil companies, which many investors prefer because they are more nimble and likely to deliver better returns, said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst with Oppenheimer & Co.
That different approach is members of the User community joining me here.When asked if he believes other oil companies will follow its downsizing lead, Mulva said not necessarily. But, he said, “I think longer term — I can't speak for the other companies — it's really changed from prior decades. It's going to take a somewhat different approach.”
Technorati Tags: People's Strategy Innovation Communication
Posted by Paul Cox at 9:09 PM Comments
Labels: Communication, Innovation, strategy