The Preliminary Specification Part X (PLM Part V)

This post will represent my last kick at trying to sell the “user vision” as something more then just a technological toy or an interesting thing someone wanted but no one would ever use. I could certainly see how the user vision could be perceived as being something that would fall in either of those two classifications. However, if either of those were the results of what I thought the technology would be used for. I would be guilty of mis-communicating what I think the value in having the user vision implemented in the People, Ideas & Objects marketplace modules was.

To have the interface operational and people using it to browse as they do with web browsers today. Would be somewhat limiting in terms of the potential of what I see. With so much data and information available now and particularly in the future, how do we represent this data’s use in a manner that is usable to the user? The first requirement of the data is that it has to be reliable and have meaning. If the data and information that is contained within the user vision and marketplace modules are populated by public and private databases for well information, lease data, vendor and supplier inventory, scheduling calendars, and other unstructured data. Then producers, suppliers and others could conduct actionable events on that data and information.

When I say that information was populated into the system these should be live links that could include some of the information from a firms accounting systems. The point that I am attempting to make is that the information would be of value and therefore impute meaning into the “marketplace” modules where the “user vision” was employed. This would take the technology aspect of the device and make it the secondary reason for its use. The primary reason for the user visions use would be the business purpose of the user. The reason the user would continually return to use the marketplace would be the accuracy of the data and information that they find, and the interactions within the marketplace.

To develop a new systems for the oil and gas industry is an opportunity that I think is a once in a life time, maybe a once in a century opportunity. To think that we will use these systems in the manner that we use systems today underestimates the possibilities. The user interface is the area where the most innovation will occur in terms of how people will interact with larger volumes of data. These and other types of issues should be considered in the Preliminary Specification. I offer the “user vision” and these posts to initiate the discussion and expand the scope of what is possible in terms of the research that is undertaken. I thank you for your patience.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part IX (PLM Part IV)

When I sat down to write the Draft Specification I wanted to incorporate the marketplace metaphor into the modules that made up the People, Ideas & Objects systems. There had been discussion of exchanges and web services in the past and those never quite captured the reality of what was possible. I think exchanges are technological solutions attempting to resolve non-existent business problems. Whereas the marketplace is a business reality. A reality that we can build a virtual technical environment that emulates the real marketplace. A big difference in terms of how we approach the building of these systems.

The next aspect was to determine what marketplaces existed in oil and gas that the technology would need to replicate. The answer to that question became quite simply. The marketplace for financial resources, people, vendors and the service industry or as we have called them resources, and the P&NG leases. We therefore simply created three modules that replicate these three markets within the People, Ideas & Objects application. Talking about the output of the system should probably keep this simple fact in mind. That these are marketplaces. Marketplaces that are backed up by a proposed user community and software development capability that can evolve the applications as these markets evolve.

More on the division of labor and specialization.
When we were conducting a lot of our research. Professor Langlois noted that expansion of the division of labor and specialization was through the simple act of “gap-filing”. Work that wasn’t being done before, could-should-would, be nice if it was done now. In this day and age it might be easy to put the person in place, but what about the systems to support that person? As I have suggested before, should we consider these administrative positions from the point of view that these people will work for a process as opposed to any one company or Joint Operating Committee?

More on Documents.
The types of documents that are generated within the Petroleum Lease Marketplace are somewhat self-evident. (Recall we are including Land, Legal, Production Admin, Exploration Admin, Accounting and Others in the classifications.) Most of them are created in collaboration with the participants of the Joint Operating Committee and include: Authority for Expenditures (AFE"s), Capital Budgeting (Firm and JOC), Construction Ownership and Operating Agreements, Mail Ballots, Daily Drilling Reports, Lease Bonus, Lease Rental, Lease Taxes, Areas of Mutual Interest are some of the forms, processes and attributes of the Petroleum Lease Marketplace Module. A more detailed specification will be the result of the communities contribution and commitments.

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

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

Access to Intellectual Property

Since my return from our sabbatical we have noted some of the finer points of the Intellectual Property that supports People, Ideas & Objects. In “Copyright Notice” we reflected that the costs to producers of involving themselves with software providers that did not have the supporting research to support their software; may end up costing that producer substantially. And that the larger software vendors, such as Oracle and SAP, would not be interested in contaminating their IP with other vendors who do not have the associated research and IP to their software. What this has shown is that it is a potentially difficult and tragic world for any producer that tries to circumvent any of the owners of any IP.

We also demonstrated in “Copyright License” how this community sources the financial resources for its long term support. And how those within the People, Ideas & Objects community access the IP they need to provide their service based offerings to their producer clients.

I feel this discussion is important as we are at the beginning of a new way of working in the 21st Century. One in which the tools, skills and resources that people have at their disposal are different then what they have been in the past. I think in the very near future the basic tool box of the average person working in the oil and gas industry will have to include access to some form of Intellectual Property (IP). This IP will be how they qualify for jobs, and will also be a critical element of how they earn their living.

We are beginning to see the enhanced role of Intellectual Property in today's marketplace with the litigation over the iPad and iPhone and who can sell similar devices. It is my opinion that Hewlett Packard's Board of Directors pulled the Touchpad off the market after only 7 weeks after realizing that their patent portfolio could not defend against claim by Apple.

In the future access to IP will be available to people in one of the following three forms.

Direct ownership of Intellectual Property. 
This will be the most difficult method to attain Intellectual Property. Not only will this require an original idea but also the costly and time consuming research necessary to develop the idea into a usable form. Rarely do we see these types of ownership occur.

Access to IP via License. 
This is a more common form of access, however it still involves some investment on behalf of the individuals. The licensee has to invest the time and effort necessary to build their service based offering. This business offering may be as a sole proprietor or involve many people, either way, as with all businesses, it requires time, effort and some times financial investments to build the clients and capabilities. These are the types of business leaders that I am primarily interested in when I talk about both the user base and the Community of Independent Service Providers.

Employment through a firm that owns or licenses IP. 
These are the people that are employed through firms that are mentioned in the above two categories. Employees of the owner or licensee of the IP, that although these people are not licensed directly, they have indirect access through their employers license. These people form part of the owners or licensee’s capabilities in providing the software development and service offerings to the producers.

People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O) software and independent service providers will require access to the IP in order to conduct their jobs. This is a fact. Those without access to the IP will not be provided with the opportunity to work for the producers. Simply they won’t be able to log-in or be able to access the community, PI&O, or producer systems, data or information. Therefore members of this community, who will be licensed in some manner mentioned above, will have access to the Intellectual Property necessary to undertake their jobs.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part VIII (PLM Part III)

In the past two posts regarding the Preliminary Specifications Output. We have noted two research projects for the community to undertake. The first research project relates to all three of the “marketplace” modules and is to determine if the user interface would incorporate elements of the “user vision”. The second research project relates to the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module and is to determine if the data and information is to be stored at the Joint Operating Committee level or at the producer. This would enable many changes, the most important of which was a revised division of labor and specialization in the administration of oil and gas.

The implications of the decisions from these research projects are far reaching. The entire Preliminary Specification is a substantial opportunity for the industry to participate in a significant redesign of how the industry operates. By realigning all of the frameworks of the hierarchy, those being the compliance and governance, with the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee we are leaving no stone unturned. We have the opportunity to address everything and make it far more natural in how it operates.

The budget for the Preliminary Specification has taken on the controversial size of $100 million. We begin to see how that size matters in the type of work that needs to be done. These two research projects are only small subsets of the work that needs to be undertaken, but they are budgeted for. It is this type of research that will benefit the system as we move forward. These research decisions made at this early stage will have the dramatic impact on the system when it is developed. Change after the Preliminary Specification becomes difficult and very costly. Now is the time to address these difficult points, and now is the time to address them appropriately with the appropriate research budgets.

I don’t want to get into the details of what is required in each of the research projects. Once you start thinking it becomes quite a large issue. And that is why they will be addressed in the Preliminary Specification. For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

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

S + B, Three Paths to Open Innovation

Strategy + Business published “Three Paths To Open Innovation” a few months ago and I thought that I would highlight it now. We recently discussed the Resource Marketplace module and how innovation at the service industry level, and within the producer needed to be handled within that module. This article helps to further define these needs.

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

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

McKinsey, Edmund S. Phelps

It’s Saturday which means its time for some clearing of our McKinsey backlog. This is an enjoyable read from Edmund S. Phelps who won the Nobel Prize in Economics a few years ago. He is speaking on the topic of innovation, and although not specifically topical to what we are do here, it is worthwhile reading. The title of the paper is “Supporting Innovation: Why and How”.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part VII (PLM Part II)

Yesterday we discussed the Petroleum Lease Marketplaces virtual representation of the physical oil and gas marketplace. And the “User Vision”, or graphical user interface that could be used in the Preliminary Specification. In today’s post I want to discuss the general classifications of the people that will work in the Petroleum Lease Marketplace (PLM) and some of the activities they’ll be involved in.

When we look at the types of work that is carried out in the PLM we see a large group of administrators working within different areas within a producer firm. Whether it be the Land or Legal department, Production or Exploration Operations staff or Accounting people; all of these groups have an interest in the information, people, assets, documents, processes and functionality contained within the PLM.

The primary concern of the people in these groups is the information and data contained within the module. It’s accuracy, access, and use by those within their firm, but also within the Joint Operating Committee’s that their firm has an interest in. Some of this data will be similar to the data that is held by their firms partners, and much of the data has been generated in a cooperative and collaborative manner by those partnerships.

For example AFE’s, Mail Ballots, agreements, are generated through interactions by each of the participants in the Joint Operating Committee. How much of this data and information could therefore be held by the Joint Operating Committee with an interface to the firm, is a question that should be answered with significant research during the Preliminary Specification. To answer that question would also answer; for whom do those people we mentioned, work for. The implications would be significant.

One of the greatest opportunities that we have in developing this system is to address the division of labor and specialization. To take these people’s work and to reorganize it across the industry, so that it was focused on the Joint Operating Committee but very specialized in terms of the tasks that they conduct. And apply those skills across the entire industry, or a geographical region, or some other classification. Is something that could provide significant increases in oil and gas industry productivity and overall cost savings. That is to say that an individual would work for a process that is billed to 1,000 Joint Operating Committees that might represent 200 Companies.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part VI (PLM Part I)

We now move to the next “marketplace” module in the Preliminary Specification, the Petroleum Lease Marketplace (PLM) module. The PLM is the most interesting marketplace module as its objective is to replicate virtually what the physical oil and gas marketplace is. That begins of course with Petroleum Leases. The discussion of the Petroleum Lease Marketplace module will take a few posts as its scope is rather broad and the concepts far reaching.

When we are replicating the physical oil and gas marketplace, the Petroleum Lease is the source document that is the common denominator of all activity and ownership within the industry. Any physical oil and gas assets will be attached to some lease, agreement, rights or concession granting the holders the rights and privileges of ownership, lease or rental. These are the things that are contained within a marketplace. They are what are purchased and sold, bargained and traded for. They are the things that people are recruited to provide services for. Generally a marketplace is a dynamic and evolving commercially oriented hub of activity. That is what we are replicating in the PLM.

The second point that I want to put across today is the manner in which some of the interactions may take place in the PLM, the Resource Marketplace and Financial Marketplace modules of the People, Ideas & Objects application. I have been hesitant to promote this “user vision” too aggressively due to the controversial nature of the vision. Its something that the community will need to determine if it wants or needs to include the vision in the Preliminary Specification. Please read the user vision here.

Simply it shows a three dimensional version of a virtual representation of a marketplace. One which avatars looking to conduct business on behalf of their human representatives. I think it may have validity in the future of business. I could be wrong. If the “user vision” is necessary will be a determination of the community in the Preliminary Specification. I expect this decision to be based on substantial research and user input, not an initial show of hands as to who thinks its a good idea today. This may have some value for the innovative oil and gas producer. If so we will need to determine that in the Preliminary Specification, design those features and engineer them into the application.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part V

The sky is the limit when we talk about the output of the Performance Evaluation and Analytics & Statistics Modules, literally. These two modules should be somewhat best be left in the hands of those that have an aptitude to deal with data and its presentation, I don’t think that I can add any value over what is stated in the Draft Specification.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part IV

We want to continue discussing the output requirements of the Resource Marketplace Module from yesterday. We run the risk of getting too complex when we speak about the division or boundaries of the firm and markets but its an important definition that we get right in the People, Ideas & Objects applications. Simply we are attempting to provide as much actionable information between the producers and those in the service industries so that innovation in the field and at the producer levels can begin and develop. We need to ensure that the ideas that will drive the industry are developed as quickly as they can be.

The Resource Marketplace module offers more as well. In addition to the service industries that are sourced by the producer, human resources are handled by this module. Now this is more of the traditional Human Resources recruitment function of the firm where the recruiting and management of the firms personnel is done. Of course one other aspect would be that we would bring full payroll capabilities into the system.

What may be difficult to determine is the appropriate placing of the interfaces for deployment of the resources within the firm and various Joint Operating Committees. Ideally the Resource Marketplace module makes the most sense, however the community may think that these interfaces belong elsewhere. What I am referring to is the pooling of human resources that the partners within a Joint Operating Committee may do in order to adequately resource the property. (We will also discuss this in the Accounting Voucher module.)

For example, with the demands for more engineering and earth science effort for each barrel of oil produced. The ability for each producer to have in-house the global capability to deal with all aspects of their operation; will be a luxury that the market for human resources will not provide. Therefore, the capabilities to meet the needs of the properties operational demands will need to be met through the pooling of the Joint Operating Committee's partners human resources.

Recall in the Partnership Accounting Module that this pooling can take on any characteristic that the partner is able to contribute. If the partner is able to contribute only financially, then they are charged for everything, whereas, a partner that is able to contribute human or technical resources, these are costed to the Joint Account in consideration of their contribution.

The interfaces that we discussed will not only include the ability to source the resource through the Resource Marketplace Module. The ability to charge the costs of the resources through the Partnership Accounting Module. The ability to grant secure access through the Security & Access Control Module. Which will also of course include an appropriate designation in terms of the qualifications of the individual and determination of who they will be reporting to in the Military Command & Control Metaphor. But will also need to have the appropriate governance requirements interfaced in to the Compliance & Governance Module.

Here we begin to see the complexity that this system needs to address to deal with the needs of pooling the resources in the Joint Operating Committee. This is not a nice to have that might be used by some of the firms some of the time. This will be a necessity of the industry in order to deal with the complexity of the operations that the industry deals with today and in the future. It is fair to assume that with the current production profile and decline curves that the industry activity levels will need to accelerate. Although the systems complexity can seem daunting, a properly designed and engineered system, such as the opportunity as is presented here with People, Ideas & Objects, would make the industry operate in a fashion that would enable it to optimize its operations.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part III

Last week we began our series discussing the output that the community would produce during the Preliminary Specification. We noted the geographical scope and its representation, how technology was not an influence in the specification and that producers, service industries, society and individuals were part of the output. Today we are going to discuss the redefinition of the boundaries between the markets and firms. Where markets are comprised of the service industries and firms are the producers themselves. Where the current bureaucrats and managers are no longer able to micro-manage the industry as they once claim they were able to.

The Draft Specification redefines the boundaries of the market and the firm in the oil and gas industry. As controversial as that sounds, it is required in order for innovation to occur. Critical to this redefinition is the understanding that the key competitive advantages of the producer firms are their land and physical assets and their earth science and engineering capabilities. Acceptance of this fact is critical to the competitiveness of the producer firm. Management of all aspects of the industry are beyond the scope of what is now possible. The market must be relied upon to meet the needs of the field activities. That demands more and better information be communicated between market participants.

No producer would hold out that their drill bit technology as superior to another producer, or their rig as more capable, yet, field level innovations are held back until the marketplace for them is proven for the technology. This chicken and egg strategy has been exploited by the producers time and again because they hold the financial resources of the industry and will only release those dollars for “proven” engineering. Unfortunately the investment capital groups understand this and have decided not to play this game any longer and as a result their is little to no innovation in the field occurring. With no investment capital to fund the start-up ideas nothing is happening. The producers are now having to pay what they feel are exorbitant prices for field services as their are no field level innovations or new entrants. Well whats that saying “you reap what you sow”.

A good example of this holding off is reflected in People, Ideas & Objects. At no time has there been any assistance from industry. Yet on three occasions, in three significant ways they have attempted to circumvent this Intellectual Property. Each attempt has ended in failure. And each failure has only secured my claim by establishing that there is no other competitive offering. Bureaucrats don’t work with the service industry, they only take what they want without paying for it. Those days must end and with the modules in the People, Ideas & Objects application, that end is designed to happen.

When we talk about an industry that needs to do more with the same amount of resources this type of stand-off will not solve the problems the industry face. The problems that this industry faces will not be solved easily. Those with the ideas on how to solve them will not be willing to do it for an industry that will just hijack them. How this is resolved is through the Research & Capabilities Module that allows those with the ideas to publish, in a manner similar to a blog, their ideas and earn the rights to them. There they can have producers see them and have the producers sponsor them and build them for the benefit of those with the ideas, the producer and industry.

Once the ideas are generated and operational within the industry, then the Resource Marketplace module will enable all service providers with the ability to interact with producers to conduct the work needed. From preparation of budgets, AFE’s, work orders, billing, invoices etc the service provider will have accounting interfaces that enable them to manage their interactions with the producers.

In other words those with the ideas working with the producers, developing their ideas, getting funding from the producers to prove their ideas, developing their ideas into commercial products and then interacting with the industry participants to conduct their business. These are the actions that these two modules of the People, Ideas & Objects application are designed to support. These processes are what are needed to enable the market and firms to interact in a manner necessary for the industry to achieve the markets demand for energy. Field level innovations are a critical and necessary element of meeting that demand. The current bureaucrats and managers are unable to understand the information they have in front of them. It is therefore time to take the task away from them.

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

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

McKinsey, Measuring the Nets Growth Dividend

It’s the weekend which means its time to review some of our McKinsey backlog. Today we have the executive summary of “Internet Matters: The Net’s Sweeping Impact On Growth, Jobs and Prosperity” from the McKinsey Global Institute.

I want to highlight three quotes from the executive summary as they pertain specifically to the work that we are doing here at People, Ideas & Objects. The first quote states what should be obvious to most people by now;

Our research shows that more than 75% of the value added created by the Internet is in traditional industries. The businesses that have seen the greatest value creation have benefits from innovation leading to higher productivity triggered by the Internet. 

Applying technology to the oil and gas industry is to benefit those that work within the industry and the industry itself. To a large extent, what the Draft Specification provides is necessary functionality and process management for the industry to innovate and meet the markets demands for energy. Its not a nice to have but a necessity.

A few days ago we discussed Professor Paul Romer’s New Growth Theory and the three themes of People, Ideas & Things. In this next quotation McKinsey Global Institute discusses endogenous economic growth’s impact on per capita GDP.

The maturity of the Internet correlates with rising living standards.

Leveraging endogenous economic growth theory, we have been able to show that Internet maturity correlates with growth in per capita GDP. Using the results of the correlation, a simulation shows that an increase in Internet maturity similar to the one experienced in mature  countries over the past 15 years creates an increase in real GDP per capita of $500 on average during this period. It took the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century 50 years to achieve the same results. This shows both the magnitude of the positive impact of the Web at all levels of society and the speed at which it delivers benefits.  

If we are currently seeing these dramatic effects on per capita GDP, then the Information Revolution is well entrenched and the benefits to society are beginning to develop. As time passes these benefits will multiply and the values realized will grow. Now is the time to become active in these areas and start at what can only be described as the beginning of the commercialization of the Information Revolution.

This last quotation from McKinsey’s report advises where business leaders should put the Internet in terms of their strategic agenda. The Information and Communication Technologies are too powerful to leave outside of the tool kit of any CEO or business leader. Not only are they are powerful ways in which to lever competitive advantages, they leave areas of weakness exposed to competitors who exploit these technologies.

All business leaders, not just e-CEO’s, should put the Internet at the top of their strategic agenda.

Business leaders must optimize the benefits gleaned from the Internet through innovation and change. It is no longer a choice, given that many businesses face competitors who capitalize on the power of the Internet to Innovate business models. Business leaders should play a significant role in the spread of the Internet and systemically review how the Internet allows them to innovate more aggressively and even reinvent their business models to boost growth, performance, and productivity. 

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

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

McKinsey, Preparing Your Organization For Growth

With the increasing demands in the oil and gas industry of more engineering and earth science effort in each barrel of oil produced. And the marketplaces demands for “more” makes the challenges faced by the industry far more complex then what has been faced in the past. Just standing still requires the producer to attain more capabilities. How does a producer prepare for growth?

In this McKinsey article the authors discuss three “pain points” experienced by three organizations. Although none of the three organizations mentioned are in the oil and gas industry, it is important to think ahead as to what we will face in terms of how the industry will need to change and grow.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part II

Yesterday in the first part of our discussion on the output of the Preliminary Specification. We talked about how technology was not an influence in the Preliminary Specification. And how producers, the service industries, society and individuals were all included in having their needs met by the software developments at People, Ideas & Objects. Today in Part II of our Preliminary Specification Output summary, we want to talk about the geographical scope of the application, and how that will be represented in the output of the application.

As part of the output of the Preliminary Specification the community will determine what the geographical scope of the People, Ideas & Objects application modules will include. This will involve determining which participating producers geographic needs are be to met in terms of areas of operations; U.S., Canada, Britain, etc. Regulations that govern those areas; royalty requirements, tax regulations, currency, security exchanges etc. Service industry providers etc. Etc;

In each instance a determination of the subscribing producers requirements of where their operations reside will need to be assessed. Next a determination of what the geographical scope requirements are for operations in that region will need to be populated within the Preliminary Specification. A determination of the cost benefit of developing software for that region (see the recent blog post “Budgets and Canadians” for more information) needs to be made. Finally decisions as to what the final geographic scope of the initial Preliminary Specification will be and how the budgets for any anomalies will be resolved.

In many ways this sounds like what current systems requirements do in terms of defining what needs to be done. As we progress through the Preliminary Specifications Output series we’ll see that the output will involve many things for People, Ideas & Objects that are different. These geographic requirements are capturing many of the compliance and statutory requirements of the system, but as we progress through this output summary we’ll see how this systems development differs.

In many cases the regulatory and compliance agencies that require producers to report to them have established advanced technical guidelines for their reporting. In many cases this has included technical frameworks, application programming interfaces (API’s), business rules and in the case of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) an entire XML syntax.

What will need to be done by the community is to take these requirements and tie them into the various modules that exist in the Draft Specification. The SEC requirements would fall under the Financial Marketplace and Compliance & Governance Modules, and other areas such as Security & Access Control. The royalty frameworks would fall under the Partnership Accounting and Petroleum Lease Marketplace Modules. We will get into more specific detail of how the details of this output is specified in later posts in the Preliminary Specifications output summary. For the purposes of geographic scope I think we have the picture in that there may be ten’s or hundreds of lessor regimes to comply with in the People, Ideas & Objects systems geographical scope. As there may also be several securities regulators governing operations for producers located in geographical regions within the scope of the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification.

On Monday we’ll pick up with this discussion with the related topic of how the service industries are not only a part of the geographical scope, but also a critical part of the innovation that occurs in the oil and gas industry.

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

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

The Preliminary Specification Part I

For the next few months I want to talk about the output that the community will produce for the Preliminary Specification. Although I have hesitated in the past in making any comment about what the output would consist of, it may be appropriate at this time to offer some suggestions just to get the ball rolling. I don’t wish to limit in any way what the scope of the output would look like, only to offer a few suggestions as to how I might see the output of the Preliminary Specification. These posts will be able to be aggregated under the PS-Output label of this blog.

In general the first requirement of the Preliminary Specification is that it will have no consideration of any technology. It is all about the oil and gas industry and the people that will be using the application. Consideration of the technology is not valid in this project, technology will accommodate the needs of the users when the time comes. This means that the General Ledger, the Relational Database Management System, Java etc are not pertinent to the considerations of what is required in the Preliminary Specification. (Please note however that we have selected this Oracle Stack as the base of Detailed Specification.)

Secondly we are looking at the global scope of the energy industry. Or as been stated elsewhere, the producers, services industries, society and individuals. That’s maybe a bit broad and could use a bit more detail. What is intended to be included in these classification is as follows.

Producers

• Start-ups
• Junior
• Independents
• Integrated Oil Companies
• National Oil Companies

Services Industries

• Field Services 
• Research
• Development
• Operations
• Engineering
• Project Management

Societal

• Royalty
• SEC
• Tax
• Compliance
• Environmental

Individual

• Employment
• Entrepreneurial

As we can see the functionality and process management of the application modules will include organizations and individuals outside of the producer firm. Transactions, interactions and collaborations occur outside of the producer and these are being captured by the People, Ideas & Objects application and therefore will be used within the various firms, agencies and industries noted above.

The output of the Preliminary Specification will therefore include the needs of these other organizations and people in addition to the producer firms. Their inclusion in this process is not limited to just managing transactions. A thorough review of the Research & Capabilities and Knowledge & Learning modules reflects the needs of the producer and service firms transaction management are not the only aspect that needs to be considered.

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

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

What's In a Name...

One of the fundamental underlying beliefs of People, Ideas & Objects is that for the oil and gas industry to increase its output requires that we re-organize. Adam Smith wrote in his book, The Wealth of Nations, that all economic growth was a result of the division of labor and specialization. Applying these principles have been the primary means for all economic growth since Smith wrote his book in 1776. That is to say that all economic growth has been the result of the reorganization of labor around enhanced divisions of labor and further specialization.

Professor Paul Romer of Stanford University and New York University is a proponent of what has come to be known as New Growth Theory. We have written about Romer on this blog many times before. In this Reason Magazine interview Romer talks about his People, Ideas and Things as the three underlying themes of new growth theory. I have taken these themes as the basis of our name People, Ideas & Objects and only transferred Objects for Things as we are Object based software developers.

(From Reason)

As one of the chief architects of "New Growth Theory," Paul Romer has had a massive and profound impact on modern economic thinking and policymaking. New Growth Theory shows that economic growth doesn't arise just from adding more labor to more capital, but from new and better ideas expressed as technological progress. Along the way, it transforms economics from a "dismal science" that describes a world of scarcity and diminishing returns into a discipline that reveals a path toward constant improvement and unlimited potential. Ideas, in Romer's formulation, really do have consequences. Big ones.

So what does all this mean. Simply new growth theory, and the reason it resonates here at People, Ideas & Objects is that these underlying concepts can multiply the output of industries.

(From Romer’s Paper Economic Growth)

Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. The difficulty is the same one we have with compounding: possibilities do not merely add up; they multiply.

People, Ideas & Objects provides the oil and gas industry with a means to have people, their ideas and things to be used in new and innovative ways. By having the software, and most importantly a software development capability available to accommodate the changes made from any new ideas, the industry can realize its full potential. This is what Professor Romer is talking about in New Growth Theory and what is enabled here by the software and particularly the software development capability proposed by People, Ideas & Objects.

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

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

So Much For SLA's...

Building on yesterday’s post of how the Preliminary Specification is what the software development team will be building to. In today’s post we discuss the use of Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) in the People, Ideas & Objects community. Simply SLA’s will not be used by People, Ideas & Objects in determining software definitions.

It would seem counter productive to have the community established to produce the Preliminary Specification. With the producers, users, service industry and others being a critical part of that community. And then have some producers not participating in that community because they feel they have their needs contractually agreed to through an SLA with People, Ideas & Objects. SLA’s have been the traditional manner in which firms have managed their technological needs and they will probably see no reason to change this culture. However, there will be no SLA’s here to manage the software definitions.

By contractually defining the relationship between the producer firm and PI&O within an SLA. The producer would seek to manage the specific details of the SLA and claim that we are in technical default when our main page did not load within the 0.125 seconds or other such nonsense. This is the state of vendor relationships when SLA’s get in the way.

As we stated yesterday. Our developers will be developing software that meets the needs of the producers as defined in the Preliminary Specification. If the producers do not wish to participate in the Preliminary Specification that is their choice and therefore their needs will not be specifically met. However, if they are interested in having software that meets their needs, and are willing to actively participate to define their specific, detailed needs then the community is the place for them to be. You’ll have to give up your SLA’s, but maybe those agreements have had better days.

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

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

Developing to the Preliminary Specification

Through out the course of software developments, People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O) developers will be developing software to the Preliminary Specification. That may be another obvious comment but it may not be too obvious from the point of view that I want to stress in this blog post. The possibly not-so-obvious nature of the comment is that the community is responsible for the accuracy of the application. If there is an error in the software, it will naturally translate to an error in the Preliminary Specification. Therefore the community must ensure that the Preliminary Specification, they approve, is correct.

So what does this mean? The old systems adage garbage in, garbage out. So how do we ensure the quality of the Preliminary Specification? Here are just a few of the many reasons that PI&O’s approach is different.

Users
There has never been a user focused development like PI&O. Where the responsibility and authority for quality fall exclusively within the domain of the user community. Where the user community is comprised of the producers, service providers, society and individuals as vested interests in their software.

Eyeballs
The product of the community, the Preliminary Specification, will be available on a read only wiki to everyone. Ensuring that anyone and everyone in the industry can have input through the community.

Unconstrained approach
People, Ideas & Objects approach to development is unconstrained by the demands of existing software code. And is unconstrained by the installed base of any software currently in use. It is a clean slate approach that is oil and gas industry focused, based on what is needed.

Draft Specification
Guided by an overall vision of what is possible. The Draft Specification provides an understanding of what is possible when we use the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. Using this vision as the starting point of the community developments ensures that the Preliminary Specification will be all that it can be.

Proper Scope and Highly Engineered Solutions. 
Our budget accepts the realities of developing a solution with these aspirations. We have also provided an overall value-proposition to the producer firms that participate with PI&O. One in which producers receive highly engineered software solutions at very low costs. 

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

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

McKinsey on Big Data

In this paper McKinsey are writing about what they call “Big Data” which they define as “datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store and analyse.” Although their recommendations are limited to this definition I find that they apply to the growth in data in general. In particular McKinsey’s recommendations may be applicable to the data sets that are in use in business and particularly the growth of data that may occur in the very near future. Specifically in oil and gas it is anticipated that the demand for data will continue to grow. People, Ideas & Objects have anticipated this growth and based our architecture on a Technical Vision that can accommodate that growth.

McKinsey’s “Big Data” recommendations are listed here. The full report is available here. It is a comprehensive report, however I do recommend reading at least the Executive Summary.

1. Data have swept into every industry and business function and are now an important factor of production.
2. Big Data creates value in several ways.
1. creating transparency
2. enabling experimentation to discover needs, expose variability, and improve performance.
3. segmenting populations to customize actions.
4. replacing / supporting human decision making with automated algorithms.
5. innovating new business models, products and services.
3. Use of Big Data will become a key basis of competition and growth for individual firms.
4. Use of Big Data will underpin new waves of productivity growth and consumer surplus. 
5. While the use of Big Data will matter across sectors, some sectors are poised for greater gains. 
6. There will be a shortage of talent necessary for organizations to take advantages of Big Data. 
7. Several issues will have to be addressed to capture the full potential of Big Data.

To deal with the associated issues of data People, Ideas & Objects Draft Specification provides two modules. The Analytics and Statistics Module which is looking at the producer firms data and Performance Evaluation Module which looks at the Joint Operating Committee data.

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

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

McKinsey, Google's Eric Schmidt

Its the weekend and that means McKinsey. This Saturday’s post provides a video of Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt talking on business culture, technology and social issues. I find that Eric Schmidt’s video presentations are as informative and valuable as those of Apple’s Steve Jobs. As such when either make presentations on any topic they are in the must view category. This McKinsey video doesn’t disappoint, enjoy.

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

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

Revisiting our Wish List

As part of our Phase Two proposal we published our “wish list” of who we would ideally like to have subscribe to our developments. These firms and national oil companies provide the majority share of oil and gas production in the world. And as such, should we be successful in securing these producers we would have a large subscription base in which to draw our funding from. Again this would be the ideal situation for People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O).

One of the key deliverables of the Preliminary Specification is the geographic scope of the application. If we had the “wish list” as our subscribing base, then this geographic scope would replicate the geographic area of the subscribing producers. Its as simple and obvious as that, however something that maybe needs to be stated explicitly.

Once our subscribing producers have set the scope of the PI&O application during the Preliminary Specification; going back and adjusting the scope in the Detailed and Final Specification will be difficult, expensive and time consuming. In fact changing the scope of the application after the Preliminary Specification has been set is something that should not be done. Therefore the next opportunity for the community to adjust the scope of the application would be when the Final Specification is complete, and we begin the Preliminary Specification for the next iteration of development. In other words those that miss this opportunity to participate in defining the scope of the Preliminary Specification in the first iteration of development, may still participate in the community, however will have to wait to have their unique needs met in subsequent iterations of development.

Waiting has its costs, as has been stated here before, the additional costs of the late fees, and possibly the most costly aspect of missing out on the initial scope of the Preliminary Specification might be that of an outsider looking in. Some might argue that the scope of our wish list is too ambitious. An alternative scenario that I see forming is that the Preliminary Specifications scope is formed around the America’s. This being more controllable from the point of view of what is possible and probable. We have based our organization around the Houston area to deal with the determination of any scope of the application. Given time the wish list may become possible and probable, and maybe the reality of such an application won’t seem so impossible.

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

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

Phase Two Proposal

It seems odd to suggest that a start-up software company would have a multi-billion dollar capital project on hand as its first task. People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O) is such a start-up software company, however, we are also adopting many of the attributes of a project management organization. Undertaking a large project of this scale and scope is not something that is unusual for a project management office to undertake. Combining and focusing the resources of industry to build the software described in the Draft Specification therefore is not that unusual.

When we look at the task at hand from the project management perspective it doesn’t seem so out of place. Phase Two looks to build the Preliminary Specification and build the beginnings of the organizational infrastructure necessary to project manage the software development through the Detailed and Final Specifications. An organization with the people needed to carry the weight through the various phases of development and then through the subsequent iterations.

Most project management organizations are focused around an engineering task. Whether that is a building a gas plant, an offshore rig or some other asset that needs to be built to a certain specification. The project management organization is the ideal means to generate the one-off type of large scale development.

People, Ideas & Objects is engineering focused and fits this form as well. There is a few unique attributes that make this quite different from most project management organizations. The first is that there is a high level of maintenance of the software code. A large service organization will be needed to maintain the application on a day to day basis and this will be maintained by PI&O and through our proposed Hardware Policies & Procedures.

Secondly, most engineering focused projects are done for the ultimate ownership of the payor. PI&O is different as this project is initiated by myself, and therefore I have earned the Intellectual Property (IP) rights. That IP is needed to raise the fees from producers, organize the community and focus the financial resources on one solution.

Lastly ownership of PI&O has to remain third party to all of the producers. No other producer will be interested in using a solution that is owned and operated by Exxon, Shell or any other producer. This third party nature maintains an objective means in which to deal with the needs of all of the producers in a fair and equitable manner.

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

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

New Position, President

Thinking through the organizational structure of the People, Ideas & Objects management. I have come to the conclusion that with the work that we are undertaking here that it would be better to have some additional “bench strength” in the executive. That is why I am creating the position of President, a role that I was to previously fill, to help round out the team.

The position of president will be an officers position and will involve this individual providing their strengths in areas where the firm needs more resources. When we think about the type of work that we are undertaking, the probability that we are finding areas that need attention are many, and the manner of that attention is not minor in its importance. The ability to put an officer on the situation and get it up to speed quickly would be a great help to the organization.

So that is what we are going to do. The position of president of People, Ideas & Objects will be added to the list of individuals that we will be looking to add to the organization once we secure our budget. These positions are open to all that may wish to apply for them and are permanent full time, or available as secondment from our participating producers.

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

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

Summary of our Budget Discussions

So ends our quick discussion on some of the points of our budget. Large in size though our budget may be, I think we can all agree that the scope and scale of the People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O) application, along with the need for that application in the marketplace, are needed today. Anyone proposing to build an application that begins to solve the problems that the industry faces will need to address the budget requirements that are of this scale.

People, Ideas & Objects have proposed a reasonable Revenue Model to raise the financial resources to meet these budget requirements. It is a fair and equitable model that provides benefits to those that participate early. After all early participation is where the real benefits lay.

We have shown how the copyright has the ability to ensure success of this project by ensuring that there will be no knock-off software developments siphoning financial resources off of this development. That the copyright enables the industry to focus all of its resources on this one software development and ensure that it is a highly engineered and focused on delivering a successful application.

How unique attributes of geographic regions, like Canadian royalty and oil sands requirements, can still be handled through the Preliminary Specification. That large software development costs for unique areas does not necessarily preclude producers from participating in the PI&O software development activities.

People, Ideas & Objects have benefited from the maturation in Information Technology and will continue to do so. The revolution in development tools and methodologies have brought our cost estimates in line with what is possible, our delivery times into the realm of truly surprising and the quality of our deliverables into the surreal. We stand at a very important point in time.

Lastly the time is now for the community to form and begin the Preliminary Specification. Our time-lines, start and finish dates depend on securing our budget for the Preliminary Specification. We have budgeted $100 million for this task and expect that the community will have significant influence in the determination of their time-lines. More patience is what is needed, but the time for everyone to act is now.

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

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

Time-lines, Start and Finish Dates

Time-line's, start and finish dates are things that we can only dream about now, but are still something that should be discussed. None of these things can begin until the money has been secured. And as of today we have received no commitments from industry whatsoever. This software development project will not be funded on a pay as you go basis. Each of the next three phases of the development will need to have the commitments from industry secured before each phase of development begins.

It is at this time that I do not have the resources to even begin the campaigning to raise the money for the Preliminary Specification. So if there is a producer that wants to begin this process, please step up. Any support would be appreciated.

How long will the Preliminary Specification take. There is no time limit set at this time for the community to complete the Preliminary Specification. It is something that will need to take the input of the necessary parties to gather and codify the work of thousands of people. Removing duplications and ensuring complete coverage will require many eyeballs. And that is not something that can be completed based on a deadline that I can specify at this time. Nor will I be the one to specify the deadline.

One thing for certain is that the Preliminary Specification can’t be rushed. It will take the time for people to think what it is that they want and need in their applications. The Draft Specification provides an overall vision or beginning, but there is so much more that is possible when people get together.

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

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