Even in an industry that thinks in decades, seconds count. As such, employees are seeking ways to speed up certain processes, such as collaboration. Once reserved for in-person visits and meetings, employees can now consult with one another through myriad means. Jennifer Pallanich looks at social media's growing influence on the oil & gas scene.
Perhaps it's the result of immediate gratification in an employee's personal life. Perhaps it's the result of urgency. At any rate, they need a question answered, and they want it answered. Now, if possible. Employees are increasingly turning to social media to get those answers.
According to Craig Hodges, general manager for Microsoft's US manufacturing and resources group, the industry is shifting from traditional business communication methods like meetings and emails toward ‘burst messaging' or text messages and instant messaging. ‘We're seeing more pickup of the use of these tools,' Hodges told OE during the annual Microsoft Global Energy Forum in Houston last month.
The trend is clearly toward ‘quick burst' requests that may take up three lines, compared to an email that might require four paragraphs, Hodges said. The trend information is based on results of the third annual Oil & Gas Collaboration Survey funded by Microsoft and Accenture. ‘We are seeing some pretty innovative ways people are using these collaborative technologies,' said Brian Miller, senior executive in the energy industry group at Accenture. For example, he said, companies that have employees working in hot zones tweet their movements.
In addition, the survey showed 34% of respondents were collaborating more than they were in the year before, while 56% spent about the same amount and 10% spent less time collaborating.
The survey also indicated more older workers are using smart phones and PDAs to conduct business. Hodges said people may be changing how they view their equipment and that they want to use simple, intuitive products that offer the means to conduct business. In other words, he said, an employee now often wants to be able to carry out the work on a smart phone or a laptop, depending on what's most convenient at the time. ‘People are now impatient with corporate IT,' noting it's not always possible to do on one's phone what a computer at the office can do. ‘There's a trend toward "We want it our way",' Hodges said, adding that 84% of respondents wanted information from any place, at any time, on any device.
The frustration with corporate IT comes down to the IT's role of ensuring a company's data is secure. The recent moves to store more information in the cloud – an architecture for how software gets built and the means to push it through the internet for accessibility and collaboration – have brought up concerns about the security of the information stored in the cloud. ‘We're all making progress on that journey,' Hodges said. The goal, he said, is ‘the cloud on your terms', which would allow online or on-premises activity.
The cloud, he said, is ideal for handling the huge amounts of data the industry generates: ‘There is data like crazy coming out of these wells.' The challenge, he said, is to find a meaningful way to exchange data and find different ways to use the data. ‘To me, what continues to be a huge push in the upstream is data and the management of data. Think about how much data there is. You don't need all the data. What you need is exception.'
Miller agreed, saying it makes sense to set up systems that flag exceptions, or values beyond the expected range. This method, he said, makes it possible to do more work with fewer people.
Jay Crotts, Shell's VP of IT services, described the hybrid cloud environment used by his company's 100,000 full-time employees in 90 countries as combining traditional and cloud computing. The cloud can help a company reach that ‘nirvana goal of fast, good and cheap', he said. ‘A lot of us were doing cloud before we knew we were doing cloud' while using services like Hotmail, he added.
The cloud enables innovation, improves time to market, provides extra capacity as needed, requires minimal or no capital outlay, and allows a company to pay for what is used, Crotts explained. The first tier of the cloud provides infrastructure as a service, while the second provides a platform as a service, and the third provides software as a service. ‘The goal is to see how many we can move to tier two and tier three,' he said.
Obviously, he said, there were concerns about privacy and security as the supermajor began moving its activities to the cloud. ‘We said: "Let's take it slow. Let's only put up there something we feel comfortable with. And over time, we got more comfortable.'
First, he noted, it was necessary to seek out potential roadblocks in the move toward the hybrid cloud solution. This effort makes it possible to fail fast and fail small, he said. The next step is to protect the benefits of the cloud by using the cloud for appropriate tasks. The third is to use the cloud to enable business through standardization and innovation, he said. ‘Shell wants to be the most innovative energy company in the world, and this gives a chance to promote that culture of innovation,' Crotts said. OE