Using Social Media to Build Oilfield Capability and Discover and Develop Reservoirs

Soon, the oil industry will consist of fewer experienced engineers, and more young professionals. This crew change is very significant particularly because the technology with which the engineers go about their daily business will be so different to that of the experienced engineer. What approaches should we be using? Should we build these approaches organically into existing work flows, training for example?  Or should we leap to new platforms and leave the old behind?

Younger industry professionals will know how to use Facebook to build a friendship group and invite its members to a party, use Twitter to send micro blogs describing what they are doing to get the party ready, create a googlemap to describe how to reach the party and have each of the party’s organisers post a 2 minute video clip on YouTube introducing the party. 

Can these tools and this collaborative open style of innovation be harnessed for our oil and gas industry?

Should we build these approaches organically into existing work flows, training for example?  Or should we leap to new platforms and leave the old behind?

What is the nature of the improvement that we hope to make?  Is it cycle time, is it quality, is it efficiency?

Where will the leadership come from to make these transitions?  What sort of waste could we expect to eliminate and how big is the prize?

Panel Speakers

• Moderator: Neil Kavanagh, Woodside
• Patrick Calvert, BP
• Jonathan Cook, Geologist, Hess Denmark ApS
• Damon Bland, Lean
• Hay Kranen, Foundation, Secretary at Wikimedia Nederlands

Speaker 1: Hay Kranen, Foundation

• History and background of Wikipedia
• How do they get sufficient organic growth, share knowledge on a low budget?
• How Wikipedia can be used in the professional life as well as the private life

Speaker 2: Jonathan Cook, Hess

• Try to put across to the more senior oil industry members regarding the value of new technology, using social media such as Google’s Wave, Twitter, Facebook
• To create an example network amongst the speakers of this panel, that we use to prepare the panel session
• Create a video that consists of various clips to show how easy it is to use this social media and how it can be used in the oil industry, and to try and get the “technophobes” onboard. Perhaps it can be tied into Jonathan’s presentation

Speaker 3: Patrick Calvert, BP

• To show how modern media has great value today
• Show how  social media  can help orgainsations achieve better decision making by employing  the "wisdom of the crowd"
• Use voting pads to instigate a debate/discussion amongst the audience  and to demonstrate the effectiveness of crowd sourcing

Speaker 4: Damon Bland, LEAN

• Was Japan's Lean Manufacturing phenomena, with its involvement of the entire workforce, the original social media without the IT tools (notice boards, quality circles)?
• How can social media  be used in Lean Systems to help identify and eliminate waste
• Where is Lean benefiting the oil  and gas industry