Social Media for the New Energy World

I once read a billboard advertisement driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, that said, “Challenges are what we live for” and I thought, “Wow, those guys really take life on with a vengeance”. Then I thought about it a little more and I pondered… what would life be like without challenges?

Without challenges there is no creativity to express, no innovation, no new inventions, no growth, no passion, no game to play. Challenges in that context, as the foundation of our creative growth had me clearly see that challenges are what we live for! When we take on challenges we grow in leaps and bounds, we get amazing results and most importantly we build our self esteem, self confidence and personal power!

The energy industry has some of the biggest challenges on the planet right now, which are interesting developments for the challenge-savvy to concur. Wild swings in supply and demand, volatile prices and shifting worldwide energy policies have made exploration and production more complex and challenging. Add economic fluctuations, a changing dynamic workforce, and technological advancement to the mix and we quickly realize the range and scope of new development possibilities, available like never before.

Embracing rather than resisting these challenges is key! More and more we see companies succeeding as they embrace globalization as a form of unity and growth. We see more companies embracing multimedia and social networks as a means of communication, collaboration and connectivity as an essential part of corporate networks. We now understand that being agents for change and creating a corporate culture embracing change, turns challenges into opportunities, and this ultimately will be our formula for success.

Social Media

The more people know and hear about your business, the more your products and services will be used and recommended by others. Social media is all about networks of networks – of infinite networks.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are powerful tools to expand contacts, client lists, potential clients and interested buyers. On Facebook you can even create groups of interested customers that receive the latest updates about your business.

Facebook is no small matter. Recently reaching ½ billion users it has taken over country populations and is now used by 1/12 of the world’s population. That’s communication power!

Microsoft & Accenture

The Microsoft and Accenture Oil & Gas Collaboration Survey 2010 surveyed 275 professionals within international, national and independent oil and gas related companies. The survey clearly indicated that social media and collaboration technology is so new that it has yet to reach its full power and potential.

Individuals are grasping social media technology at alarming rates while business seems to be lagging behind. The Collaboration Survey stated, “half of those surveyed said their companies restrict the use of many of these publicly available tools, such as photo-sharing and social networking sites. Oil and gas employees stated those productivity gains (37 percent), work flexibility (95 percent) and the ability to complete projects on time and on budget (36 percent and 38 percent) are the primary reasons for use of social media and collaboration tools.

SHELL

Oil and gas industry giant Shell employs more than 150,000 workers around the globe. These professionals work at upstream exploration and production sites, downstream refineries, trading offices and support facilities in more than 110 countries. For the company to succeed in today’s energy market, it is crucial for these workers to communicate quickly and efficiently anywhere, anytime. “Eighty percent of our teams are global teams, with members in multiple locations around the world,” says Johan Krebbers, Shell’s group IT architect. “We must offer world-class collaboration capabilities so that our people can work at a global level.”

That’s why Shell, along with other savvy oil and gas firms, looked beyond the traditional mix of communications systems and user interfaces in pursuit of a more unified approach to business collaboration. Shell adopted a single, transparent communications environment where an employee in Nigeria, for example, can know instantly if a co-worker in Siberia or the Netherlands is available, and the best way to contact that person.

ConocoPhillips

Today, companies across the oil and gas sector — including both energy firms and technology suppliers — are leveraging collaboration technology to address the challenges of complexity and constraint. ConocoPhillips, for example, is using intranet-based discussion forums and advanced content management to share knowledge across its diverse global work force.

Schlumberger

The world’s largest oilfield services company, Schlumberger, has leveraged unified communication technology to integrate shared user experiences into its Petrel seismic-to-simulation application.

iStore

iStore (the Information Store) recently introduced the industry’s first digital oilfield visualization solution across a public cloud, paving the way for new dimensions of exploration computing delivered on premises or over the Internet. In each case, energy firms are reaping the benefits of integrated, unified communications.
Realizing that business is a network of communication is vital. As social media expands, clearly our communication expands and so too can your companies vision, goals and results grow exponentially.

Seamlessly surpassing boundaries of the mind, geography, culture and continents, our social media holds an un-seen benefit – the balancing of life and work in a globally-holistic way. Social Media is powerful because it provides an intricate mix of personal and business communication that opens up a whole new world of business supporting the “person” rather than the process!

Social Media is a new world order. It’s about networks of networks and the social side of business is just one more tool that makes communication globally accessible and readily available. We are in “social” times after all, and what that translates into is connection, communication, community and collaboration. These are all important business variables that stem from the “personal” or “soft” side of business communication. It’s clear that when we are committed to people in holistic-balance through communication networks – THINGS WORK!