I am sitting looking at a certificate of appreciation from Thames Reach. It thanks us for giving a corporate donation - the result of one of the Directors having been on its Board for a number of years. It sits there somewhat unnoticed and I wonder how we more personally engage ourselves in looking beyond NDB..

My wife worked in the construction industry for much of her professional career and she is apt to point out how little the margins are in that industry (typically between 5 and 10%). So we are lucky to be in this profitable industry but still, we work hard I guess to make NDB as successful as it has become.

So how do we make the giving of our time and tithe more meaningful to NDB staff? Well, firstly as you can imagine we asked for ideas on charities to support and we were happy to respond to the Pakistan Floods last year. Ironically, we also decided to support Water Aid last year too. 

This year, we want to help connect to our community by doing local community projects. This also has the benefit of 'team building' (we hate team building events with trust-building games and tricks). We also need more than a quarterly gathering in the pub. Maybe this is the right way forward.

Anyone got a pet project we can support with a days volunteering? Perhaps one in London and one in Aberdeen.

Never will the aircraft hangers at Earls’ Court in London be so finely arrayed as during Petex week in November. NDB will be having a stand in the prominent position where we hope to engage whoever is willing to listen in lively discussion and argument. We want to hear what you are engaged in and the key challenges you are facing. We are happy to share our ideas and what we have learned and provide you with field examples of good and bad practice.

We will be highlighting our ideas on Google Earth Geo-steering and how we intend to work in the Interpretation Services space. Look forward to seeing you there. We have worthless freebies.

The team at BG are here gathered in the BG required pink or white uniform. What great weather we have had last week!
... Hello from (L to R)

Andy Gregory
Ed Evans
Richard Grant
Alison Graham
Paul Williams

It would be easy, wouldn’t it, for politicians to view the voting public with a dim regard, given that the most popular ‘news’ paper in the country is ‘The Sun’. However the political classes are also expected to be able to explain themselves to Paxman and Humphries of the BBC. So it seems the secret of campaigning and getting elected is to be able to distil,  sometimes complex arguments, into sound bites that can be understood by all. In other words it all boils down to marketing.  We use Einstein’s goal at NDB ‘To simplify everything to its irreducible minimum, then no further’ . Sadly, with our short attention spans….sorry, what was I saying?

Feedback is an increasingly important part of business and social culture. I provided some feedback to a ‘rated plumber’ who simply didn’t turn up for our appointment and then didn’t return my calls. With this pathetic show I still felt justified in awarding a ‘half a star’ rating.  A day or so later the plumber simply reported back to the same website that he had called me a number of times and that I hadn’t replied!  

I had some instant feedback myself recently. At an industry event I had been asked to ‘chair’ the sessions throughout the day. My approach, I thought, would be like the football referees so fondly imagined by Andy Gray and Alan Hansen who are so effective that no one notices them as the game progresses. At the first coffee break I was chatting to a colleague and saw on an adjacent table that someone had already begun to fill out their feedback sheet and had written ‘useless introduction’  next to chairman’s opening remarks, well thanks that’s a bit harsh! As we returned from the coffee break I made sure saw who sat at that chair – I know who you are. 

Ed

I was at a conference recently where the a section of the latest welling report (2009) were flashed up on the screen:

We listened and changed the scope a little. Simpler now, it is also going to become a Knowledge Base of all Application Workarounds. The subscription will cover a year of updates and also moderating the Forum.

I guess we see fewer and fewer multi client reports these days; the complexity of the subsurface

applications space is such that doing full scale reviews of the complete toolkit is just madness.

So we thought we’d have a go….

 

We are thinking that the major applications we see in the N.Sea region cover the vast majority

of sites where you work. Kingdom, Petrel, OpenWorks, Petrosys, Geolog etc. SAIR 1 will cover

these adopting an 80/20 rule. We hope to fill in the gaps at your site with the 2 day company visit

that will allow a certain amount of personalisation.

 

SAIR is cheap as chips and worth investing in! More details here: SAIR Prospectus

Welcome all