DrillingInfo’s “Waltz”

Every year, DrillingInfo takes its show on the road and I got a chance to see one of the Houston iterations of its “Waltz Across the Patch” yesterday. As the company’s Director of Marketing would say, it was a good ‘ern.

It really is a form of dance, organizing a 10-city tour with a two-and-a-half-hour show twice a day at each stop. But as a talking platform of a particular type, getting the latest word about the company and its data products out to its customer base, it was also a neat, compact example of its type.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a large-scale exploration services company or a small G&G firm, you know that you have a stake in the usability of the products and services you work with.

You are stakeholders in the company(s) behind those products and services.

DrillingInfo has a superb open-source delivery platform for its extensive collection of land, well and production data. Director of Marketing & Planning Roger Edmondson made it clear at the outset that it was encouraging its users – landmen, exploration team members and deal-makers – to be “missionaries” for its subscription-based services. The audience responded in kind, with plenty of interaction with the speakers.

Then DrillingInfo’s CEO, Allen Gilmer, waltzed us through the company’s DI LandTrăC Unified Land and Exploration Suite and its Virtual Scout utility (which I think is particularly clever); and gave us a glimpse of the company’s forthcoming new DNA product. He tells good stories – which made it even more entertaining.

Gilmer made a significant point about oil and gas exploration: explorationists don’t take a second look at their existing properties because they’re too busy chasing new opportunities. Which means that, potentially, there’s a whole lot of production left on the table.

Well, this is really about stakeholder involvement. It’s clear that the DrillingInfo team has taken this to heart. Gilmer, Edmondson and the rest of the Austin-based team conducted a credible and well-organized event, putting their customers first on the dance card. Way to waltz, guys.