Unpacking the Power of Petroleum Prose
Looking for the CliffsNotes version of “How to Successfully Lead a Sustainable Oil & Gas Career?”
Well, you’re not going to discover it in this 12,000 word episode of The Energy Detox podcast.
You will, however, hear Gyrodata’s Stephen Forrester outline the competitive advantage that (good) writing plays for the smattering of individuals and organizations who will manage to thrive in the face of today’s challenging energy landscape.
Stephen also shares his first-hand experience navigating this industry as an English major, while providing an impassioned plea to re-introduce the good old-fashioned paragraph as a way of countering the onslaught of superficial writing bombarding our eyes each day.
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ABOUT Today’s Guest:
Stephen Forrester is content development manager at Gyrodata, where he oversees technical writing and strategic communications initiatives for the company’s gyroscopic surveying and wireline product lines. Previously, he worked at National Oilwell Varco in several technical writing roles, covering everything from rig equipment and completion tools to BHA design, downhole drilling dynamics, and drilling automation. Before that, he worked in the oil and gas division of Lloyd’s Register, where he was a technical editor for reports on inspections and certifications of subsea blowout preventers. As a member of SPE, Stephen serves on the editorial board for The Way Ahead and works with the SPE Young Member Engagement Committee.
Connect with Stephen:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slforrester/
E-mail: stephen.forrester@gyrodata.com
Stephen’s Book & Author Recommendations:
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited for clarity and readability)
Joe Sinnott 00:00
If you scroll through LinkedIn enough, or if you google "leadership skills," or if you sign up for some leadership webinar, you'll inevitably find some list of things that will supposedly make you a great leader: assertiveness, confidence, delegation, empathy, accountability.
All of those tend to show up—depending on how long the list is; and throughout 2020, adaptability and agility have understandably been promoted as crucial traits for people leading others through uncertain—and, at times, even fearful—conditions. But at all times, and no matter how long or short the list is of leadership traits, you will almost always find "communication" towards the very top, because an ability to clearly and succinctly articulate one's thoughts is perhaps the most common trait found among history's most successful leaders.
Because even if you possess every other leadership skill imaginable, they might not do you any good if they aren't communicated to others in some way. Because if you can't communicate your skills, then it's just as if you have some great new piece of technology, but lack any way to communicate its value to potential customers, meaning that the technology isn't going to generate the revenue it should.
And if you're a job seeker who has a stellar work history, but you can't communicate it clearly and concisely in a resume or an interview, you've severely reduced the odds of landing a job that you may be perfectly suited for.
And while the world has more ways than ever for people to communicate with each other, there's one form of communication that has been and will continue to be far more important than any other form of communication, no matter how many phone calls and Zoom sessions and snapchats and TikToks and watercooler conversations you may experience. And that all powerful communication tool that supersedes all other forms of communication is...the written word.
Yet, it's incredibly easy with so much else going on around us to forget how reliant we are upon the written word. And it's also easy to forget how much of our lives are actually spent writing. And if you forget how important and inescapable writing is, then you might not realize how much your writing directly impacts both your personal and professional success.
And in today's conversation, you're not going to learn how to write better, and you're not going to start sending more emails instead of simply picking up the phone. And you're not going to be encouraged to avoid all important face-to-face (or at least camera-to-camera conversations); but you will hear about the incredibly positive impact that a heightened focus on writing can have on individuals, organizations, and industries looking to translate their true potential into proven, purposeful, and profitable results.
[Intro music]
Joe Sinnott 02:58
Hello and welcome to The Energy Detox, a petroleum-based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal output by flushing away the hidden—and often toxic—barriers to peak performance.
I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach, and 15-year energy industry veteran helping you tap into the same resources fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders.
And today we're going to discuss why many of those leaders place such a high priority on written communication; and not just on written words that go out as company-wide communications with their signature pasted at the bottom or that are read as speeches or video presentations. But why successful leaders place such a high value on all internal and external written communication that emanates from within their organizations.
And while I enjoy writing and have at times joked that I feel more like I perhaps should have gotten an English degree instead of an engineering degree, the reality is that whatever writing talent I have (or think I have) pales in comparison to professional writers who use their "skill with the quill" to impact the world in a way that a million text messages, LinkedIn posts, and hastily written emails from an "average Joe" like me never could.
So, that being said, for today's episode, I'm turning to someone who was in fact an English major, and who successfully uses the power of writing to support an industry filled with engineers and other technically-minded folks. And through his work, this person bridges the gap between technical jargon and non-technical audiences, while also strengthening the connections between energy industry leaders and their varied stakeholders.
And that person is Stephen Forrester, content development manager at Gyrodata, whose efforts have led to tangible increases in both the profitability and sustainability of the organizations he's been a part of; and who so generously has agreed to join me for today's discussion.
So, Stephen, after that long-winded introduction—that you undoubtedly could have articulated far better and more concisely than I did—please allow me to welcome you here to The Energy Detox.
Stephen Forrester 04:59
Good morning, Joe. Thanks for having me on today. I appreciate it.
Joe Sinnott 05:02
My pleasure, Stephen. And hopefully you're still saying that at the end of our conversation today...which I want to kick off with an important question that may help establish a level of honesty and integrity and transparency between you, me, and anyone else who's listening to this conversation.
And that question flows from the last episode of The Energy Detox, where I admitted to extensive use of CliffsNotes during my high school career. And that had me thinking this morning, whether you—as someone with multiple English degrees—also relied upon CliffsNotes at any point in your esteemed academic career?
Stephen Forrester 05:37
Well, in in the interest of being honest here...in high school, I have indeed used CliffsNotes. That was probably when my love of reading and writing as foundational skills that would carry me forward was really manifesting in the biggest way; but, at the same time, I was a teenager, and I had a lot of things I wanted to do.
I got a job—my first job—when I was 15. So I also worked several days a week at a restaurant. And sometimes it was just a little easier to go on and find the the summary and the key points and themes that I needed to quickly understand for the class the next day.
I would say that in college, it kind of shifted because—especially with my major and then my master's degree—the material we were reading got increasingly obscure. And so at that point, there just weren't CliffsNotes. I studied French poetry and French literature, my primary area of focus was British romanticism, and I dabbled a little in some other world literatures like Japanese lit, for example. And so with that kind of stuff, there's nothing—I mean, you're lucky to find the Wikipedia page for some of this stuff. So at that point, it was really necessary to dig my heels in and commit to the study and learning and reading and all that.
But, yes, guilty as charged, especially as a younger person needing to really maximize my time usage; and also just being a teenager, wanting to hang out with friends and do other things.
Joe Sinnott 07:19
Well, I appreciate the honesty of your answer. And I guess if I'm hearing things correctly, for those who major in English, you're not just re-reading Lord of the Flies and Moby Dick, just with some heightened sense of literature and hyper-critical nature? It sounds like you move on to slightly more obscure and grander pieces of literature than than those...is that a fair statement?
Stephen Forrester 07:39
Yeah, especially if you take, for example, high school AP or IB English classes, and if you can place out (if you're pretty decent reader and writer, which the standards aren't, aren't incredibly ridiculous or anything at that point)—and so, if you place out when you test, you can skip a lot of that early English 101 type stuff at the university where they're going over simple grammar and syntax.
And a lot of those—like you mentioned—a lot of those texts that are really almost things that you would read in high school, like A Tale of Two Cities (I think we read that in ninth grade, for example); but you might see that in an entry-level English course at a university. So if you can place out, you can start off immediately in a subject area.
And I wasn't able to focus my core study until my master's degree. So a lot of the other courses in my undergrad were just individual courses that I would take and see if I liked it. So I did American lit and I did French lit and I did British romanticism and British romanticism (that professor became one of my mentors and a big advocate for for my kind of personal professional development).
And so I stuck with that as my path. And that's when you get really deep into the kind of Wordsworth and Byron and Keats and Shelley and the whole gang; and there's some information on on all of that sprinkled about on the internet, but not the kind of analysis and things that we were needing to do. You couldn't get that out of simple summaries; you really needed to read and formulate your own opinion.
So, yeah, I'd say definitely after you move past high school, you'll get into some stuff that will definitely help broaden your mind and really open some new kind of doors and build your intellect.
Joe Sinnott 09:19
So, lessons learned here:
1) if I'm going to start with a smart-ass question, I need to be ready for a thorough answer from an English major; and
2) other than maybe sprinkling in some talk of "efficiency" when you were explaining the motivation behind leaning on CliffsNotes in your high school career, there's probably not a lot of words you just use that would be typical of an oil and gas podcast; I think I heard something about “syntax” and “grammar” and a number of people (authors) that I've heard of but haven't read.
So all that being said, I think if there was any question whether you do indeed represent perhaps an "outlier" in our industry, I think that clearly you've just proved [that you're an English major] with the last couple of minutes of what you just shared.
So how the heck did you wind up in oil and gas? Why are you here? Why are you working for Gyrodata? And why are you contributing to an industry that would typically not lean all that heavily upon everything you just described?
Stephen Forrester 10:16
Well, part of my inspiration when I was younger was more cliché in that it was just a family thing. My dad was in oil and gas; he was actually in the industry for about 40 years prior to his recent "forced early retirement." So I had at least a peripheral interest in it from a young age. And I thought it was really interesting and neat, and I was admittedly drawn to some of the other visible components [as far as it being] high tech, and it being incredibly successful, and it paying well, and things like that that were really kind of common knowledge, even in people that didn't have much connection to the business.
As I went through college, and my masters, I kind of came to this point—and I was in the service industry since I was—like I mentioned [earlier]—15, [when] I got my first job. And so I'd been waiting tables and [working as] floor manager and things like that for quite some time. And I got the master's degree. And then I kind of thought, well, I don't really know what to do with this. I just know that I don't want to teach.
I'd done student teaching—actually at my alma mater, Bellaire High School, and I'd had a great semester and met a bunch of fantastic young people. And my mentor, he had been my English teacher when I was in 10th grade. So it all kind of came full circle. And it was great. And I loved it. And then I kind of realized at the same time that it just wasn't for me, because I was being presented with this perfect world where all these AP kids were getting an A+ on everything and were little geniuses; and the disparity between that and the actual educational world—especially at at urban and lower income schools—was was enormous.
And I was more of, "Oh, let me teach at Belaire or Lamar DeBakey or HSPVA, these high-ranking local high schools. And my first placement was in a school that was actually on the fringe of the district; it was 40 miles from from my house; and it it had a fail rate of going on 70%. So that that was when I saw that the nobility was not in me to be a teacher. I just realized I was going to do it just to make money instead of actually being passionate about it.
So I kind of faltered around a little bit and wondered what I could do; and I still had this interest in oil and gas. And through kind of a lucky break, I connected with a recruiting agency that had an entry level position as a as a technical editor (they called it something else; it was called a "deliverables coordinator," which always kind of confounded me as a job title).
But it was a technical editor working on these reports for subsea blowout preventer inspections. And this was right after Deepwater Horizon (Macondo)—the big blowout—so this was a real focus area for the industry. So I started there at Lloyd's Register; it was the energy drilling division, which had just been formed from two acquisitions.
I was there for about a year, and [then] moved on to National Oilwell Varco (NOV). And I really got to see the entire company: I started out on the downhill sensors and drilling dynamics tools side and then moved on to writing about everything at the entire company, even dipping my toes in some Investor Relations and quarterly earnings work.
I was there about five years and moved on over to Gyrodata. A friend of mine and former NOV colleague was the Marketing Manager over here, and she brought me on, and we had some good conversation, and I joined in November last year; and I've made it...I've survived so far.
Joe Sinnott 14:01
So, I'm happy to hear you survived, obviously. And I'm guessing along the way, though, there's been some challenges being a non-technical person working in a technical industry and with technical professionals and writing about technical things that you might not have been exposed to; is that a safe assumption or am I just making up stories here and assuming what what it might be like to be in your shoes?
Stephen Forrester 14:21
It's definitely—and unfortunately—a safe assumption, especially really early in my career. When I started at NOV, the initial resistance was incredibly high. And I don't mean on my direct team and with my supervisor (I had amazing support and mentorship). But organizationally, this concept of writing as a massive value driver was just not there.
And so you constantly got these questions of, "Well, why should we do this? Is it worth the time to do this? I don't have time to do this! But you don't know enough about it to write about it either...so I guess we just won't do it."
There was a lot of doubt and hesitation around dedicating business hours to this when people like product line managers and engineers and sales people and business development people are either working on the back-end trying to make and design things that will generate revenue; and the other people are trying to actually go out there and use existing stuff to generate revenue.
So it was hard to break in and say, "No, look, this has value because of XYZ," whether it was equipping a salesperson with the tools they needed to go to a customer and say, "Well, look, I have this amazing case history!" Or [when someone needed a] spec sheet, "Well, here's 3; which one do you want?"
Or from a visibility stance: putting things in magazines, as far as editorials; and making sure you hit the SPE papers and conference presentations. So it was tough and took some time, but I [eventually] identified people that would be champions and be advocates and would really dedicate the time to not only helping me write and develop things, but also helping me learn—because that was that was one of my major objectives: I didn't want to be a guy that was just putting words down on a page; really anybody can do that. I mean, you can find anybody that can just regurgitate existing stuff; what I wanted to do was really study and learn the technology and what we did, and get as good of an understanding as I could as a non-technical person.
I'm not going to be able to talk about mathematical formulas and downhole physics and burst pressure and casing pressure; I mean, I'm never gonna be able to get 100% in the weeds like that. But my desire was to—at the bare minimum—be able to intelligently converse with people about this topic, especially if I help write an article or something like that.
And kudos to NOV and my management for letting me be a byline author on this stuff, even though I wasn't engineer. Because, at the end of the day, they saw that I, for example, might get something like a 120-slide PowerPoint; and then I would turn that into a 2000 word article, basically by myself. And so they kind of saw that [even though the] person that's doing that is not an engineer, that doesn't mean he can't be included as an author on there—definitely not the only author, because I don't need people coming to me with questions about [the topic] and trying to buy things, because then I'm just gonna have to refer them back anyway. And at least I could build a portfolio and help myself be visible and gain some kind of traction in this business.
And going back to your first question—overcoming those challenges, and being someone that becomes a trusted voice that people can rely on and that they come to with their problems and their their messaging needs—I found that through the 7 years that I've been doing this, the challenges are still there at times, but it's become a lot better.
I've "made it," so to speak, and people aren't really so defiant about writing anymore. Once you get it out there and give them the proof that this works; and that it's a viable business tool; and once you get them on board, it's a whole 'nother ballgame. And once you have that support, the possibilities expand quite a bit.
Joe Sinnott 17:58
I think that's good color on your understanding of the fact that you're going to have to get up to speed from a technical standpoint and dive in. It's also good insight on how, when jumping in, maybe you didn't anticipate having to be such an advocate for writing. Is that a fair statement?
Stephen Forrester 18:13
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't really know [laughing] what I expected when I went to NOV (I always start with NOV because at LR, while there was a writing component, it was really a lot more editing; and so I really didn't get into the writing as much untiI I started at NOV). And I would say that starting there and jumping into it, I knew next to nothing about what I was going to be writing about.
I went from subsea BOPs and pressure control equipment and predominantly offshore stuff to downhole drilling dynamics and some kind of commodity instrumentation products and pressure gauges and hook load sensors and things like that; and with drilling optimization and drilling automation, I had no idea. I knew nothing.
And so the first order of business was to just dive in and familiarize myself with what we even did to try and write effectively about it. I had a kind of trial by fire, because I started at NOV in December, and my whole team went on vacation immediately thereafter because our vacation didn't roll over. So we had people vanishing for 2 weeks in December (myself included for most of my time there), and I was kind of left to my own devices.
And someone came to me and asked for a 7- or 8-page brochure cataloguing all these different products from a certain brand name...and then talking about intercompany sales...and it was pretty brutal. And I had very little support and just had to kind of do this thing...and I actually did it successfully and learned a whole lot in the process.
And from there I just said, "Okay, now that I kind of get it, what do we have and what can we do?" Because the business I was in was kind of a new thing that NOV was doing at that point; they were bringing together some some legacy stuff with some shiny new things and forming a business that focused on drilling dynamics and drilling optimization and automation. And the challenge was that they didn't really have a lot [of their story put together]. They had some historical brands with immense market equity, like M/D Totco (Martin-Decker Totco), for example, that had been around for 60-80 years; and these product names had enormous value in the market.
But no one had been there to tell the story of any of this. And that's what I was tasked with doing: building that out and telling that story and documenting successful projects via case histories and articles and really helping get the word out that this existed and that it was awesome...and that it was cool...and that you should want it...you want it on your rig, too!
Joe Sinnott 20:41
So, it sounds like them leaning on you and your various roles and responsibilities as a storyteller has provided value. And it sounds like people are seeing that value, fortunately. But you're not the only one communicating, and you're not the only one telling stories at the company; so I'm curious whether you have encountered anyone—whether they're leaders or sales people or anyone that you've worked with—who maybe thought they were decent writers, and who (thanks to working with you or seeing your output or maybe getting your feedback) have discovered that maybe their own writing could be vastly better...and that maybe they're leaving some value on the table?
Have you had those instances where they say, "Wait a second...Stephen can't do everything for us; so I need to do some of this myself, but I don't have the skill level that I thought I did...and I certainly don't have the skill level that could generate more revenue (or produce bottom line results that are better than what they had been)?"
Have you had examples of that in your career so far?
Stephen Forrester 21:33
Yes, and I'd actually [characterize] it in two ways. On the front end—as far as working with people and them realizing that, as a limited resource, there's only so much I can do—I've found people that have had to bear more of the burden for whatever reason (maybe I'm limited on time or I have another thing I'm doing). And then I've said, "Maybe you can do a first draft or at least get me a paragraph or summary or an outline."
And then I would get a draft back that was actually pretty, pretty well written. And I know there's this generalization that engineers aren't good writers or communicators; and I've seen examples of that. But I've also seen examples that are totally opposite, where I've been incredibly surprised to find people that can write exceptionally well. And I'm certainly not the best writer ever or anything like that; I'm not this paragon of writership.
But, yeah, like you said, I've gone back and said, "You can do this; and I still want to help you. And I still want to write articles with you. But maybe you need to deal more with customers. Or maybe you're an engineer and you need to help your product line management team make presentations." And [perhaps] they had this kind of inbuilt talent that they didn't even realize was there.
So that's definitely happened. And probably less on the leader side. I mean, I've admittedly not worked with too many really, really high level folks. But the ones I have [worked with]—at NOV, I worked with the CEO, Clay, and the CFO, Jose Bayardo. And when I was kind of involved with some of the earnings script writing and cataloging notable achievements for the earnings reports, [it was clear that] these guys are exceptional writers...I mean, they're really good. And their problem is they just don't have time to [write]. But their writing is very good.
And so the challenge of working with folks like that is: how can you write a speech that will sound exactly like [they sound] in a very short time frame, while knowing very little about how they actually sound? It was it was actually one of the hardest things I had to do; and also one of my favorite things, because that was really taking me out of my comfort zone and saying, "You have 4 business days for me and one other person (there was an investor relations manager); here's a blank piece of paper; you have 4 days to write a script for these two guys to read for an earnings report before they get to the live Q&A."
And I'd say 50% of the time we'd write something and we'd send it to the big bosses, and it would come back totally obliterated—I mean, no resemblance to what was sent, because they just had their own style, and I have my own style, and we all have our own way. And trying to emulate that is very difficult. Like I said, if you work with somebody [essentially] 4 times a year, how into their head can you get with how they write? And a couple times—here and there—we got some back that were barely changed. And we had this feeling of elation, like "Yes! We did it!"
So I would say that's kind of the one side; and then on the other would be instances of working with people where I've found shortcomings or faults in my own writing that have been revealed to me that have allowed me to grow as a writer. Actually, my first boss at NOV (his name is Jason Hedgepeth) was just like the "grammar and syntax god." I would send him Skype messages, asking "so yeah, this comment goes here, right...so if you use an ‘em dash’ here in the clause that follows..."—the real nitty-gritty grammar stuff.
And I was kind of a "write-by-feeling" kind of guy; I just wrote and watched the magic happen and hoped it was good. So having someone to help build up and really find those small errors (things that people CAN catch and see) was really important in my early development and in [helping me break] out of the naïve belief that my style was just acceptable as it was and that there was no need to adapt or change. And [I discovered, "Oh, wait, this isn't perfect out of the gate; there's definitely things I can learn."
That (being long-winded) is not going to work; and so you're trying to get to the point as quickly as possible, so you see a lot about how things need to be concise and succinct and all that. And so I read these really short and punchy sentences, and it feels like something's wrong with them to me. I'm like, "Can we put a comma in there? Let's add a comma and a conjunction and join these things. They're two ideas that need to be together!"
And to this day, I'll still reach out to him on (Microsoft) Teams or Skype every once in a while and just say, "Hey, does this sound good?" And it may sound good to me, but my style is very long-winded; I like long sentences with lots of commas and clauses, and I'll go to the end of time with this stuff (it's very informed by Proust or Faulkner)...and that's really not great stuff for oil and gas, right?
[Laughter]
But that required me to reevaluate how I wrote in the educational world and in my personal life versus what I needed to do to adjust to the industry I'm in; and [to adjust to] how technical people consume content, which [tends to be] more short form, punchy things that they can digest easily and quickly instead of really getting into this long-winded style. So I had to learn, too, but I was better for it. So I was really thankful to have an early career mentor who could help me push my writing to the next level.
Joe Sinnott 26:57
So I think you did a good job there of introducing some humility into things and recognizing that—stylistically—there's a time and a place for long-windedness and a time and place for for more concise, punchy things. I also thought that was very nice of you to concede that high-level leaders—in many cases—are perhaps instinctively good writers and communicators, even if they don't have the time to do it.
But I need to ask you now—given all of these lessons learned...and in light of where you're at in your career...and given the educational background you have—are you on the lookout for things that really make you raise your eyebrows or shake your head? Perhaps in professional writings by people in similar situations as you that are banging out material for other companies? Or even just day-to-day stuff, like reading a newspaper article or looking at a billboard? Are there specific things or themes that stand out to you and make you say, "Oh, my, that's terrible!" and "That message is not gonna land!" and "Who let that go out the door?" Are there situations like those that you experience, especially given your professional career?
Stephen Forrester 28:01
I do. It's a fun life to lead where everything you see is ripe for being criticized. And as far as general stuff like a billboard or a newspaper advertisement or something like that—especially if it's something I see driving—I always will say, "Oh, they're missing a comma there." And the big one is the hyphen; hyphens are just a confusing thing, I think. And so, I'll always see things missing a hyphen in this or that scenario. I'll watch the news sometimes at night, and I'll see things like "24 hour report," and there's no hyphen between "24" and "hour"—thing like that, where the two words modify the one that comes after it, so you need to hyphenate it.
Does anyone really care [about these small grammatical items]? Probably not, right? There's probably no one else except people like me—and it's funny because, if anybody's around me, I'll say, "Just so you know, there's supposed to be a hyphen right there." So, it's like, all right, what am I gaining from doing this? But I can't I can't help myself.
And, yes, in the business sense, definitely...and, again, somewhat shamefully; and when I get industry publications (for example, the World Oil and JPT and things like that)—especially back when I was at NOV—me and some of my colleagues would have our little ad review (we actually had an "ad wall of shame" that we put up (although, admittedly, it was more on the design side than the than the copy side). And with some ads, we'd review and just look at them and say, "How did they...? What is this trying to say? Why did they name the product this name? It doesn't make any sense. Why does this ad only have one sentence on it? I don't even understand what I'm supposed to get out of this."
And it was interesting to see different perspectives in marcom, especially given my kind of perspective on marketing communications. [In fact], I never really considered myself a marketer, which might seem counterintuitive given my career path. But I always wanted to be more on the technical side. And I wanted to understand what we were doing and understand how we made money. [I wanted to understand] how what we do in marcom enables revenue generation. So I was never one for gimmicks or cheesy language and ridiculous headlines—especially in oil and gas.
My opinion was that we need to just tell the "value story" in accessible language and just put it out there. And even at NOV, I was sometimes challenged by that because I was part of a very large creative team. And there were widely differing opinions on that. [For example, some would say,] "Let's make ads that are really, really creative and that don't have much copy on the page." And then it's like, how does the customer know what we're trying to sell? "Well, they'll just get it...because if they don't like the picture, they'll just keep on scrolling by."
And sure that's somewhat valid; but if you don't explain what they're seeing, they're not going to take anything away from it, right? Where's the call to action; where's something that's going to inspire them to actually act on what they've seen? So it's been a fun journey, but I try not to be overly critical, especially of direct colleagues. Unless someone reports to me (I had a couple of reports for all of 6 or 8 months before I went to Gyrodata, and they were both already friends, so it was kind of awkward and weird).
And other than that, and other than providing some kind of advice if I saw something glaringly obvious from people I'm directly kind of connected to, I avoid being overly critical...unless it's just really, really bad or is something that clearly needs correction. But most of the folks that I'm working with nowadays welcome the ability to send something in a very bullet point, short-form format and receive something back that's fully written out. So there's no there's no fighting or resistance to that.
Joe Sinnott 31:46
Well, that sounds like a little bit more positive approach than, say, redlining everyone's emails that you receive and turning around and telling them all of the various mistakes they've made!
Stephen Forrester 31:55
Yea, only mine! I'll go through those things [my emails] and re-read them, thinking, "My God, did I not start this 15 minutes ago?" But a lot of times for my emails, I realize I have a habit of being overly nice or deferent in what I'm saying. And I have a lot of "pleases" and things like that. And then I'll go back and I'll say, "Why am I doing this? I don't need to kowtow before this person that I'm emailing."
And so I'll go back and edit them to be more confident or aggressive versus the overly mousy style. And I think a lot of people have probably heard of the famous "sandwich-style messaging," where you have to start with a sentence that has an exclamation point. And then you put your serious comment in the middle (so they know you mean business). And then after that, you put another sentence with an exclamation point, ending on a happy note. And I've seen seen quite a bit of that. But that's something I always encourage people to do: if you're going to go back and review, realize—and this is relevant to everybody—is [recognize who] your audience is and adjust your style or your tone accordingly.
Joe Sinnott 33:03
I appreciate the color on that. And I think what I heard you say is that even in your day-to-day sending of emails to people, it might take you more time than it would take someone else. And even though you write for a living and you communicate for a living, it sounds like there's some extra time and energy that you're going to put into an email that might ultimately wind up the same length as someone else's, but that maybe has a little bit more to it? Is that fair? Does it take you longer to send an email or post on LinkedIn or shoot a text message to people? Are you cursed by your background and your [heightened] perception?
Stephen Forrester 33:38
Yeah, probably. On emails, sometimes it's very simple. Other times it requires a lot of back-and-forth; or I'll read it and I'll say, "Oh, I could say this a little differently." Or [I'll see that] there's a better way to do this; or I'll ask why I'm being so—like I said before—overly nice and mousy when I'm emailing someone that's in the same hierarchy as I am...and I'll be a little too critical.
And on LinkedIn, when I post on there, I definitely go through multiple times before a post makes it to where it's live. And that's really less that I'm hypercritical of myself and more that I'm trying to find a way to word it that will maximize the visibility of the post with the LinkedIn algorithm: hitting certain words, and tagging people, and tagging companies that are involved, and hitting the relevant hashtags, and things like that which can make a massive difference in post visibility.
I was actually just talking to some of our guys about this the other day, where, for example, it's good if you get people to comment on [a post]; and that's probably fairly common knowledge. But I had one where it was it was a good post, and I I was pretty pretty satisfied with it. And it got something like 1,200 views. And then on another post, I tagged a guy in there because I had done a Q&A with him. He is the co-founder—his name is Sidd Gupta—of this company called Nesh that has a conversational AI chat bot for oil and gas...it's really neat. And he's well-known. He's a former Schlumberger guy, former Shell guy, lots of connections, entrepreneur, huge network. And I tagged him, and he commented on it, and the thing got like, 5000 views; and it skyrocketed just because he added the comment.
And, ultimately, do the views matter? No, but it's sometimes just validation that I actually have a network that enjoys what I post. But yeah, that's more on the social media side: how can I write this in a way that will engage people and actually make them interested versus passing over it?
And I think that my opinion on LinkedIn posting is probably not the same as a lot of people's; and I really don't like the what's colloquially been called the "broetry" style posts, where they have these little short sentences.
And then there's a forced line break between them.
And there's like 40 of them.
And it just goes down and down and down forever.
And it's like...
I lost the job.
I went in for the interview.
But then I did such and such...
And it's these little tiny things that just drive me nuts. Because maybe as an English guy, I don't understand why people can't read a paragraph. Let's make it a paragraph, guys. I mean, that how how writing works. But that (broetry) format was popularized. And so now it's everywhere. It's ubiquitous, right? And I just see it non-stop. And a little part of me just groans when I see that kind of stuff, even if the post is good.
I mean, even if the content of it is actually solid once I read through it, the formatting and the baiting to get people to keep reading down and figuring they'll read little short sentences all the way down instead of just a paragraph...I find it a little frustrating. So that's why, with almost all of my posts, I do things like I write professionally and personally: it's a paragraph. I hope you can read it. I hope you can make it through a paragraph. If not, we're in trouble.
Joe Sinnott 36:58
Well, I got to be honest: I think I led you on that question. And you gave the answer that I was expecting—or at least I should say "hoping for"—because the question probably revealed some insecurities that I have. Because I tend to blather on; I tend to lean towards longer, full paragraphs as you've described, with a clear opening, middle, and end.
But I do still question—when I put more time than maybe I should into an email or a text message or a LinkedIn post—Does it matter? What's what's the value? And you touched on some of this very early on (convincing people that when you have a message that's more clear, and when you have something that can be conveyed to your audience so that they can understand it, and they can understand the technology that you're doing, then clearly that's going to add value). But what do you tell people—and it could be on a personal side or on a LinkedIn posting, but more importantly, on the work that you do—what do you tell people who say:
"Does it really matter? Does it really impact the bottom line? Does it make a difference? Are we wasting all of all of this time (even if it's just Stephen's time)? Are we wasting all this time putting this stuff together? Is it going to make a material difference to the bottom line?"
How do you—to the extent you run into people that are still skeptical—respond to them?
Stephen Forrester 38:07
You do [run into skeptical people]. I certainly do from time to time. And I would hazard that most kind people in similar spots—whether they're copywriters or communications specialists or managers—I'd say that all of us are experiencing at least some resistance, especially in the current market climate, right?
We have a job that's frequently considered overhead, and we don't directly contribute to revenue. So, first of all, my take is that it definitely has value. And while it's not always quantifiable in some kind of dollar amount or ROI looking at my salary versus what I generate, there are clear examples that I've seen throughout my career of the writing that we do directly leading to sales.
And, for example, at NOV we had a paper I wrote with some guys—mostly in Norway at the time—and it was about a sliding sleeve completion technology that we had. And they had deployed it on some wells to prove the viability of the system. And it was great and saved money and time.
So we published this thing. And then an engineer actually emailed; and she was in she was in New Zealand, I think (somewhere way on the other side of the planet); and she said, "Hey, I read this article in [such-and-such] magazine. I think we used a similar system a few years back, but I'm really curious what the difference is between that one and this one? Because if this one is materially better, we have an 8 well campaign where I think this would be a really great fit. Who can I talk to about this?"
So you think, okay, if that inquiry led to a sale—and therein is the challenge, as I personally don't always find out if it leads to a sale because I'm not involved in the conversation—but if an inquiry like that leads to sale, it's going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars (and potentially more). So it's paid my salary alone for years, just if one article or piece of marketing communications, collateral, or anything I do generates even one sale.
And I can think of probably 4 or 5 times in my admittedly short career where we've had folks where I've at least been aware that they've reached out after we've written an article and said, "I saw this; I'm really interested. Who do I talk to to get pricing." Most of [those examples] at NOV, but even at Gyrodata, we had one a few months back, where someone from Exxon (I think) reached out and said, "You know, I read this article...just curious to learn more about the technology and possible implementation, what can be the benefits, etc."
So maybe it doesn't lead to a sale. It maybe just builds interest. That's kind of my base level scenario, where I say, "Hey, it's just visibility." Especially for small company like Gyrodata, right? How many people how many people outside of the niche we operate in—which is wellbore surveying—how many people know about what we do?
I'd worked in the industry for six years, and I'd never even heard of a gyro in my life (I mean, other than your typical spinning gyro, like you might see on Wikipedia). I had no idea these things were used in oil well surveying; no idea about ellipses of uncertainty and well positioning and all that stuff. And I had been decently well-informed.
So how do we get this out there? How do we get people to not only learn about this, but to be interested in it and to want to run this kind of thing? And [to understand] the benefits of doing so versus some other options or conventional technologies? And so a lot of stuff that we'll do either written—or even some more visual or audio (like a podcast or an interview, for example)—or an SPE Live later this week (this recording will come out after the fact) maybe won't generate revenue; but we'll have people on there to listen in to find out what we do and how these technologies work and how they can potentially create value for that customer or for a potential customer that might not have known that we do wellbore tortuosity analysis or things like that.
So that would probably be my main argument to anybody I talk to at a company I work for: visibility is the "bottom level objective." And then hopefully, there's some kind of inquiry or sale thereafter. And even if it's not published in a magazine, or editorial type format—even if I write a case history and we give it to a sales guy and he takes it out to somebody and says, "Look, we got this new project...this was awesome." And the person says, "Oh, no kidding, this is amazing! Tell me more."
So there's definitely value, and it's not always translatable into dollars, which makes it challenging. But I think that most folks in this functional kind of discipline would agree that the potential value is very high for any type of external communications that we're able to do. So I'm a big advocate of really getting out there and getting things published and staying in the public eye—the public being our community for these different magazines and news sources.
Because I think I said earlier that unless it's really bad—or unless it's a negative story—there's really not "bad visibility" if it's helping you to build a brand and get people interested and drive interest in sales.
Joe Sinnott 43:23
So, Stephen, I think that's great perspective on the very real tie between visibility and profitability. And I appreciate your acknowledgement that even though those ties might be somewhat indirect at times—and perhaps difficult to quantify for people like you who might be working somewhat behind the scenes in a functional role, as you said—the value of consistent and positive messaging and visibility is huge. I don't think anybody is going to argue with you on that.
However, you just said something at the end there about "negative visibility" not typically being a concern, but it seems—at least to me—that the vast majority of the oil and gas industry's visibility could be described as "negative"—at least once you move beyond the friendly confines of industry publications and conferences and networking groups, of course. But even in industry-friendly arenas right now, it's not like the headlines about the realities of layoffs is necessarily positive.
So, all that being said, as we begin to wrap up today, I'd like to move beyond the day-to day-work you've done for NOV and Gyrodata and get your opinion—as someone who communicates for a living and who clearly has a passion for both paragraphs and petroleum—on how an industry that is so often demonized can best defend itself by using more effective communication strategies...and by employing some of the same approaches and mindsets and tools that give individual companies like those that you've worked for a real edge when it comes to boosting their visibility and, in turn, gaining the trust and the attention of their stakeholders.
Stephen Forrester 45:01
I would say that—as far as the point (or the purpose) of written communication [relative] to what's happening in this industry right now—communications as a discipline is absolutely critical as we move forward. Because, like you said, it's really almost the oil and gas industry versus the world—I feel like—at this point, and it's kind of us; and then everything else is on the other side.
And we do a pretty bad job of fighting this fight. I've always kind of thought that our PR efforts and ability to connect with the general populace and—heck, even at times, to connect with our own people in our companies and in our industry—is sorely lacking. And there's different approaches to it; the one I like the most is really kind of a two-fold thing as far as, A) highlight the good that we do: so things like natural gas that powers your home in the winter, and the reliability of low-cost, abundant energy, and the transformation of human civilization over the past century on the back of hydrocarbons...
Joe Sinnott 46:10
[Interrupting]
...and the transformation of human civilization is one of those positives, right?
Stephen Forrester 46:13
[Laughing]
Yeah, I think so. You know, we're kind of figuring that out…
So that kind of stuff where it's worth highlighting, right? Because that's not in the public view (all this all these ideas). If you talk to anybody in general, and you say, "What do you think about the oil industry," they're not gonna say, "Well, thank goodness we don't operate via horse-drawn carriages anymore because we have gasoline-powered vehicles and transcontinental transportation, primarily powered by gasoline and diesel."
They're not going to say that; they're just going to say, "Man, oil and gas sucks; they're polluting the Arctic; they're killing animals everywhere."
And so that's the challenge: this negativity is so deeply rooted and it's just been dealt with so—not "ineffectively..." I mean, I wasn't even a part of it at the time when all this was happening so I don't want to criticize responses—but there hasn't been enough to really change public sentiment broadly.
And so how can we not only highlight the good we do and then B) highlight the human aspect or the stories of the people in this industry; and really get that laser focus on what these people do and why they matter and how what they do is relevant to your life...or to an industry at-large...or to things you enjoy, to your family, and certainly to them as they support their own family. And these are these are men and women that, in many cases, are operating in some of the most hazardous and dangerous environments on the planet, trying to extract the resources out of the planet that ultimately allow people to live their lives the way they live them. And, in general, people don't really have any idea what that entails.
So, that for me was certainly something I've wanted to do—or tried to do—is at least contribute to the discussion and getting an opinion out there (or getting knowledge out there) about what these men and women do to kind of "make the circle go round" and make everything work; and how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together because of the the kind of field or technical folks that are really running the business from that side.
I also will take it kind of personally, because I'm a renewables and sustainability advocate. I mean, I put up something on LinkedIn awhile back and I said I take no pleasure in seeing renewable projects fail or hearing about delays or cost overruns and things like that; I'm on board, right? I mean, let's do this while recognizing that there's no bizarre need to lambast oil and gas as an industry while simultaneously propping up renewables, because they're really kind of complimentary...at this point in time, one really can't exist without the other...and that's important to highlight.
And people are very passionate on both sides; so how do you effectively bring these ideas into the conversation without getting people on the defensive (for example, people saying, "You know, wind farms kill birds!")?
Well, that's not going to accomplish anything, right? Nobody's going to change their mind because of that. So it really needs to be more intelligent about how we approach this...
"Oh, wind turbines have to go into landfills." I mean, okay, I get it. But it's not going to change anybody's opinion. Oil and gas people will hear that and say, "Yeah, those those wind turbines have to go into landfills." And renewables people say, "Yeah, but think of all the carbon and the emissions—greenhouse gases, whatever—think of everything we're changing by having these things operate for 10 or 20 years before we need to decommission them. It's worth it. It's worth this investment!"
And they're so entrenched in those positions that we really need to approach it more intelligently...and more decently and politely; that's what I generally try to do. I don't want to be hyper-aggressive and try and aggravate people into changing their opinion. I don't think that works.
So what we do as communicators in any form (written, or podcasting like this, or video interviews) that isn't directly tied to an explicit business purpose—it's always nice if there can be something in there about the value of what we do and how do we, at least, play our part in the conversation as the world embraces the energy transition as a necessary thing. And how do we encourage them to support this changing world while also recognizing the criticality of what we do to that ongoing transition? That's my big thing.
Joe Sinnott 50:32
Well, there's no shortage of insight and passion there; and really the only response I have to all that, Stephen, is to ask whether you've considered writing nice balanced speeches for people as a pro bono exercise, and just leaving them for various influencers to hopefully pick up and share with the world? I mean, that sounds like it might be an avenue to get your thoughts out there to the public. Any, any thoughts around that?
Stephen Forrester 50:55
I would certainly be open to doing that. I've never really considered doing it—as far as leaving something and saying, "Hey, here, take this...please have it."
I've kind of tried to do my part as far as things that I'll post; or highlighting problematic articles or things like that. I mean, I think it was Bloomberg who put up something the other day about BP turning green and Chevron being a terrible oil company (and they [Chevron] are so bad).
And they had this picture of a yellow barrel in a forest. And it was rusting and leaking oil everywhere. It was a cartoon that I had to put up and just say, "What is this? Are we fundamentally confused about how oil is stored? There's no rusting oil barrel in the forest killing Mother Nature."
But it's that kind of highly-biased pandering that causes a lot of the problems that we have. So I've tried to do my part to combat it when reasonable and when I have a strong opinion. But, yeah, never really thought if anybody would want my words as their own. I'll do ghostwriting, sometimes for people within the company for things like LinkedIn publisher posts and stuff like that; but I've never actually thought about really putting it out there in a more general way and finding people that want to use it as their own. So certainly worth considering.
Joe Sinnott 52:14
Well, I look forward to following up on that endeavor here in a couple months and seeing if you've taken up the challenge of writing opinion pieces to be used by other people. And in the meantime, Stephen, I'd like to wrap up our chat by stepping away from the world of oil and gas and stepping away from discussion about your own content creation and finish by asking you if there are any pieces of literature from your educational days that has nothing to do with anything that's going on today and that people might want to pick up; or that you might recommend people pick up to escape the realities of 2020 and all that we're dealing with.
What would you escape with that maybe somebody hasn't heard of or is maybe somewhat obscure and doesn't have any CliffsNotes that they can cheat with?
Stephen Forrester 52:59
Heck, what I what I read might be worse than than the reality we live in! One of my favorite authors that I think is kind of academically known—but maybe not in a general sense—is Stendhal. He's a French author from the 1800s—just a phenomenal writer and really pioneering in the the style of (I forget exactly what they called it, but...) something along the lines of psychological writing and really getting into the heads of characters and helping the reader understand what they're thinking, while articulating their ideas.
And his book—it's called The Red and the Black—is my favorite of his novels: just a fantastic book. So definitely recommend that, [which is] fairly obscure, there might be some CliffsNotes...I don't know? But that's, that's one of my favorites.
I'd also—for the sake of going a little off the rails—definitely [recommend] some Japanese literature that's well worth checking out. And some of them are very famous. There are ones that I've been reading like Kazuo Ishiguro or Haruki Murakami that—maybe they're not household names—are decently well known and awarded in American publications.
And then you can really get into the weeds with some other ones like Natsume Sōseki, who wrote a work called Kokoro, which means "heart." And nobody's ever read this thing in America probably—except some Japanese people and maybe me and some some folks taking these kind of "out there" literature courses. But Natsume Sōseki, for example, was actually on a Japanese yen currency, so that's how important that author was to them—such that he was put on a piece of their paper currency. So that's a great book worth reading as well.
And I could go on and on, and that...
Joe Sinnott 54:46
...that's a good starter list…
[laughing]
Stephen Forrester 54:48
Yeah, give that a try. Japanese lit was one of those things where I just really into it...and I had no reason to. I mean, I had a passing interest that became something more; and then I just read a whole bunch, and then barely touched it in my college education. But what I read is really more literature—for better or worse. So I've kind of avoided a lot of the things that people might call "pulp fiction" or more casual fiction: the Clive Cusslers and the Stephen Kings, where they're not bad books or poorly written or anything like that (along with Baldacci and John Grisham and authors like that).
It's just that I've sought out reading as as something to give me something; I want to take something from it. For me, reading was supposed to be an experience. And maybe that's from too many years in the college system, but I really wanted to learn something new or to glean something different about the world. And that's certainly something British romanticism would argue is that—in that sense, poetry, but extending that to anything—it should be providing you a new perspective or some kind of glimpse into the sublime or something that's bigger than you. So that's why I look for things that might be a little more challenging or obscure: in pursuit of that goal.
Joe Sinnott 56:03
That's great, and thank you for sharing some of those things with us. Obviously, we'll go ahead and link those up in the show notes. And thank you for not just the book recommendations and the authors, but thanks for sharing your story and your insight and your perspective; and thanks for articulating the value of written communication—whether you're consuming it, as you just mentioned, or whether you're producing it for the masses to consume, as you do in your day job.
So thank you for all of that. And, if someone wanted to pick your brain further and get a couple more obscure author recommendations, what would be the best way to get a hold of you, Stephen?
Stephen Forrester 56:36
You can definitely find me and connect with me on LinkedIn; you can reach out to me at my Gyrodata email, which is stephen.forrester@gyrodata.com. Those are probably the two best ways, and if I really need to, I can share my personal email if someone really wants to get into it. But those are the two that I probably used most often and in a more professional way.
Joe Sinnott 56:58
Well, Stephen, that all sounds great. And certainly I would encourage anyone who does want to engage further to reach out to Stephen, who is clearly not afraid to engage and share his thoughts and insights with a level of depth that—quite frankly—is not all that common in an age where headlines and one-liners and superficiality seems to dominate the communication landscape, so to speak.
And if you do reach out to Stephen, I can all but guarantee that you will at least get a paragraph or two back from him with the type of thoughtful responses he so generously shared with all of us today.
So that being said, Stephen, thank you so much for coming on to The Energy Detox today and for candidly sharing your experiences and your unique perspective on the role of communication in the energy industry.
Stephen Forrester 57:47
Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and tell my story and let everybody know about the value of what we do. And I certainly hope people make it through some of the more rambling answers I might have given...but it was a real pleasure, and thank you for for having me on. It was really fun.
Joe Sinnott 58:07
Well, in post-processing, maybe I'll add a couple sound effects in there just to keep people awake and keep their attention!
Stephen Forrester 58:12
There ya go...a little "bit, bop" here and there.
[laughing]
Joe Sinnott 58:16
Well, in all seriousness, thanks again to you for answering all of my questions, and to the audience, for whom I have just one question today, which is...
How might you be unwittingly damaging the odds of sustaining professional and personal success by under-valuing the importance of quality writing, as discussed by Stephen today?
And as you ponder that, please allow me, your verbose—yet incredibly grateful—host Joe Sinnott, to offer my continued thanks for listening to The Energy Detox podcast.
And for more information about the show and about the work I do helping energy industry leaders take charge of writing their own success stories, please visit theenergydetox.com.
And, until next time, I propose you remember two things:
1) that there is nothing you do in your personal and professional lives that displays your intellect more than your writing; and I promise that any extra energy you invest in writing more thoughtfully and effectively—even at times when the audience is just yourself—will push you closer to peak performance. And...
2) just because writing is by far the best way for us humans to capture, refine, and articulate our thoughts, you do NOT need to be a perfect writer with pristine grammar to begin seeing what happens when you put just a little bit more focus on your written communication.
In fact, the famous author Ernest Hemingway once said, "There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges."
Thanks again.