CSEG members are encouraged to become more involved with the RECORDER by submitting short Calgary Herald-style letters for publication to the Chief Editor at editor@csegrecorder.com.

Keeping my knowledge up to date and improving my skills are challenging during the busy times but worse during the slow times.

When working, it is a go-go-go environment with rarely the time to learn and test new ideas. Now that I am between career jobs, it is harder. I do not have access to the software and/or data to work with, nor a collaborative group to bounce ideas off of.

But I still need to learn (or re-learn as the case may sometimes be). So I turn to my society magazines for knowledge. I am sure that many of you out there have stacks of RECORDER, Reservoir, Source, TLE, E&P, Oil & Gas Network and many others. I have carted my RECORDERS from school to job to job, going back to 1999. I have been working my way through my paper copies (and de-cluttering). I am not going to lie and say I read all the articles; truthfully, I sat in front of the TV, put on some old episodes of Magnum P.I. and cut out all the articles I wanted to read. I still have a large amount of reading material to ingest, but it is no longer five wine boxes worth of magazines.

So what did I learn besides the technical aspect? I learned that we should be really proud of the RECORDER.

  1. The physical quality of the paper has improved. The design and layout of material, the ease of reading the issue has improved (i.e. better fonts, or not having the article continue 20 pages later beside other articles crammed between advertisements.
  2. The RECORDER does not have hundreds of advertisements like some other magazines.
  3. The RECORDER will try out new columns: some scientific (Oliver Kuhn – Science Break), some geo-technical (expert answers or Technical term of the month), or on the lighter side, the Seismic Gourmet.
  4. It is not just technical. The 'Grapevine' and 'Tracing the Industry' have been around for a long time. Somewhere along the way a regular feature by CAGC was added. I am not going to lie, these are the first things I read (I am in acquisition after all). But I wonder why there is not a regular or semi-regular feature from our convention partners the CSPG or CWLS, or what about Calgary Geoscience Data Managers Society CGDMS. What about CAPP or CAODC?
  5. Our archived editions do not sit behind a pay wall.

Well, back to job searching and technical reading. Who I am kidding, I need to know how Magnum is going to outsmart Zeus and Apollo.

Jeff Gautreau

End

References

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