Celebrating Our 700th Newsletter Edition And 6 Years Of Independent Research. Have You Ever Wondered How Infill Thinking Got Its Name?

February 19, 2024 Free Thinking, Infill Thoughts Leave a comment

This Tuesday, Infill Thinking’s twice-weekly newsletter celebrates a nice milestone.

We are shipping our 700th edition!

Issue #1 was sent to a handful of early subscribers way back on October 21, 2016.

699 editions, thousands of readers, over 2,300 research reports published, and 6 years later, Infill Thinking is still going strong and dropping new oilfield market thoughts into discerning oilfield reader inboxes twice every week except for the holidays.

We are grateful to each of you for reading, spreading the word, and reaching out to share your insights. A two-way dialog has been essential to our steady creation of unique content, since our readers are the smartest folks in the industry and have always been generous with knowledge sharing (our twice-yearly member surveys are a great example!).

As we reflect on the path that brought us here, we are especially proud that Infill Thinking has never “sold out” to sponsors. From day one through present, our reader-supported research newsletter service and website has never shown any advertorial content from the companies working in the oilfield markets we cover. This has allowed our research publication to stay unbiased and free of undue outside influence / pressure.

We thank each and every one of you, constant readers, for counting on us as a trusted source of industry insight, news, analysis, and exclusive reports on the frac supply chain that can’t be found anywhere else.

Here’s to 700 more editions!

Ever wonder how we got our name and logo? Read on…

Infill Thinking Name / Logo / Origin Mission

NAME

Inspired by an oilfield practice, Infill Thinking is a new blend of analysis, research and journalism focused on oilfield service market fundamentals.

Just as infill drilling lifts the production curve of existing oilfields with new wells, Infill Thinking aspires to lift the oilfield knowledge curve by injecting fresh perspective into the conventional news & analysis stream.

LOGO

For the logo, we chose to include a horizontal well bore and perfs representing horizontal fracing because we were inspired by modern drilling and completions’ revolutionary impact on industry thinking, productivity, and activity.infill_logo_final_stacked_web

We see a metaphor worth aspiring to in the perforated lateral, for it turned conventional industry thinking upside down. And now that we have it, it’s impossible to imagine the industry without it.

Just as conventional drilling was in need of an update, conventional publishing wass too. Our mission at Infill Thinking is “unconventional” reporting to unlock important information often buried or ignored by conventional industry sources. We are using new ways of conveyance to improve effectiveness too (for example no corporate sponsors or ads, just subscriber support).

As we looked around at other industry logos, we saw lots of old technology and arcane thinking in the designs. Re-branding activity had been fairly light over the past few years when we were launching, and we hadn’t seen the horizontal well shape used in many O&G logo designs other than Infill Thinking’s.

For your amusement, here is an early sketch of the concept that we handed over to our design firm the summer before we launched. This is case in point for why we majored in finance instead of going to art school!

logo-sketch

 

THE MISSION

In 2016, Infill Thinking was born to solve three key problems with conventional oilfield news and analysis sources. Below is what we wrote in this welcome note about our mission when we launched 6 years ago. These aspirations hold true in our work that continues, focusing on the frac value chain, to this day!

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Problem 1: Noise. There’s an ocean of free content out there, but how much of it is really worth your time? Sure, we all need to know the news of the day. But do we really need to see the same old pedestrian stories regurgitated by dozens of publishers? And then there’s the endless parade of press releases and oil price speculation. Why all the noise? Well, it’s largely because of declining digital advertising revenue. To stay profitable, websites that depend primarily on advertising dollars have to increase article quantity to increase traffic. This means a rising tide of mediocrity and distraction.

Infill Thinking’s Solutions: Not just another news service, the focus here is on quality over quantity. Sometimes less is better. At Infill Thinking, we leverage decades spent thinking about the oilfield business to cut through the noise, delivering unique angles on selective oilfield stories that really matter. Data-driven insights on oilfield business trends are the focus. Stories here are written from a single experienced voice, not by stringers and copy writers new to the industry or sitting overseas (we are 100% made in America just like Lower 48 shale gas and tight oil). We want to empower you with a framework for processing the news that you will read elsewhere six months or a year from now. Our goal is that you will never read an article here that you feel wasted your time.

Problem 2: Independence. Many publishers these days serve too many masters. Do they write for readers or shill for the corporations that pay them for advertising? Today, sponsored content and paid placements are blurring the lines between promotion and honest, indepdent journalism. Yet another trap readers face is stories promoting the publisher’s own revenue lines. And on Wall Street or in the financial press, stories are often told to pump a stock or stir up banking business.

Infill Thinking’s Solution: We are content purists. Infill Thinking does not offer corporate sponsorship deals targeting the email inboxes of paying members. Our perspectives, web traffic, subscriber information, and conclusions are not for sale to corporate bidders. Period. No outside influence here, and Infill Thinking is privately owned by dedicated research analysts. Because this service lives or dies based on subscriber renewals, our publishing interests are truly aligned with readers.

Problem 3: Clutter. Flashing banner ads. Videos that auto-start. Endless share buttons for social media platforms you haven’t even heard of. Click-bait. Slideshows. Special offers in your inbox. Nosy questionnaires. Call us old-school, but over-developed, over-commercialized platforms annoy us and will never compensate for high quality content.

Infill Thinking’s Solution: When it comes to knowledge conveyance tools, we believe that less is more. Infill Thinking keeps it simple, with email newsletters and a mobile friendly website with minimal distractions. Our website’s look and feel has never changed since launch, giving readers consistency. Infill Thinking depends on unique story lines and high-caliber posts to encourage word-of-mouth endorsements instead of dozens of share buttons that clutter up your reading experience. It’s worked – we’ve grown to become a well known must read in the frac value chain almost entirely by word of mouth, with almost no self-promotion of our service. And because of subscriber support, there are no “in-your-face” advertisements for members to endure. Oh, and Infill Thinking will never ask you to fill out endless questionnaires or blast you with special offers. To subscribe, all you need to do is reach out to our membership team and we’ll explain the options. 

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