Join ConocoPhillips CIO Mike Pfister and InformationWeek editors for a live discussion of huge data and IT leadership issues on Tuesday.

Big data and the web of items are sky high at the buzzword charts lately, but a glance into how ConocoPhillips uses both to extend natural gas production shows why these concepts are greater than hype.

ConocoPhillips, the No. 2 company at the InformationWeek 500 ranking this year, put more sensors on its natural gas wells and took readings a lot more often — about every minute, in place of hourly or daily. The corporate tracks pressure and temperature data at different parts of a well to identify those who aren’t producing efficiently.

ConocoPhillips had to overcome obstacles to make this concept work, inclusive of:

• Spreadsheets not cut it for data sharing and collaboration, so it created performance dashboards for each well.
• Connectivity was difficult to a few remote wells, so it had to build its own radio and WiFi towers where there wasn’t cellular coverage.
• Cultural change was as important because the technology, because the IT team worked with to get better operators to make use of the hot dashboards effectively.

I’ll interview ConocoPhillips CIO Mike Pfister live Tuesday, December 17 at 2:30 p.m. EST/11:30 a.m. PST about these ideas and about broader IT leadership issues. Please register here to listen survive our site, and convey your personal questions, that you could ask via text chat. You can also catch the archive version. (At the registration page, if you are already a registered member of InformationWeek.com, just click the login link on the top of the shape. Once registered, if the audio player doesn’t appear firstly, please try refreshing your browser.)

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday, December 17, for the third in our series of radio chats with accomplished technology leaders. Our previous radio chats were with UPMC CIO Dan Drawbaugh and Penske Truck Leasing’s senior IT VP Bill Stobbart and interactive marketing VP Ann Walsh.

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