The Trust Factor in Technology: Why Relationships Precede the Rollout

Eric Fidler said something on Wisdom at the Wellhead that I haven't stopped thinking about. He was talking about why digital pilots fail in oil and gas, and he put it bluntly. Operators have reams and reams of data they don't know what to do with. And that confusion doesn't just create inefficiency. It creates distrust.

He said the successful scaling rate for pilots in this industry is "ridiculously small." And the reason isn't that the technology doesn't work. It's that even when the answer is right in front of people, they don't trust it. They get on a plane after a rig event carrying a stack of paper this thick, and they spend two and a half hours picking through it by hand. Not because there isn't a better way. Because they trust the paper more than the screen.

That hit close to home for me. I've been on both sides of that problem. I've been the guy who needed to see the numbers with his own eyes before he believed them. And I've been the guy trying to convince someone that the system is giving them the truth. Trust isn't a feature you can install. It's something you earn, and it starts long before the equipment shows up.

Why the Data Trust Gap Exists

Here's what I've seen over the years. Most operators don't distrust technology because they're old-fashioned. They distrust it because they've been burned. They've seen dashboards that didn't match what was happening in the field. They've sat through presentations from vendors who promised the world and delivered a pilot that never scaled. They've had systems that worked fine in a demo and fell apart the first time real conditions hit.

Eric made the point that this distrust filters down through the entire organization. When the CEO doesn't understand what to do with the data, that uncertainty reaches every level. The production engineer doesn't trust the reports. The pumper doesn't trust the alerts. The field supervisor goes back to doing it the way he's always done it because at least he knows what he's looking at.

And here's the thing. You can't fix that with better software. You fix it with better relationships. You fix it by showing up, doing the work, and proving over time that the information is real and that the people behind the technology actually understand the operation.

Trust is Built at the Desk, Not in the Demo

Eric talked about what it takes to reach mid-market operators, the companies that are watching their nickels and dimes and can't afford to waste money on something that doesn't deliver. He said you have to get desk time with them. You have to show up at the small local industry events where they're trying to learn. You have to do enough legwork that they write you into the next deal.

That's not a sales strategy. That's a trust strategy. And it's the only one that works in this business.

I've always told people that word of mouth goes a long way in the oilfield. When you win one or two operators and they start talking about what changed in their operation, that carries more weight than any marketing campaign. You almost have to create a situation where someone looks across the road and says, "That guy did this and I didn't, and look how much further he is than me." That's what moves people. Not a pitch deck. Not a feature list. Results they can see in someone they know.

What Trust Actually Looks Like in a Technology Rollout

One thing I know for certain. If the data on the screen says one thing and the gauge in the field says another, you've lost the room. It doesn't matter what caused the discrepancy. It doesn't matter if it's a calibration issue or a time delay or a sensor that needs replacing. The moment the field can't match what the office is seeing, trust is gone. And it takes ten times longer to rebuild than it took to break.

That's why the foundation has to be right before you start layering technology on top of it. The data structure has to be clean. The information has to flow in real time, not three days later after someone manually entered it. And the people deploying the system have to understand the operation well enough to know when something doesn't look right, before the field team has to tell them.

Part of what attracted us to work with Sensia was exactly this. Their vision for how data has to flow matches ours. When you combine Rockwell's automation depth with Schlumberger's decades of domain knowledge, you're not just offering a product. You're offering credibility. And credibility is the foundation that trust gets built on.

Eric Fidler's Advice for Building Trust Before the Rollout

Eric has deployed technology in over a hundred countries and watched pilots succeed and fail across every kind of operation. Here's what he's learned about what separates the ones that scale from the ones that stall.

Start with the problem they already know about. Don't lead with what your technology can do. Lead with the frustration the operator is already living with every day. If you can solve the thing that's costing them sleep, they'll listen to what else you can offer. If you lead with capabilities, you sound like every other vendor they've tuned out.

Prove it small before you promise it big. Win on one well. Win on one pad. Let the results speak before you ask anyone to trust you with the whole field. Eric's point about scaling was clear: the industry's pilot success rate is terrible because people try to prove too much too fast. Earn trust in a small space first.

Make the data match the field. Before anything else, make sure what the screen shows matches what the operator sees when he walks the lease. If it doesn't, stop and fix that before you add another feature, another dashboard, or another integration. Nothing else matters until the numbers are right.

Be there when it breaks. Every system has a bad day. What matters is what happens next. If you disappear when the technology hiccups and only show up when things are running smooth, you're not a partner. You're a vendor. And vendors don't earn trust.

Final Thought

I keep coming back to what Eric said about that stack of paper. A guy gets on a plane after a rig event and spends two and a half hours manually picking through data because he trusts the paper more than the system. That's not a technology failure. That's a trust failure. And no amount of computing power fixes it.

What fixes it is showing up. Doing the work. Getting desk time with the people who actually run the operation. Proving that the data is real, that the support is real, and that you understand what's at stake when someone makes a decision based on what your system tells them.

Technology is only as good as the trust behind it. Build the relationship first. The rollout will follow.

If this hit home, you'll want to hear the full conversation.

Join Eric Fidler on Wisdom at the Wellhead as he breaks down why most digital pilots never scale, what drives the data trust gap in oil and gas, and how operators can build the foundation that makes technology actually stick.