Monthly Archives: July 2012

Bear risk management

July 25, 2012
Bear risk management

My lovely wife wants to take me camping next weekend. I’ve never been camping but understand camping was a part of her life before we met. I’ve explained that I am not averse to camping despite the dirt, cold, sleeping on the ground, canned beans, raccoons, no wifi, poison ivy, bugs and bears. But am quite looking forward to it! While looking for camp sites in central Ontario, Killbear Provincial Park seemed like the choice. With a name that includes the verb ‘kill’ and the noun ‘bear’ I imagine it must be safe! She began doing some research on tripadvisor.com and…

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The winding rivers of risk management

July 11, 2012
The winding rivers of risk management

In the novel Time and Again by Jack Finney, he writes about Einstein’s theory of time travel this way: “we’re mistaken in our conception of what the past, present, and future really are. We think the past is gone, the future hasn’t happened, and that only the present exists. Because the present is all we can see. It’s only natural. (Einstein) said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But, it’s there.” Since risk…

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Risk management and cognitive biases

July 9, 2012
Risk management and cognitive biases

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of putting many people in a room to discuss and assess risks you’d know that not everyone assesses every risk the same way. To some a particular risk is high, while to others it is low or non-existent (“C’mon, that’s not a risk!”) But why is that? In a 2011 article by Dan Lovallo and Daniel Kahneman, they explain that executive are “overoptimistic” which can be traced to “cognitive biases – to errors in the way the mind processes information – and to organizational pressures”. They go on to write that this optimism is…

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Risk of a short dead dude

July 6, 2012
Risk of a short dead dude

In celebration of La Fête Nationale, Bastille Day, on July 14 here is an example of some poor risk management on the part of the British. The late historian Robert Sobel once noted that the “British created a civil service job in 1803 calling for a man to stand on the Cliffs of Dover with a spyglass. He was supposed to ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. The job was abolished in 1945.” Since the “short dead dude” died in 1821 I find it incredibly unlikely that this risk would manifest itself between 1822 and 1945. Napoleon was…

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