In 1976, Donald T. Campbell wrote “The more any quantitative social indicator…is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes…
Passwords, LinkedIn and the White Rabbit
With the news this morning that your eHarmony or LinkedIn password was posted on a Russian website, people are frantically changing their passwords today. Or so one hopes. Why all the urgency? Should anyone be concerned that some troublemakers are going…
Real Human Beings and the Elephant Man
Perhaps one of the most famous movie quotes from my childhood was from the 1980 movie ‘The Elephant Man‘ based on the life of Joseph (John) Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London. At one point in the…
Maslow, Ned Stark and the Common Good
Last week Ted Coine asked ‘what ever happened to the Common Good?’ At some point people stopped doing the right thing and started putting their individual selfish interests ahead of those of their organizations, countries or kingdoms: UBS, the nation…
Gladwell, crashing planes and risk management
In his book “Outliers”, author Malcolm Gladwell explains how “The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication” as opposed to mechanical causes. Also, they usually happen after a sequence of mistakes and…
Risk management oldies but goodies
The good folks at Riskviews got me thinking about my least read posts. I’ve been doing this for a few years and understand that no one wants to scroll through over 300 blog entries to find some gems from 2006.…
They will always find a way to screw you
I worked about six shifts at a Burger King in a shopping mall when I was in my teens. I quit because I didn’t care much for wearing the brown pants and hairnet. On my final night, the closing shift,…
The risk of watching porn and masturbating at work
It wasn’t too long ago that women couldn’t breast feed infants in the workplace and now we have lactation rooms; they are a good way to help mothers transition back to work and continue breastfeeding their child. (That said we may…
When I say evacuate, I mean evacuate NOW
In today’s post, I write about the December 2010 article “To Leave an Area After Disaster: How Evacuees from the WTC Buildings Left the WTC Area Following the Attacks” by Rae Zimmerman and Martin F. Sherman. It compliments my earlier…
The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley
I’ve just updated the Risk Quotes page with a few lines from Amanda Ripley’s book The Unthinkable. It’s an excellent read for anyone responsible for business continuity planning, risk management or even if your are just the fire warden on…