I am always amazed that despite the enormous square footage of our planet and the tiny amount of poop produced by a bird that it is possible for my car to get hit. But it occurs despite how unlikely it…
Under the Dome risk management
In Stephen King’s novel, Under the Dome, a small town in Maine becomes suddenly cut off from the outside world by “an invisible barrier of unknown origin”. If that sounds a bit too much like the Simpsons Movie or…
The Walking Dead and risk management
If there are two things you have noticed about this blog, I often write about zombies and the Moment of Risk Enlightenment. Today’s post combines both. (Note: This post contains spoilers about season two of the Walking Dead.) I was…
The Night’s Watch and the Wall of risk management
In the series A Song of Ice and Fire which begins with the book A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin, we are introduced to the Wall and the Night’s Watch. The Wall is an immense fortification on…
The black swans and Field of Dreams
Yesterday I wrote about a white paper “Black Swans Turn Grey” from PwC. Here’s a footnote to that post. I had a good chuckle when I read about these “new black swan risks”. The authors suggest that all these…
How to Make a Peanut Butter Sandwich: Donald van Deventer
A website dedicated to the popular show Lost published a post a while back about how each of the characters on the show would make a peanut butter and jam sandwich. I have borrowed this idea to illustrate how some finance or…
The iPhone 4S of enterprise risk management
Last year Apple released the iPhone 4S and critics pointed out it was pretty much the iPhone 4 with a big-s glued on. Although there were some minor improvements from the iPhone 4, overall it was pretty much the…
Angry Birds risk management
I’ve been playing quite a bit of Angry Birds ever since I got my Samsung Galaxy Tab for my birthday. I love this game. The objective of course is for birds (each with their unique strengths) to destroy the structures…
Felix Kloman, the Rocket and risk management
I received an email from Felix Kloman last Friday. If you do not know about Mr. Kloman’s work, then I strongly suggest that you click on the Felix Kloman (Legend) link in my Blogroll to find his Risk Management…
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…