While rewatching the original Jurassic Park film I began thinking about it from a risk management perspective. When Malcolm, Grant, and Sattler arrive on the island, all is well. The dinosaurs are secured behind fences and John Hammond and his…
Operational Risk: The Truth Is Out There
With new episodes of 1990s hit series The X-Files airing in January, it got me thinking about the show’s tagline “The Truth Is Out There” and how it applies to the cloak and dagger world of operational risk. The X-Files…
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 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…
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…
Ned Stark. Hand of the King. Chief Risk Officer.
Eddard (Ned) Stark, Lord of Winterfell, is a protagonist in the book A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. He is principled and tells the truth and believes in honour and justice. Ned would make an excellent Chief Risk…
Physical Security and Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door
Physical security (graffiti?) is something that many risk professionals and auditors take seriously. Most organizations issue access cards to their employees, often configured differently to various floors or parts of the office. It’s well known that thieves will sometimes piggy…
Dora the Explorer and too much risk
I used to watch Dora the Explorer with my daughter, a cartoon about a “7-year-old girl who embarks on a trip in every episode in order to find something or help somebody”. In every show she consults the map in…
My appetite for risk and cheesecake
On a trip to Portugal and Spain last month, my brother elected to take a minor detour and visited Morocco in the midst of “a revolution sweeping the Arab world” as he wrote on his blog. He was monitoring the…