ID Analytics: Risk of the Unknown...

Operational Risk Management (ORM) has been at the top of the news in the past few weeks.  Digital media and the metadata of "Big Data" is the topic of choice.  It is a revealing look behind the curtain of what is possible these days, with the tools and capabilities that exist for exploitation and analysis.  Is too much privacy an operational risk to your personal and professional well being?  What "Trust Decisions" did you make to arrive on this page in the universe of the Internet?

In the spirit of full disclosure, if you are reading this now, we tracked how you found this blog and perhaps what search terms you used to be referred here.  Some of you, revealed their company identity. So why do we do this?  The main reason is that we want to make sure that we understand what is on your mind these days, when it comes to the global Operational Risk Management (ORM) universe. Here are a few examples in the past day or so that caught our eye:

• management of operational risk - Latvia
• operational risk management - Nigeria, Illinois, South Dakota, The Vanguard Group
• common board of directors mistakes - Turkey
• lessons learning from fail in operational risk - Malaysia
• predictive intelligence - North America
• rogue trader operational risk - United Kingdom
• fund industry operation management discussion topic - Luxembourg
• operational risk management game - Unknown
• reputation risk management process - Unknown
• operational risks in bank call center - Qatar
• coso definition of operational risk - Unknown
• black swan incident that occurs once in a lifetime - Unknown
• ubs operational risk case analysis - Unknown
• business resiliency definition - JP Morgan Chase
• "operational risk" outliers - France
• a risk effect on a daily operation - DeVry
• examples of smart objectives risk - United Kingdom
• black swan incident\ - South Carolina
• black swan incident - Computer Sciences Corporation
• what is a black swan incident - South Carolina
• duty of care board of directors - United Kingdom

Collection of data is one thing.  Relevance and sense-making is another.  Can you imagine some of the search terms that are tracked just by Google or Bing?

What about the companies that know us the best?  Those marketing and personal data sites that keep track of where you live, how much you spend on your credit cards and where, or even the name of your pets.  How often do you give them your phone number or e-mail address at the point-of-sale (POS) to get a discount at the local retailer, gas station or pharmacy?  Believe us when we say that there are hundreds of organizations that know more about you in the private sector than some government across the world.

The trail of "digital finger prints" you leave behind everyday are vast.  A snap shot of your face at the local ATM or a snap shot of your desktop when you login to the online banking web site.  In either case, these examples are just a few of the ways that your habits, locations, preferences and lifestyle are profiled each and every day.  Where did all of this begin?  Fraud Management.  Not Homeland Security.

As a citizen traveling across the country or a consumer, you willingly give up these digital bread crumbs of your journey through life.  Your goal now, is to make sure that you are not mistaken for someone else.  After all, you or your organization have developed a profile and a reputation that is being recorded and therefore, it could be a prudent strategy to make sure that you are not mixed up with another person or organization with the same name or brand identity.

How can you do this?  Operational Risk Management (ORM) is about monitoring yourself and your organization to make sure you understand your competition (good or bad) for the same personal or business identity space.  Do you have Biometric and DNA samples of all of your key executives?  If you don't, then the question is why not?  You may have considered this in light of some of the places that your executives are traveling.  Cities and countries across the globe with the risk of kidnapping, improvised explosive devices (IED) and other risks to their lives.

As we look into the crystal ball of our digital futures, we see the scenes from movies past that have already captured our own human imagination.  A world where everyone is known and you may even choose to "opt-in" to be tracked.  After all, you are unique.  You make your own choices in life.  The risks that you face may very well be greater, for those who choose a life to remain private, anonymous and even unknown.

4th of July: Resilience of Your Team...

The United States is celebrating the birth of the American nation this weekend.  238 years ago the formation of the Republic set the course for the country that it is today.  The Declaration of Independence was born.

A key aspect of any prudent Operational Risk Management (ORM) program is focused on people.  The risk of people and the whole dynamics of what is going on in peoples lives.  As Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman toiled over the draft; what do you think was also going on in their individual lives at the time?

While political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence, a document explaining the decision was being written. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable.[62]What is certain is that the committee, after discussing the general outline that the document should follow, decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.[63] The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with Jefferson personally.[2] Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next seventeen days, and likely wrote the draft quickly.[64] He then consulted the others, made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled."[65]

The ecosystem of this set of committed custodians of a new nation also included the personal lives of each one of them.  No different than the ranks of any organization who has executives and key staff members who are steering the daily direction of the enterprise.  Each individual on that team has a work life and a personal life they are managing simultaneously while doing the work of the country or the corporate business.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So think for a minute about your team within the enterprise.  Each person on your staff or within your division is managing and coping with life events that are occurring in real-time each day.  How much are you in tune with all those emotions and potential changes in a fellow employees life, to see how it may impact their work?

Organizations across the globe utilize Operational Risk Management (ORM) as a discipline for those safety and security events that could produce significant risks.  The same can be applied to each person and their individual ecosystem.  Each person on the team may be in different phases of their lives and need only a few pieces of the entire ORM mosaic for their personal lives.  Contingency planning however is still one of those easy exercises that most people can do on their own and in their own personal environments.

The power of the "What if" questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis is a healthy way to begin and to continuously provide effective Operational Risk Management (ORM) outcomes.  "What if" you developed a ORM college within the enterprise to educate all those new employees and existing with the skills, knowledge and capabilities available to them?  As they say "Life Happens."  Each person shall have an ecosystem of both personal and professional risks that they are encountering every day.

It could be imagined that people such as Ben Franklin had a few other items on his mind at the time.

The person to your right and to your left on the front lines of the organization, who you engage with everyday; has their own set of risks to manage in life.  A strategy for each individual to better plan, develop and deploy effective risk management individually provides the entire team with the focus they require long term.  They have been trained on using the effective continuous process for ORM:

• Identify
• Assess
• Decide
• Implement
• Audit
• Supervise

Imagine your organizational unit, whether it be Congress, your Family, your work out partners at Pilates or the entire executive staff all in synchronicity, with the use of Operational Risk Management. The principles of enhancing your life or your country will require a life long devotion to the rules and to the risks to a breakdown in rules of governance.  Personally or professionally.

Consider the peace of mind as your country endures the challenges to it's "Declaration of Independence" and knowing that it has a longevity of 200 plus years.  Think about the confidence and the assurance you will have about your team or family unit as each of them manage their life events and risks.  The resilience factor is strong and the safety and security of the people you care about the most, will endure.