Sunday, October 05, 2014

1 WTC: Trust Decisions of Technology, Privacy and Rule of Law...

Technology, Privacy and the Rule of Law.  All three attributes for a robust Operational Risk Management (ORM) system.  The Operational Risk professionals in the critical infrastructure sectors that intersect with personal identifiable information (PII), are experts in the trio of changing technology, new laws and legal decisions while preserving the rights of privacy.  Financial services and Healthcare are currently under a significant barrage of attack.

All of these attributes are just small components of a much larger and more complex system.  The pursuit by all parties including consumers, technology innovators and those charged with our legal governance, is attaining a future state where the majority of humans will judge that system as trustworthy.

Trustworthiness begins with the basis by which you engage with a particular system.  Here is a fundamental example.  The trust that you put into the technology on your wrist or hold in your hand, requires you to take a leap of faith at first.  Can you believe that the chronometer on a MTM Patriot watch, at 132 feet below the surface of the Pacific ocean Scuba diving is accurate at 18 minutes 36 seconds?  If you can't trust the accuracy of this system to count minutes and seconds, a life may be in jeopardy from DCS.

An affirmative "Trust Decision" occurs when actions or rules are executed as a result of the systems design or planning.  A decision to ascend from 132 feet to 66 feet at 19 minutes into the dive is a "Trust Decision" leveraging the system programmed to keep accurate time and the divers planning in advance.

You have come to trust many systems in your lifetime.  Simple computers on your wrist or the complexity of the engineering associated with a BMW, Apple iPhone 6 or IBM Watson, requires the human to experience enough favorable outcomes, to begin to trust that particular system.  Those positive outcomes for safe and secure highway travel or the end-point IoT device will strive to establish trust over time. Even one of the virtual machines (VM) on the massive servers in over 100 Equinix Data Centers across the globe, are the basis for your trust as these particular invisible systems store and retrieve your most personal, sensitive intellectual property.

Think of a specific system that is trusted universally.  Think about all of the computers that support the system.  Each computer has been provided instructions coded in software or firmware.  For the most part, these rules have been programmed by humans.  In many cases, the software has automated a previous system that was manually operated by humans, for decades or longer.  Now this new trusted system is more efficient and the work that it performs saves us time.  It generates economic growth. Eventually, the system becomes trusted by a majority of humans and no one questions the calculus anymore.  Our current banking system in the U.S. is one that is top of mind.

When you have a fusion of Technology, Privacy and the Rule of Law that requires trust, not just by humans, but by systems-to-systems, then you must also have something else.  In order for the complete system and all of it's attributes to be accepted, adopted, codified, tested, ruled-upon, pervasive and universally utilized, it must be trusted by the other "systems" themselves.  Here is another example.

When you look at the architecture of the new "One World Trade Center" (Freedom Tower) scheduled for completion this year in New York City, do you think about:
Structural redundancy, enhanced fireproofing, biological and chemical air filters, extra-wide pressurized staircases, interconnected redundant exits, safety systems incased in three feet concrete wall, dedicated firefighter staircase, special "areas of refuge" on each floor.
You should think about it and so does Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP.  The architect of the Freedom Tower.  If only we could utilize this metaphor for what we have learned about the architecture and construction of the new Freedom Tower.  Will you trust 1 WTC as a system?  Why?

The systems talking to other systems in order to design, build and occupy 1 WTC have been vast.  The technology incorporated to satisfy a complex set of business rules, building codes and privacy or security governance is extraordinary. "Trust Decisions" to accomplish affirmative outcomes have been executed for years by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) not only in New York but on a global basis.

The trustworthiness of a system goes far beyond just the edifice.  The device.  The packaging.  The marketing.  The brand.  You will always have to look deeper for your "Trust Decisions".  You must discover how these trusted systems are being utilized, to provide you the affirmative economic results you seek.  And without the positive outcome of the creation of new found time or monetary assets, you will then abandon the tool, the machine, the system and simultaneously your trust.

TrustDecisions...