Organizational Innovation: Demonstrated Abilities on the Front Lines...

  Who is talking in the front of the room right now?

Is it the boss again or the CxO that is telling others that work in the organization what they should think and what they should be doing?

Or is it one of the members of the organization presenting their validated research, the data collected and the answers from questions to the real customer, the end user or the investor?

Leaders who are asking open ended questions from the audience and from the "Back of the Room" will be getting more clarification.  They may be also curious of the speakers motivations for their research investigations and experiments.

These same leaders who are listening and verifying information recognize that the true innovation is going to come from far outside the building.

"Future innovation and solutions will originate from outside the organization from true professionals in the area of responsibility with those that have real world problem-sets."

These problem-sets from the field, from the organizations and Critical Infrastructure entities in the same neighborhood, city, county or state shall be the true focus.

Radical transparency with data collected from the customer, the user, the inventor, or the researcher is where the hypothesis is created.

Are you still talking about what you want on the “Zoom” for the majority of the time allocated?

How will you ever discover if the hypothesis is correct?  How will you ever be able to adapt, change or refine what the real problem-set is, that requires your expertise and focus?

Innovation in your organization will be scarce while you are still up in front of the meeting talking.

meritocracy

noun

mer· i· toc· ra· cy

: a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.

What are you still doing inside the building?  Why are you still in front of the room or on the Zoom talking?

The corporations and responsible agency or other entities in your area of responsibility need you to be listening to their problem-sets.

They need you to ask them clarifying questions based upon their presentation of the issues, the possible innovation required to solve the problem.

Get out there!  Onward…

Innovation: Accelerate to "New"...

Remember the anticipation you had in your heart and mind at the beginning of your first year in college. Or the first day of that new job you had been seeking for months. Or that day your first child was born.

The anticipation of a next phase of your life that you had so much adrenaline or hope on your mind you couldn’t sleep thinking about it.

You see, discovering and experiencing “New” learning, “New’ opportunities, “New” challenges, “New” solutions and “New” insights is holy.

Before you were able to innovate and to accomplish the next anticipated change in your life, you were naive. You have learned to stay alive as you navigate your way across America and towards “New”.

As you join that next organizational phase to learn, to work or to care for others you realize you must continuously innovate:

Staying Alive While Creating Innovation

Key Takeaways

• Innovation is anything that helps your organization accomplish its mission, from small improvements to processes or policies to successful moon shots.
• To develop an innovative culture, you must be an agent of change.
• Creating innovation isn’t about new ways of doing work, it is about the outcomes, results and mission impact of those efforts.
• Speed is a fundamental change often needed to achieve significant results.
• A strategic approach is best, whether creating an innovative organization or developing innovative approaches to assist your organization.

Page 9 - Creating Innovation Navigators - Achieving Mission Through Innovation - Author, Sabra Horne

After you graduated from college, or were terminated from your job or celebrated your first child’s first birthday you had become more innovative.

You are well on your way to that next step, next opportunity or next life commitment with the wisdom you need.

The question now may be whether you have the right resources and the right team to accomplish the mission.

"How will you accelerate your activities so that you will discover whether your resources and your people are correct for your particular mission?"

Become an “Innovation Navigator” sixteen hours a day. Wake up early. Accelerate. Nourish your mind and body. Sleep eight hours a day. Repeat…

TrustDecisions: A "New" Innovative Future...

During this “Holy Week” in the USA, what shall you have learned about your new future?

What decisions have you recently made, that will change your life forever?

Before you were mature enough to truly understand what “Trust” means in the course of your relationships, you relied on someones tone of voice, their behavior and perhaps even a smile.

As time goes on and you immerse yourself in exponential new experiences, meet new people and endure real life challenges, your definition of “Trust” will gradually change:

• Every transaction creating wealth first requires an affirmative decision to trust.
• Building trust creates new wealth.
• Sustaining trust creates recurring wealth.
• Achieving trust superior to your competition achieves market dominance.
• Leadership rises (or falls) based on trust (or the absence of trust).

Jeffrey Ritter - Page 35 - Achieving Digital Trust

“Trust Decisions” are now your focus:

Trust decisions are the most complex computations possible. Yet trust decisions have consistency, design, and structure that are possible to visualize and express with remarkable congruity, regardless of the complexity of the variables or the time during which a trust decision must be completed.

Trust decisions, properly executed, take account of the circumstances in which you are about to act; the qualities of the person, thing, or information on which you intend to rely; and the value you intend to invest, and realize, from giving your trust.

Jeffrey Ritter - Page 50 - Achieving Digital Trust

Now after your proactive actions, how will you proceed in pursuit of your latest

“TrustDecisions" ?

Your new future and true destiny shall reveal itself in the days and years ahead of you.

You shall continuously pursue it with the following innovation process:

• Map / Target
• Sketch / Solution
• Decide
• Prototype

Learn and repeat this process in order to create new innovative wealth…both personally and professionally!

Godspeed…

AI Start-Ups: Dot-com "Lessons Learned"...

Remember when we used to visit the “Chill-Out” room after work for some Foosball, Billiards or just having a few beers.

You could just feel the enthusiasm, anticipation and collaboration in the air with our growing Team of Technologists, Analysts, Marketing & Business Professionals.

It was the summer of 1999 in Reston, VA outside the United States capital 30 minutes and ten minutes to Dulles International (IAD).

The Internet was only a few years old and the “Dot Com” revolution was attracting the Venture Capitalists (VCs) by the dozens.

Our idea was to become the USA “One-Stop” shop on the exploding Net to compare mobile phones with relevant telecom carriers plans and with a few clicks have the box on the way via FedEx or UPS. We named it “Simplexity”.

There were long hours, in and out of our low profile modern office building at 11600 Sunrise Valley Drive.

The buzz every early morning and late evening was that mobile phones were going to get much smarter, with increased processing power, storage and displays. There was already government standards on only using a “Blackberry” for sensitive work.

As January 2000 approached, we had already outgrown our office space and moved to a much larger multi-floor space closer to IAD in Herndon off the 267 Dulles Access Road.

At the height of our growth change was in the wind and our equity shares were ready to cash in as new management was hired to take the next stage of growth.

Looking back on those early Dot Com days reminds us of what we had learned especially as the new AI era in 2025 consumes our technology and VC bandwidth.

Developing prototypes and new business models is every entrepreneurs dream to then become the next “Unicorn”.

Key Lessons Learned:

• Growing your firm with the right technology and innovation will require more time “Out-of-the-Building” then you may anticipate.
• The Trusted Relationships that you built in the beginning will be tested by the new investors and Board Members who think they know more than the Founders.
• Your ambitions and future success could depend on your clairvoyance on the timing of your own exit from the company.
• Never under estimate the behaviors possible by another human when it comes to real competition in the work place.
• The AI era will no doubt see the same kind of actions and results as we witnessed in Northern Virginia during the“Dot-com bubble”.

AI innovation is far from the end and yet the companies formed today, may not even exist in three years.

Contribute your best now, make new lasting relationships and never forget your fun times in the “Chill-out” room…

Starfish: A Community of Resilience…

When is the last time you were in an environment where trust was implicit? A place where the people you were working along side, shared a unity of purpose and a single mission.

Once you experience this, it is forever engraved in your mind and felt deep in your soul.

A "Starfish Community," walking together with such a high degree of mutual trust, it will endure and remain resilient against all Operational Risks that may be encountered.

Enabled by the wisdom and thinking from Rod Beckstrom and Ori Brafman's book "Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations", the "Starfish Community" is growing rapidly across the globe.

A group of decentralized networks that are able to work without hesitancy and with moral courage. It does not matter if the model is used on the battlefield or in business, the desired outcomes are the same.

The ability for the Starfish Community to evolve, adapt and to consistently execute against its agreed upon mission manifests itself in terrorist acts and simultaneously in humanitarian and disaster response.

The ability for the human race to at one moment be so evil and at the same moment so forgiving and good, will continue to amaze us all.

The business world evolves around us with mergers and acquisitions, incidents of fraud and corruption while a silent and clandestine army of cyber warriors wage conflict on our critical infrastructure and copy or steal our intellectual assets.

The ability for the "Starfish Community" to survive in the virtual environment of the Internet is no different than the cities of Amman or Washington, DC.

This is why Wikipedia and other open source projects are able to continuously adapt, grow and survive the threats or vulnerabilities to this resilient and self-healing network.

A crisis appears in your business only when you are unable to adapt and withstand the impact of the virtual or physical forces thrust upon you.

"Whether it is the economic well being of the U.S. or the privacy laws in Europe. The shock wave of a VBIED or Insider Threat."

Your organization could reach an Operational Risk crisis state, if you have not embraced the architecture of the "Starfish Community". Learn from the best on how to withstand the test of time and all that humanity has in store for us.

And to all of those who are on the front lines of crisis everyday. God Speed. You know who you are.

Destination Unknown: Explore, Adapt & Learn...

What is your new destination? How will you get there?

The business climate in your particular industry is adapting to the latest global change upon us in 2025. What are you implementing now, that will change the processes, business rules and positive outcomes for you in the foreseeable future?

Creative activities to adapt to your particular new approach to customers, clients and followers requires new thinking. It may achieve your primary destination, yet how long will it take to arrive?

As you “Go-to-Market” in your particular industry sector in 2025, what new innovations and strategies will be in place? Have you thoroughly prototyped your solutions and discovered their results? What have you learned?

Was your industry launched in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, NC or Dearborn, MI? Your business is going to require more than one “Maverick” to achieve your future destination on a timely basis.

You will require exponential unconventional thinking. People who are “Nonconformist”, “Dissenting” and “Iconoclastic”.

Why?

How many years have you been running your business this way? In the same cities, with the same labor pools, absent of any new thoughts of creativity.

When was the last time you financed a new product launch with a brand new sales force?

Perhaps you have a tradition of doing business with the same old Legal Counsel, Accounting firm, or hosting systems of Information Technology services. Are you using the same suppliers for talent acquisition? Look where you are today.

"Are you capable of creating a new “Business Unit,” that will shed the past and test the future of your organization and your industry? Then do it."

The future of your business and our country requires it. Your particular contributions to our economic livelihood, persistence and longevity, needs your new ingenuity and continuous resilience.

Head out there.

Explore. Adapt. Learn.

Onward!

Team Learning: Innovation Navigators...

The discipline of “Team Learning” has been present with sports and education, corporations and small businesses since the collaboration of people who have engaged in mutual dialogue.

“In a remarkable book, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, author Werner Heisenberg argues that “Science is rooted in conversations. The cooperation of different people may culminate in scientific results of the utmost importance.” By Peter M. Senge The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization page 238

How will you excel into the future and continue to learn within the ranks of your particular organization?

• By sitting in a classroom?
• By watching a lecture?
• By working alone on a project?
• By creating outcomes without any potential beneficiaries feedback?

Before the “Learning Organization” was born, these kinds of activities and behaviors were the key ways people were educated and taught new skills.

As time passed and the benefits of “Team Learning” began to evolve, each participant was proactive in several key behaviors and activities.

After discovering the benefits of mutual dialogue and discussion with small groups of people who could actively participate together, the “Learning Organization” was launched.

How might you and your team of fellow leaders work together to learn from each other?

You see, if you are engaging in a true dialogue with trusted colleagues in a small group there are tremendous advantages in creating collaborative hypotheses.

The hypothesis building together creates the pathways and navigation for innovation.

“Innovation Navigators” working side-by-side on the testing of a mutual question gives each other the opportunity to learn from the relevant expertise of each other. The IQ of the team is now greater than just the individual."

What journey will you now embark on with your “Learning Team?

A new solution. A new product. A new method. To solve what?

That is not up to you to start the process.

It shall rely upon the answers from potential beneficiaries and how effective you are in asking questions with others on your team.

What is the problem to be satisfied? What is the problem to be solved?

Once your team truly knows the problem-set, the “Team Learning” shall begin…

Onward Together: Teams Navigation...

 Before you were wise, you just acted out from pure thoughtlessness. You tried to fix situations without truly understanding the problem-set.

At some point in your life long experiences you might read a passage or paragraph in a book or online. Perhaps it is in a room where you are listening to someone preach, or a guest speaker for an event you are attending.

Then the feeling starts to come over you. You are thinking about what you have just encountered and now you start to wonder. Your mind is asking more questions.

After this encounter and as you say to yourself I belong here, in this place with these people, you are on your way to new insights.

As you begin your journey towards new problem-sets to create solutions that will benefit others you care about, you will then start to believe in your direction.

You will be listening and questioning. Over and Over. You will then create a test to determine if your hypothesis is clear.

You will be testing and observing. Over and Over. You will then adapt and change your solution to ensure it is even more reliable. You are an "Innovation Navigator"...

"Reliable in different places. Reliable in different situations. Reliable with different people using your prototype solution."

So what?

After you have talked to enough people you belong with and then you believe that you have the correct solution, then you shall discover the real change in behavior.

As you continue to navigate your life solutions journey “Always Be Ready” for the time, place and person we sometime have named the saboteur.

Will you encounter an act or process tending to hamper or hurt the mission? Sabotage can be destructive or obstructive actions by others to change you.

Being prepared today for the unknown in the future. Using knowledge gained by continuous testing and observation.

Learning and adapting in order to survive the continuous change ahead of you will not be easy.

Who is your most trusted team mate or partner to do it together?

Find the person and build the team of true professionals as soon as you are able. Communicate.

Communicate. Face-to-Face. Observe each others behavior.

Navigate, Change, Test, Adapt, Endure. You are on a life long journey of discovery, learning and wonder…

Onward Together!

Acknowledgment: Forever Grateful...

When was the last time your true business accomplishments were being acknowledged and your personal character celebrated?

As we all watched the 20+ people assemble in the banquet suite facing the Pacific Ocean last evening, you could tell they were all so excited to see the surprise on her face, as she walked into the room at 6:00PM.

The point in your work timeline when you are transitioning from one key role to another and have proven your results is a good place to reminisce and to listen to those who admire and trust you.

Hearing others who are your peers and fellow colleagues stand up over dinner and explain why you are someone they have learned from and that they have valued your leadership, will always be a remembered milestone in your life.

Two out of Ten people in a room, are exactly who the “80/20 Rule” science and “Pareto Principle” are all about.

If you want to find and recruit 4 people to your team, then do the math on how many will not make the final cut.

It is just so refreshing to see a group of professionals all celebrating one of their own:

“The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few”).”

The statistics and the “Moneyball” math is what truly sets you apart as a multi-million dollar producer from those with just the fundamental skills.

As your recognition stories continued from your colleagues into the evening there were plenty of laughs and also a few tears that filled the room. Then she just smiled at us.

How might you ever become close to the 2 people out of 10?

Some might say you are just born into it, it’s all in the DNA. Others would say you have to train, repeat and train harder in order to excel at your particular chosen profession.

Coaches and researchers and professional trainers would all have various opinions on what the ratios should be, to find that next Gold Medal Winner or Scientific Scholar or Sales Leader or even a BUD/s school graduate.

Yet that alone does not make the person that others truly admire, beyond their God given skills or training outcomes.

It is something else. “Extreme Ownership” of the organizations problem-sets and the dedication to finding relevant and timely solutions.

When you finally find the right formula and you find yourself in the spotlight someday being acknowledged and celebrated by your peers and close colleagues, say it to yourself in all CAPS:

“IT WASN’T EASY AND “I REALLY EARNED IT”…It has been a good run...

Onward and Godspeed!

RENS: Growing Your Enterprise...

 There he was, in the early morning light, prancing along outside the fence line just seventy-five feet away.

The young “Buck Deer” with his adolescent antlers stopped and glanced over at the house, just to acknowledge that he saw us sitting on the deck.

As Fall arrives and kids are back in school, it seems as if the pace of work and the demands on peoples time starts to take its toll. Be aware.

Years ago, as some wise people developed the systems and programs around the acronym RENS, they knew from years of experience on the front lines of true battle why it was so vital to success:

• Recruiting
• Education
• Networking
• Sharing Information

This is the high level context for what your daily activities shall be focused on each day, of each week of each month this year.

"How might you design your program, your systems, your time allocations towards these four key components of your enterprise?"

The original designers knew that each organization is unique and therefore, provided an acronym to keep you on track. Easy to remember, harder to implement effectively on a consistent basis.

If you advertise as one example, for a particular event and you ask people to RSVP, how do you respond after they fill out your form, full of personal contact details?

If they actually attend the event and take the time to see and hear all about your X or Y, how do you respond after they leave and think about what they heard and experienced at your event?

Do you follow-up or do nothing?

At a recent weekly event the guest speaker and very wise man broke down the Recruiting part of RENS to further to three simple steps:

• Belong
• Believe
• Behave

First, if you haven’t created an event where people immediately feel like they belong there, that you too believe in many of the same things they do, you will have a rough time ever getting to the last “B”.

How might you get other people to behave in a certain way?

The tough part about RENS is, that if you are not executing 100% on the effectiveness of your “Recruiting”, how will you ever get the opportunity to Educate, Network and then Share truly vital Information?

Perhaps even more difficult, how will you ever get good people to join your "Just Cause"?

As the “Young Buck” glanced back at us one more time as he went around the tall Spruce tree, we smiled and waved…

Always Be Ready: Follow Your Heart...

Waking up to a glorious sunrise in any new town across the USA is inspiring. Today is another one of those days.

The long journey you have been on all these years is full of hardship, yet full of faith.

“Never Forget” the Americans and true professionals that have endured our asymmetric threats and continuous vulnerabilities.

People, Processes, Systems or External events. We must continuously and “Always Be Ready”…

After all of these years of hard work, to many hours standing or waiting in airports and now seeing the finish line, or the minutes winding down on scoreboard clock.

Even just the smile this morning from a cherished loved one after hours of research and keyboard time, you know why.

Before you were old enough, the reasons for the early mornings or the significant travel did not seem worth it.

The journey was constantly in question. The competition too challenging.

"Yet in our America, most anything is possible. With hard work and dedication. With the right colleagues, coaches, mentors and instructors you too are well on your way."

You are here for a reason and all the years, days, hours and minutes devoted to your own particular journey are soon to be known.

Maybe it is that smile when she wakes up and sees you. Maybe it is that laugh when he is watching “Paw Patrol”.

Or maybe it is walking hand-in-hand with your wife or husband on another early morning in your new neighborhood, or somewhere else in the United States of America.

On this Sunday in America, say another silent prayer looking at our flag waving in the wind, while the birds are chirping and a dog is barking with a siren in the distance.

Are you going to compete today? Will you be ready?

After you make it to your own finish line, look up…

Dream: Smell the Flowers…

What is your next dream? How might you envision it even more effectively?

As a young kid one of the books Mom & Dad would read to us started off like this:

“Once upon a time in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand. All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. He liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers.”—By Munro Leaf & Robert Lawson - Copyright 1936 - Viking Press

In your own life journey in search of “New”, new change, new environments, new people, new places and where your next destination will be, you shall continuously Innovate, Adapt, Test and become even more Resilient.

You see, your dream is out there. You can see it and you are able to feel it.

The reality is that you are impatient. You will not have time to test long enough.

This is when the surprises become a reality. You are caught off guard, you experience an error, you experience a loss.

What is your back up “Just-in-Time” plan?

How shall you implement the plan of actions with scarce resources?

Do you have a path to eliminate the delay or to restore the loss quickly? How will you achieve true resiliency?

Our true professionals in Operational Risk Management (ORM) dream just like everyone else.

Yet, they dream and envision the “What ifs” and the possible ways to respond. They anticipate the ways to bounce back, restore balance and move forward:

• Accept risk when benefits outweigh the cost.
• Accept no unnecessary risk.
• Anticipate and manage risk by planning.
• Make risk decisions in the right time at the right level.

Now, envision your dream with some interruptions. Then see yourself quickly recovering to achieve your planned “Mission Objective”.

What have you learned this year, this month or this week?

In 2024 and beyond, our International Globe and its people will continue to challenge all of us.

Our countries and their businesses are accelerating towards the future with exponentially more data and with so much less understanding. We may also have less empathy.

You and your team can change this as you strive together to understand more about the “Why” and the “How”.

Will you grow with your new trusted partners to be even more empathetic?

Always be Ready…and try to take time to ”Smell the Flowers”.

Godspeed!

Vulnerability: Launching into the Future...

Looking in the rear view mirror from the Spring of 2004, the InfoSec World Conference in Orlando FL was on the calendar.

Our flight from Washington, DC provided just enough time to plan out the sequence of sessions and events to attend in order to explore any new innovations.

At that point, we were now only in our first decade of our "Information Security" evolution.

"Before “The Cloud”. Before IT standards could truly grasp the spectrum of sophisticated exploits, that were soon to be developed by other Nation States."

The guidelines and metrics developed that year by the Yankee Group were derived from The Laws of Vulnerabilities research, authored by Gerhard Eschelbeck, CTO of Qualys.

The Dynamic Best Practices in Vulnerability Management are based on key findings from The Laws of Vulnerabilities:

>>Half-Life: The half-life identifies the length of time it takes users to patch half of their systems, reducing their window of exposure. The half-life of critical vulnerabilities for external systems is 21 days and for internal systems is 62 days. This number doubles with lowering degrees of severity.

>>Prevalence: 50 percent of the most prevalent and critical vulnerabilities are replaced by new vulnerabilities on an annual basis. In other words, there is a constant flow of new critical vulnerabilities to manage.

>> Persistence: The lifespan of some vulnerabilities and worms is unlimited. In fact, the research shows significant spikes in the occurrence of Blaster and Nachi worm infections in 2004, months after they originally appeared.

>>Exploitation: The vulnerability-to-exploit cycle is shrinking faster than the remediation cycle. 80 percent of worms and automated exploits are targeting the first two half-life periods of critical vulnerabilities.

The best practices apply vulnerability management as the one solution IT can count on to measure and manage the effectiveness of a network defense program.

"Performing regular security audits is a vital step companies must take to keep up with the changing security landscape," said Eric Ogren, Senior Analyst at the Yankee Group. "With each new breed of attack, it is clear that best practices in IT security must be achieved for organizations to effectively protect critical network assets."

Based on these Laws, the Yankee Group defines four dynamic best practices for vulnerability management as:

1. Classify: Enterprises should identify and categorize all network resources. They should classify these resources into categories and tier a hierarchy of assets by value to the business. Critical assets should be audited every 5 to 10 days to identify vulnerabilities and protect against exploits. Based on hierarchical priority, lower category assets can be scanned less frequently as the work plans to patch will also be less frequent.

2. Integrate: To improve effectiveness of various security technologies such as server and desktop discovery systems, patch management systems, and upgrade services, enterprises must integrate with vulnerability management technologies. Best practice organizations should also report on operational progress against vulnerability goals to raise the level of awareness for security within the executive management team.

3. Measure: Enterprises need to measure their networks against the half-life curve and persistence curves of vulnerabilities. Graphically track the percentage of vulnerabilities mitigated within each 30-day cycle and the number of vulnerabilities that extend past 180 days. Chart the security team's performance to make sure the end result is risk reduction, especially to critical assets.

4. Audit: Security officers should utilize the results of vulnerability scans to understand a corporation's network security posture. Use the metrics to evaluate successes and failures of different policies to improve security performance. Use audit metrics to communicate security status to senior management.

Soon after the business trip to this InfoSec World event, the notes written then can still provide us additional vital context, as we commercialize our travel to Space.

They give us some basis for how over two decades later, the best practices are still very much the same.

Except for this.

Today, "Vulnerability Management" now has the Cloud, Quantum and more powerful AI…

SPRINT: Folin Lane to Cislunar...

It was the year 1997 and there was another client meeting at the headquarters of Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Virginia.

Traveling through Tysons Corner on Route 7, the Spring colors from Dogwoods were in full bloom. The Navy Federal HQ was tucked away in the woods just a short ride down Chain Bridge Road (123) past Westwood Country Club then a left onto Folin Lane.

The IBM Personal Computer was just now quickly replacing the old CR terminals sitting in the "Teller Windows" at 80+ branches in port locations across the USA and the world.

With NFCU overseas members branches today in Bahrain, Cuba, Greece, Guam, Korea, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Spain the Internet and use of banking protocols outside proprietary computing networks was just in it’s infancy.

Meeting up that early Spring day with NFCU key IT executives and our fellow Noblestar Team of outside Software Quality Assurance (SQA) experts such as David, Gia and Howard, the topics on that days agenda was the automated testing for bugs.

"No not Cicadas. You know, Vulnerabilities. Software Errors. Cracks in the Code."

Places that credit union software systems might be broken, running across the new IBM PCs networked to replace the terminals (CRT) from Annapolis to San Diego to Guantanamo to Italy.

Our innovation then in Software Quality Assurance, was about writing automated scripts that would rapidly test software.

The testing scripts developed by our Team in the SQA software, would help simulate hundreds of real people working at their new IBM PCs doing deposits, transfers and withdrawals as just one example.

Members of our Armed Forces who were NFCU customers (members), were counting on the IT personnel in Vienna, VA to help their branch managers keep their systems up-time-all-the-time, without vulnerabilities to the swarm of growing cyber exploits via the Internet.

So what?

True innovation begins with discovering a problem-set that has high value. Then figuring out if it can be solved quickly. A SPRINT.

To find a real solution to the problem-set that allows for the widget, the software, the process or the vehicle to do its job. What it was designed to do.

Whether it is software running on the IBM PC at the Teller Window at NFCU in Guam in 1977 or the sophisticated cislunar software running on a Space Force Lunar Lander on the Moon in 2024, what matters most?

Our United States next generation abilities to use software to more rapidly discover problems and test new versions is even more vital.

Now imagine, humans working with new AI-powered software applications to augment our abilities to discover and rapidly solve new sophisticated problem-sets, a galaxy away.

This is already our SPRINT destiny…

Antares: Innovation from Country Roads to Cislunar...

It was early February 1971 and three High School best friends consistently car pooled to do a little early morning “Country Roading”, in the white Pontiac LeMans on the way to school.

This was just a circuitous route down tree lined roads and around vast farm lands in the Midwest USA.

We were always set to arrive in the school parking lot, just in time to make it to our locker and then to 1st period before the bell rang.

Our dialogue on Capital Avenue SW and West on Beckley Road, quickly turned to the prescience of the Apollo 14 Antares Lunar Lander and it’s planned descent to the Moon in a few days time on February 4th.

Country roading this early morning gave us guys a chance to catch-up, then map and sketch out where we would rendezvous to watch together the Apollo 14 coverage of Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa and Lunar Module Pilot Ed Mitchell.

Before we as young teenage students ever knew what true innovation was really all about, we were about to see and read about it in the national news.

And little did we anticipate that when you encounter the “ABORT” signal, you sometimes have to just improvise. Test. Improvise. Test.

“After separating from the command module in lunar orbit, the LM Antares had two serious problems. First, the LM computer began getting an ABORT signal from a faulty switch. NASA believed the computer might be getting erroneous readings like this if a tiny ball of solder had shaken loose and was floating between the switch and the contact, closing the circuit. The immediate solution – tapping on the panel next to the switch – did work briefly, but the circuit soon closed again.”

Software engineering and Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is a continuous cycle of development, testing, errors, changes, testing and deployment. The software teams at MIT knew this first hand.

“A second problem occurred during the powered descent, when the LM landing radar failed to lock automatically onto the Moon's surface, depriving the navigation computer of vital information on the vehicle's altitude and vertical descent speed. After the astronauts cycled the landing radar breaker, the unit successfully acquired a signal near 22,000 feet (6,700 m). Mission rules required an abort if the landing radar was out at 10,000 feet (3,000 m), though Shepard might have tried to land without it. With the landing radar, Shepard steered the LM to a landing which was the closest to the intended target of the six missions that landed on the Moon.”

As our United States continues our next generation of the commercial race to the Moon, we can only anticipate future “ABORT” signals. Prototypes. Testing. Innovation.

After so many years working in global places where Software Quality Assurance was mission critical, you finally will learn as a professional, that it is never finished. It is never perfect.

So what?

Our USA will always be a leader because we have already been there, with humans actually operating on the Moon.

We know what will be challenging and why a hypothesis might end up being changed and adapted.

As our next human race to the Moon continues and our cislunar challenges are encountered, we know that we must continuously improve and innovate.

The same strategy shall also work here for you today on Earth, in your own small town…around your own dinner table each night…

Godspeed!

Operational Risk: Volatility of Change...

What is volatility and how could this be an operational risk in your particular institution or organization?

The threat of "Volatility" depends on what is being measured. The stock price. The return on capital. The key is that you want to reduce volatility in most cases.

It scares some people. Long term investors, employees and customers.

Volatility is the standard deviation of the change in value of a financial instrument with a specific time horizon. It is often used to quantify the risk of the instrument over that time period.

Who likes volatility?

Volatility is often viewed as a negative in that it represents uncertainty and risk.

However, volatility can be good in that if one shorts on the peaks, and buys on the lows one can make money, with greater money coming with greater volatility.

The possibility for money to be made via volatile markets is how short term market players like day traders make money, and is in contrast to the long term investment view of buy and hold.

So volatility is in the "eye of the beholder". The point is that some people thrive on it and others are better off with that smooth and predictable future.

Risk in a financial institution is defined in terms of earnings volatility. Earnings volatility creates the potential for loss. Losses, in turn, need to be funded, and it is the potential for loss that imposes a need for institutions to hold capital in reserve.

This capital provides a balance sheet cushion to absorb losses, without which an institution subjected to large (negative) earnings swings could become insolvent.

How much capital is allocated to Operational Risk is a measurement issue. The decisions an institution makes in managing Operational Risks is not risk versus return, but risk versus the cost it takes to avoid these threats.

The key determinant of an institutions risk factor against operational failures is not the amount of reserve capital, it is the performance of management.

In fact, in a few spectacular cases of operational failures, incremental capital would have made no difference to the firm's survivability. It comes back to strategy, safety, security and soundness.

How volatile are your earnings? At the end of the day the question is about management controls and measurement.  What if your measurements were not earnings, but the number of workplace accidents and acts of violence?

How effective are they at mitigating operational risks in the areas of the institution that can't be insured?

Look at places where "Change" is happening in huge volumes and at a rapid pace and you will know where to begin.