Three Key Ideas Shaping the Future of Innovation

Source:

Innovation@ Work Blog, MIT

Your company’s key innovators are, most likely, your consumers

The wave of technological innovation we are currently riding has brought us wearable computing and 3D printing, with products like Google Glass and Nike Fuelband becoming the stars of recent tech conferences, including May's All Things D. Continually fueled by the question “what’s next?,” product innovators leave no stone unturned in their quest to produc

Source:

Ellen Brown

Web of Debt

16 September 2016

Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse).

But Ben Broadbent, Deput

Many years ago when you were on vacation, before Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were invented (assuming you were an adult then), you had a great time, right? You weren’t “connected,” because there was no social media to be connected with.

If today you can’t imagine being disconnected from social media while on vacation, ask yourself how this can be, if years ago, you never missed what had not yet been invented.

And what about constantly checking e-mail while on vacation? Or constantly perusing va

Wells Fargo, till recently, had earned itself a good reputation as a financial institution mainly due to the fact that it escaped from the Recession largely unscathed. That has come under huge scrutiny with the latest scandal that has hit the bank. It has been accused of creating 2 million fake account in the form of bank account and credit cards in the name of existing customers. This was mainly done to increase the commissions that the employees would earn for bringing in new accounts and meet

Who’d ever think those silly little yellow circular faces and other such cyber symbols would become such a worldwide smash? I’m talking about emoticons, also known as emojis. Five years ago Apple put an emoji keyboard on its mobile devices. Six billion of these doggone things are sent every day.

But a story at kdvr.com says this isn’t as innocent as it seems.

The story mentions Sheila Allison and her 12-year-old who regularly communicate via emojis. For instance, Allison’s job means she’s not home

I remember my days running chemical plants for what was then ICI. I was a shift supervisor on the PA Plant at Rhodes. It is now a major shopping and residential apartment area. The world progresses and so have I. I hope you have too and you have become more a puller than a pusher.

When you run a continuous process chemical plant, the money is in keeping it online 24/7 and running as close to maximum production as you can. However, just like we need a holiday, the plant needs downtime. The annual

As customers demand more, the insurance industry has to listen or lose out. An effective voice of the customer programme (VoC) will not only create an environment for continuous improvement, but also provide a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market. With more insurance companies conducting their own customer research, PEX Network spoke to Lisa Schilling, Vice President, Health Care Performance Improvement, Kaiser Permanente, about bringing the voice of the customer into the hear

What does Cyber Security Information look like?

• New threats:
• A Leading indicator of Risk...Threats are all around us, why count them?
  • What haven't we seen before -what we don't know can hurt us
  • Are new threats arriving faster?
  • Is the pattern normal?
• Security backlog:
• Identify - Protect - Detect - Respond - Recover...Repeat!
  • A workload measure - how much work is there for my security operations team?
  • Is the "haystack" of events becoming overwhelming?
  • How well is the capacity of my team being utilized?

• Defen

Five key areas of risk in related to CLM:

• Can you quickly search, locate and track your agreements or report on key data points?  (On average, companies use 5% of their revenue as costs of CLM)
  • Secure, central repository
  • Capture contract type centric data
  • Report on key data points
• Key dates and obligatiions
  • Proactive email alerts.
  • Action item tracking.
  • Calendars and to do lists.
• Business rules and compliance
  • Create business rules and workflows.
  • Analyze requirements and KPI's.
  • Uncover bottlenecks while impro

Internal Audit (IA) is uniquely positioned to use its cross functional / external perspective to provide strategic guidance to the business while balancing the need to perform its traditional work.

Align IA with the most significant business risks:

• Lead the enterprise wide business risk assessment focused on business risk, not solely financial statement or auditable risks.
• Keep the business risk assessment refreshed with emerging risks and business changes.
• Set the audit plan to address highest pote

The Here and Now:

Cyber-attacks

Regulations

Around the Corner:

Talent avaialbity

Fiscal crises, sustainability demands and social instability

On the Horizon:

Climate change, water crises, large scale involuntary migrations.Emerging technologies

Strategy is about making choices.  Think about:

What creates Value in your organization?

How is value Captured?

How is Strategy set, communicated and executed?

What is the actual Attitude towards risk management?

Does the organization's Culture support a strategic ris

Ransomware thieves sure know how to pick their victims—institutions that store loads of highly critical data that they need on a daily basis, that without—even just 24 hours without—can have crippling effects. This form of cybercrime is growing by leaps and bounds.

Recently a ransomware attacker struck the network of the University of Calgary. An article at arstechnica.com says that the institution’s IT experts have made some headway in isolating the ransomware infection and making some restorati

Technology / Cyber Threat Detection:

Solution:  Software that aids in detection that is sophisticated, bidirectional, real time and predictive.

How do we gauge the solution's efficacy?  Look at a number of solutions and triangulate among them; look at number of actual events versus false positives.  

Lessons learned:
Detection:  Data vs intelligence
Accuracy:  No or minimal false positives
Accountability
Actionable
Simple and Customizable Rules Management
Response time and SLA

Last year, we blogged about how to develop a successful ERM program. An important goal is fostering a risk-based company culture. This means everyone, not just the appointed risk managers, assimilates risk awareness and works it into their job description. That said, there are many factors that contribute to a healthy, risk-managing culture.

One of those factors is board support. We often stress that “front-line” employees (who oversee everyday activities) are a vital yet often overlooked resour

If you have a strong password for your Amazon account, you may still want to consider beefing up the security with two-factor verification (or authentication), which will prevent a thief from accessing your account (which is possible if he gets ahold of your password and username somehow).

• Log onto your Amazon account.
• Have your mobile phone with you.
• Click “Your Account.”
• Scroll down where it says “Settings—Password, Prime & E-mail.”
• Click “Login & Security Settings.”
• Go to “Change Account Settings”

I recently authored a whitepaper for the Society of Actuaries 2016 Risk Symposium, exploring the strategic value of risk management.

Here is the Abstract:  

Many top-performing businesses aren’t just risk aware, but rather risk intelligent. Such a posture helps prepare companies for a major event and can demonstrate to a regulator or auditor that an appropriately strong control framework is in place.

Better still, companies gain real strategic value from a “risk adjusted” understanding not only of