Twenty 23: For All Mankind…

Remember where you were 365 days ago.

2023 is now at our global doorstep. What journey will you embark on this next year to grow your skills and your knowledge?

How might you as an experiential learning enthusiast, leverage what you know to help others on your team, and in your community?

Your mission has always been to improve, to perfect and to deliver results. In 2023, what if you began looking through a different innovation lens?

Look around. What does your personal environment of your own dwelling say about you? Is there any room for change or improvement?

How would you rate your realm of relationships with family, friends and relatives this New Years Eve? Think about it…

Now transition to your community and assess whether you are in the right neighborhood, the correct city and even in the best state in the USA for your profession, and the work you are now inspired to perform.

"2023 will become a pivotal year for you in so many ways."

Our global future is bright and your next focus will be all about your contributions to a greater good in this world.

• With over 9 billion web-enabled personal digital devices in global circulation, how we learn from the Internet and new quantum Information Technology will continue to amaze all of us.
• Our Earth is sending us signals on regular intervals that our natural disasters are truly accelerating.
• Will mass global population growth continuously change our supply chains for food, mining of rare earth elements and sharing our scarce fresh water?

"Look up in the early evening clear blue sky as the sun sets. See all those shining stars beyond our Moon."

“For All Mankind”

have a more meaningful 2023.

OPS Risk: 7 Revolutions on our Horizon…

The holiday season is almost upon us. One only has to look into the mirror of 2022 to see the trajectory of our world.

Our digital globe is preparing itself for the next major breakpoint in its history of commerce and business.

Our organizations are in anarchy and the consumers of our products and services are shifting before our eyes.

You only have to look back on the past years major headlines of the Washington Post to gain some perspective on where we are headed in the next 12 months.

Social consciousness is seeping into the workplace and management is keenly aware of the accelerating change factors on the corporate doorstep for 2023-24.

Several new waves of incremental change are upon us. As providers of products and services to the consumers of the planet, whether businesses or individuals, the writing is on the walls of the corporate boardroom: Survive.

The tides of change are now upon us. Look no further than the Seven Revolutions Initiative. [See 7 Revs] The social, technological and demographic facets are enough to make anyone wonder where we are all headed in the next 20 years.

Our Critical Infrastructure industries are putting the building blocks in place to sustain a dramatic shift in who their customers are today and whom they will be tomorrow.

2023 will be another year of corporate malfeasance, seeded with wondrous accounts of incivility. Spawned by the empowered employee to become a whistle blower and a bold new generation of inside crime fighters.

Our generations of young workers and consumers on this planet will pay for something they can believe in, rather than something that is socially and morally bankrupt.

They will work all day in the global banking software development department and work late into the night, developing the next binary code to impress their peers on the other side of the world developing the latest ransomware on the Internet.

They will design the new marketing campaign for the next gas guzzling 4-wheel drive SUV by day and ride home that same evening in their brand new foreign hybrid using electric power.

2023 will be a year of heightened sensitivity to security and exponential asymmetric warfare.

Our dated processes and systems will be adjusted and tweaked to accommodate the planets morphing threats by a new force of true “Innovation Navigators.”

The Board Room Buzz will be more about how to protect those vital corporate assets and simultaneously how to survive our next crisis.

What may be most interesting, is how the governments of the world now cooperate to become more of a global partner on this front.

We sense already a growing cooperation among world leaders to deter and defend our citizens from the spread of a tyrants fear and uncertainty.

Finally, 2023 will be another year we find greater appreciation for:

• The evening glimmer of sunlight across a body of clean water. The wave from the neighbor who lives next door or across the street.
• Our faith in what or whomever we believe in. Those who serve, so we can remain free of threats or illness, to our loved ones and our own well-being.
• The signs that our bodies are healthy. The hope that exists in all of us, for finding a greater peace of mind.

In 2023 and beyond, look with fresh eyes on everyday things…

Teams: "Innovation Navigators"​ Across America...

As our four teams of two, finished their final presentations of the prototypes they had designed and developed over the past month, we could all see the smiles of accomplishment. Of the pride on their faces, as the sun begins to set on the West coast.

This small patriotic group of “Innovation Navigators” were now ready for the next phase of their National Security Cohort methodology. To implement and test their outcomes in our respective geographic metro areas of the United States.

Sector Teams from Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and San Diego. All major centers of our economic force and with substantial Critical Infrastructure entities to protect and increase their resilience to a spectrum of Operational Risks.

"Building Awareness of the need to change is now their primary mission. Their opportunity to recruit, educate, network and share vital information."

The people in their Areas of Responsibility (AOR) will soon have greater awareness, of the need to change.

Soon thereafter, they will have the desire to participate and support the change. They will gain knowledge on how to change.

They will learn the process to implement desired skills and achieve new behaviors.

Our “Team of Teams” will embark on their mission of reinforcement to sustain the change.

The journey they have just completed over the past 30 days has provided them new insights. It has created new relationships.

The outcomes are just the results of their purpose for joining the team, yet the new dialogue, challenges and new colleagues are what is most rewarding.

Creating something “New” as a small team that helps to solve a “National Security” problem-set is the true outcome.

What endures are the trusted relationships. This becomes the most valuable asset we attain together.

How might you and your team become “Innovation Navigators” to make a difference and serve a vital purpose in our nation?

November in the United States is always a renewed focus on our Veterans, on our National Security and Defense including our domestic Critical Infrastructure Protection.

As you gaze at our U.S. Flag and say the “Pledge of Allegiance” or listen to Taps, wipe that tear from the corner of your eye. 

Now get out there and make a difference…Onward!

Complacency: Zeros & Ones of Safety...

How might you increase your own resilience to known potential risks in your business operations or even personally this week, or this month?

We all know that growing up, Mom and Dad would teach us, “Don’t talk to strangers”. “Don’t play with matches”. “Wear your seat belt”. Why?

Even a U.S. President is famous for his quote: “Trust But Verify”.

Our life long history of financial transactions and your own personal biometric identity, has made its way online and into the Zeros and Ones digital realms of the U.S. government, Google, Amazon, Apple, Nordstroms and even Netflix.

The single phone number and the e-mail address you have retained for a decade or more, tells almost your entire life story. Where, What, When. How.

In the years past, as you were experiencing all the new mobile technologies and digital services available to you, remember that so too, are the “Nation States” and the “International Criminal Syndicates.

You, the “Human Being” operator, are the single greatest risk to your business and your family safety.

Is it possible that your own personality traits are being exploited by commercial enterprises? Yes.

Is it conceivable that every time you provide a phone number at your retail check out stand to gain rewards, that this contributes to your profiling by Artificial Intelligence (Ai) algorithms with Data Brokers? Yes.

Your business organizations safety and your own families potential vulnerabilities to a spectrum of Operational Risks, are continuously at stake.

When will you make a commitment to change your behavior and to build a discipline that endures and increases your resilience at work and at home?

So what?

If you as a Mother or Father, or Brother or Sister have ever said, “You can’t have a phone until you are 13,” then you have a personal and vital life opportunity before you.

If our own society that is visible in our own cities and geography, has evidence of rising risk and lower levels of personal safety, you might think of our vast searchable World Wide Web as just the top of the “Iceberg”. 

However, 90% as you may know, is below the surface and not visible, also known as the “Dark Web”.

"Yet most average users of corporate business networks have little insight into the growing losses from ransomware. A review of 2021 8-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals a more complete picture of the financial damage from ransomware." CSO Online by Cynthia Brumfield

It all begins with a click in an e-mail or text message, from those behind the curtain, or below the surface, utilizing their “Social Engineering” processes across millions of users profiles, purchased somewhere on the Dark Web.

Personal Profiles built and donated as a result of your own activities and actions. Why do you think that the “Digital Forensics” industry is booming?

So what is the solution? How can the growing threat ever be minimized?

It begins here. Less complacent attitudes and behavior in the Board Room and the Family Room is our only hope. It is our only proactive solution towards true resilience.

Just Remember. Don’t play with matches or digital unknowns. Teach someone else the same...

Mechanisms: For Continuous Risk Monitoring...

One of the systemic problems at large institutions including organizations like your own Fortune 500 Global company is keeping your finger on the pulse of "Risk Indicators".

Unfortunately for SVP's and other executives in the corporate hierarchy, your middle managers are creating the layer that impedes the best "Early Warning System" you may have at your disposal.

When problems surface on the front line or over in the "Cube City" in some Telephone Call or Information center on the other side of the globe, or across your new "Work-From-Home" (WFH) team, the normal agenda is for the employee to go to their direct supervisor to raise the "Red Flag" or disclose the incident. Perhaps the first behavioral response by the Middle Manager is to keep it quiet. Fix it before anyone else finds out. Keep it under wraps until damage control can be implemented.

When you are the Head of Enterprise Risk Management, you need mechanisms to bypass and eradicate the barrier holding your intelligence, incidents and overall hunches for ransom. There is no magic system or process that will solve it all. Yet, the only way to attempt at breaking through this layer of social and organizational dysfunction is to circumvent it.

A continuous risk monitoring system has to be implemented and operating anonymously 24/7 in concert with the Security Operations Center (SOC) if the upper echelons of executive management are ever going to "Feel the Pulse" of risk hotspots in the company.

These hotspots translate into true "Risk Indicators" from the sources themselves, people who know what's going wrong and know the ground truth. An internal Continuous Risk Monitoring System (CRMS) is an automated human feedback and problem identification mechanism for detecting insider risks. It allows leaders of large organizations to quickly identify problems and incidents of all kinds in their company. Call it a sophisticated whistle-blower system or even suggestion box but that is exactly what it is, on steroids.

The ideal CRMS system would emulate communication patterns in small groups which is often a major ingredient in successful teams. It would also run on the existing computers and networks of the organization or from home by logging in via an internal VPN. The soldiers on the front line know what is going on far sooner than the commanders in the Joint Operations Center just as the employee or supplier does and they need a way to communicate the issue, concern or threat in a rapid and efficient manner.

"The system provides the executives with instant or trend based intel that is actionable. It provides the "Insight" as well as the pertinent facts that you need to make more quick effective decisions."

Think about how long it takes for data and information to percolate and bubble up from the places in your organization that are considered "Current Risk Hot Spots". The point is that for far too long we have been playing the old telephone game.

You know, the one that you played as a kid sitting around the kitchen table or on the floor in a circle. One person starts and whispers into the ear of the person to there right. Just a sentence or two. By the time the message gets around to the 3rd or 4th person, now the data is dramatically different than the original. It's been interpreted, edited and sanitized.

Walk down and visit the person who is in charge of the anonymous 800# or “electronic suggestion box” or perhaps the official whistle-blower program at your organization.

Ask them for an activity log. Ask yourself how you could get this mechanism to perform better and then work with your front line to develop something that middle management can't filter, change or delete. That is when you will be well on your way to getting TrustDecisions in real time…

Innovation: The Speed of Exploration...

Why does your organization encounter Operational Risk events that have caught you off balance, off guard or created substantial losses to shareholders and major stakeholders?

There are people in your organization right now that are still without the tools, the training or the methodology to solve new significant problem-sets.

More vital, is that your organization is not proactively generating new innovative ideas, new solutions and new answers to your own operational risk issues.

innovation - noun

in· no· va· tion | \ ˌi-nə-ˈvā-shən

Definition of innovation

1: a new idea, method, or device : novelty

2: the introduction of something new

To truly innovate a new product/solution, you must first do your research. Your field study. You must get out of the building and ride in the field.

Show up on the front lines of your business unannounced. This is nothing new, yet it works and it is amazing on what you will learn.

You have the awareness of why this method of discovery is the basis for better understanding the problem-set(s).

So why as the leader in your small business or Fortune 500 Global enterprise do you ignore or delegate the true innovation mechanisms in your company to just a few people.

Why have you loss sight of the mandatory Recruiting, Education, Networking and Sharing metrics by your front line teams?

Discovering, researching, prototyping, practicing, refining your methodology to more rapidly respond to threats, to your competition, to possible opportunities.

You see, you and your organization have become complacent. You have not changed your onboarding experience of new employees or new customers in over a decade.

Why is it true, that most people and organizations don’t focus on innovation and new solutions to a problem, until there is a significant loss event.

An incident that hits the local headlines. A risk event so damaging to the bottom line it could mean closing the business forever.

How might you design the methodology and the system in your enterprise to have continuous problem and threat monitoring, new innovation?

It begins with the right people working on the initial prototype together with the correct tools. It means getting senior management on board with facilitating the process to insure the prototypes are tested in the field or Area of Responsibility (AOR).

Next, those individuals who are in charge, in command, at the field level must have the resources and the authority to test, to learn and to gather new data continuously.

Your organization is slowly decaying right before your eyes. Your adversaries are winning.

It has lost its initial purpose because you have not been continuously innovating on the front lines. In the geography and in the organizations of your own neighborhood.

The next time someone in your organization sends you or presents to you a Powerpoint funding proposal with more than 5 pages, with more than 4 bullets on each page without any true graphical data, you know you have to engage.

Filling in the standard forms in your CRM or your word.docx template on a monthly basis might be OK, if it calls for truth and relevant data from the front lines, yet is it focused on the real problem-sets?

How might you and your team change the way you are working on the front lines of your organization? Soon.

Why will you engage differently, before it is too late. What is the Speed of your Exploration?

Human Behavior: Witnessing Salvation…

When you accelerated through the career ranks of your organization and you achieved all of the goals and challenges in front of you for a year or two, what typically happened?

You were promoted.

Now, when you were given this new title or rank this usually included new responsibilities, new relationships to be managed and in some cases a feeling of additional power within the organization.

Then what happened to your self-esteem?

This confidence and satisfaction in oneself is a valuable topic for dialogue in developing great leaders. Especially when together we witness a leader whose behavior is unjustified and abuses their given power.

Human behavior will not ever stop surprising us, even after we think that we have seen it all:

1. Just when we think we have witnessed all of the good in life, we see an act of kindness and good will that we never saw before. We stand there in amazement as we watch salvation in real-time.
2. Then there is the daily news. You read a story about an act of pure evil and you ask yourself, how could another human being actually do something like that?

Whether the truth is on the front page of the Washington Post or from a witness who tells the story from their first hand experience in the room, or on the front lines, how will you act? More of #1 or #2.

The self-choice of actions you take next and the demonstrated evidence of your own behavior is an indicator of your true character. Of who you really are as a human being, operating in your organization.

Over the course of your tenure with that logo on your business card or the patch on your shoulder, never forget your true character.

You have the opportunity to continuously perform and who your colleagues will follow, that your organization is proud of each day for all of your excellent actions.

“As you build your own “Self-Esteem” and confidence and satisfaction with oneself, remember #1.”

Your team or organization as a whole, will rise together to acknowledge your kindness, empathy and yet your faithful ability to accomplish so many important milestones.

Thank you for being #1. Onward!

Cyber Reality: Quest for the Digital Castle...

On this Saturday morning the prayers are silent. For family, friends and also for the subject matter experts in business and the U.S. government.

They have been waking us up again to the reality of the Operational Risks we now face, to our ubiquitous digital-based economic infrastructure.

The message is clear to those insiders, who have been trying to defend our "Digital Castles" against tremendous odds of these seemingly invisible threats. Is it really, game over?

The short answer is yes. The current mindset should be, that every major business of valuable interest in the eyes of the enemy has already been compromised or soon to be. It is already too late. The stealth digital code is currently waiting in the shadows of your organizations hundreds or thousands of digital assets.

Whether it is the aging Dell Tower Desk Tops still running on Windows XP somewhere or the latest Android PDA/Apple IOS devices tethered to the corporate network does not matter. Your adversary has control of when and where to begin the attack on you and your organization.

So if this is the reality of the global state-of-play, in both the business world and also to government, what should the risk management strategy consist of going forward? How could we ever get to a point of advantage over those who seek to do us harm?

So internally, the prudent corporate business strategy should be for your General Counsel and the CIO of your organization to be already preparing themselves for the day that they will step before the press conference microphone to disclose the material breach of the companies intellectual capital or theft of assets.

They should already know, that it is just a matter time and not a denial that it will ever happen on their watch. If you are a Board Director and you still have not had "The Talk" with management about this stark reality, then you too are complicit in the scheme to present your stockholders and stakeholders with a false sense of confidence that you are safe and secure.

The new normal for forward thinking organizations is already being implemented for adverse events. The Crisis Management Team has already exercised the "Data Breach" scenario numerous times.

Your General Counsel and Chief Information Officer have rehearsed and practiced their testimony before opposing and adversarial questioning of your organizations information security processes.

The company subject matter experts are more than prepared to submit evidence of their best practices, industry standards compliance and previous tests of due diligence. The stage is set for the court room battles ahead:

The quest for the "Digital Castle" has been going on for years. Are you awake now or still living in a dream of denial on your state of achieving a Defensible Standard of Care…