210 – Understanding risk in a scary world

The Gourmet Goodie Bag is back at the Royal Adelaide Show this year with $120 value for $20.

Chris, Nigel, and Steve review the contents of the bag as a community service 🙂

News reports of trucks being driven into pedestrians while North Korea sends missiles flying over Japan, can give the impression that we are living in very dangerous and unstable times. But are we? Stephen PInker, in the New Republic article, A history of violence, argues “we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth”. Somewhere in between these extremes sits Chris Ruff, managing director of Insight Global Risk, a strategic risk and security consultancy, who will help us start understanding risk in a scary world tonight.

UPDATE: Chris has since shared his travel advice, as promised in the interview. It even includes a free download tip sheet. Get Travel Security tips here.

Chris, I wanted to get you on this show, after hearing an interview on Harvard Business Review’s Ideacast podcast, with Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism adviser to U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast episode with Richard Clarke), who tried to warn the Bush administration about Osama Bin Laden but was ignored. He calls that situation, being a Cassandra, and you recently wrote a piece about that. What is a Cassandra? Are you a corporate Cassandra? Removing Apollo’s Curse in the business risk industry

I like how Sarah Green Carmichael asks Richard if he would have written his current book called Warnings, if the Bush Administration had taken his warning on al-Qaida seriously and acted on it?

Have you ever been a Cassandra?

You’ve worked in the military and in business. Is one group better than the other in reflecting on warnings?

What is an enterprise risk assessment?

Chris Glenn: Ah, another day of TV filled with nothing but endless video runs of various North Korean missile launches with much ado about nothing. The missile launched this morning went over the northern districts of Honshu, and the south of Hokkaido before dropping in the Pacific Ocean. It went over Japan 550Km up, 540km higher than jets fly, (and not forgetting space starts at 100km up) yet we’re treated to live reports from southern Hokkaido from a reporter who saw nothing, heard nothing, and probably doesn’t know what, if anything happened. Lots of talking heads, very little facts, lot of hot air. What? Me Worry?

You do geopolitical assessments. What would you be saying to clients in Japan or thinking of Japan and the region right now? Is reality different from the news?

What sorts of risks to businesses face when the enter new countries?

You mentioned companies not having unlimited budgets for guards at mines, how do bad guys have so many in movies like James Bond and John Wicks?

And are there major risks when travelling, for work?

Are they different than for play? You recently went on a cruise, do you prepare in a special way?

Politics is rough at the moment and heating up. How do you prepare for rallies and protests?

In cyber security, what are some tips?

You worked for BHP Billiton as its Regional Asset Protection Manager (Asia Pacific).

Nigel challenges the panel to pick the fake story from three stories from South Australia’s past.

Port Adelaide News January 1925
DANGERS OF BUS TRAVELLING
The many recent bus accidents must go a long way to counteracting the harm done by the throwing out of the Government’s Bill as far as the unfair competition with the peoples tram service is concerned. Citizens of Adelaide and suburbs who have supported these privately owned juggernauts hitherto and argued in their favour are beginning to wake up to the risks they run in patronising them. There have been accidents, too, that have never appeared in the press. The destruction of a bus by fire on January 14 has brought forth comments from the Attorney-General (Hon. W. J. Denny). He stated that  “the attention to the rapidity with which the fire appeared to have spread it certainly seemed that the means of quick exit provided in many of the buses was quite inadequate, and consequently loss of life was probable. The door at the back of the bus would be ineffective in the case of a sudden blaze of petrol. The buses were very quickly overcrowded, and the matter should be taken into consideration in connection with the licenses.”

Chronicle July 1936
WHALES AS DANGER TO SHIPPING
W.A. Captain’s Experience
The possibility of ships being struck by whales, thus accounting for some unexplained ship accidents, was raised by Mr. J. M. Woods, route manager of MacRobertson, Miller Shipping Company, as the result of an experience when sailing about 10 nautical miles south of Port MacDonald on the night of June 15. Mr. Woods said he was travelling at full speed in a coastal freighter at 7.10 pm., when a loud splash could be heard off the starboard bow, only 60 or 70 yards away. The crew shone gas lamps towards to sound and the ship was rapidly brought to rest, thinking an unknown shoal may be near only to see a large whale travelling parallel to the ship. The creature was said to be huge, easily large enough to spring planking or plating and severely damage or sink a ship. A collision with whales might account, he said, for ships that have been lost without trace. While on the Melbourne Adelaide service he had frequently seen whales off the Southern Coast. Mr. Woods is calling for observation by aeroplane along coastal routes to plot and warn of whales travelling near shipping lanes.

Port Adelaide News August 1927
UNGUARDED COASTLINE DANGER
Give Charlie and me a few million pounds, and we could guarantee, to “bomb every capital city of Australia, and you wouldn’t know where we came from,” said Mr. C. T. P- Ulm, the round Australian flier, who, with Captain C. Kingsford Smith, circled the continent in ten days. He was supported by Captain Smith, who added that Ulm’s statement was no mere impulsive exaggeration, but was perhaps the chief lesson taught them by their record-breaking flight. Both Mr. Ulm and Captain Smith said that an enemy could easily establish an Air Force base in the north, but Australia could check the danger by stationing Air Force units at Darwin, Wyndham, and Derby, with intermediate stations at various intervals. The airmen conjured up a vivid picture of enemy aerial bases in the heart of unknown Australia, preparations for months ahead without the Commonwealth authorities knowing that an enemy aeroplane was in the country, new bases extending further south towards Alice Springs, and then, when all was ready, a sudden swoop down on the capitals, huge aerial armies dropping explosives, and then a quick flight away before the defenders had recovered from their surprise