Your People Platform is Crucial…
Posted In Uncategorized on May 3rd, 2011
How important are platforms?
What if you had a great football coach, but no platform (fields, training rooms, etc.) to bring it all together?
What if you had a great cast and a great play, but no platform (stage, props, etc.) for performances?
What if you had some great software, but no platform (PCs, servers, etc.) to use it on?
Most organizations would tell you their people are their greatest assets, but many organizations do not have a platform that empowers people to come together, keep up with constant changes and achieve better results.
With regards to people, lessons learned reveal the following:
- People are an organization’s greatest assets
- People are an organizations biggest expense (or top few)
- People are an organizations weakest links
So if an organization’s goals and objectives are to improve compliance, risk management, safety, physical security, information security, privacy, ethics, quality, reputation, legal defensibility, etc. AND improve their bottom line…then a People Platform is crucial.
Do you have a People Platform that enables your organization to win games, make flawless performances, take advantage of the latest technology and meet your goals and objectives?
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Super-Should-A-Docious!
Posted In Uncategorized on April 27th, 2011
I have attended several threat management and risk management seminars this year, and it seems like many of the speakers and experts have fallen under the spell of “super-should-a-docious”.
Many of the speakers and experts continue to express “You should do this” and “Your people should do that” or “You should implement best practices” and “Your people should know this/that” and on and on.
And at the seminars and conferences I have been attending, I sense that attendees are starting to get tired of the same old “should” dance and would rather hear about solutions that allow them to implement all the “shoulds”. It’s like people are starting to say “Ok…I’ve heard and I even agree with all these “shoulds”, but now what?”
On Ground Hog’s Day this year, I wrote a blog called “Same Should Different Day” where I suggested you watch for the number of times you come across the same shoulds in headlines, webinars, conferences and regulations. Have you been watching?
The bottom line is we have plenty of shoulds and too many speakers with “super-should-a-docious”. What organizational leaders really need are solutions and “then whats” that actually empower them to solve problems and challenges, rather than here a should, there a should, every where a should should…
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Escalating Costs of Bullying in Schools
Posted In School Safety, Uncategorized on March 4th, 2011 Tags: bullying, Cyberbullying, OCR Bullying, School Safety, school violence
Pictures are worth a thousand words. Pictures tell stories. So what does a picture tell about alarming trends in schools?
Financial Funding is Decreasing and the ‘funding cliff is coming’…
- School Safety obligations and costs are increasing
- School Safety liabilities and costs are increasing
- Regulations and Federal Mandates (OCR Dear Colleague Letter) for schools are increasing
- Compliance costs are increasing
- Legal Defensibility responsibilities and costs are increasing
- Behavioral and mental health responsibilities and costs are increasing
- Bullying and Cyber Bullying related costs are increasing
- Suicide related costs are increasing
Funding is decreasing for many reasons and funding will continue to be an ongoing challenge for all schools.
Why are costs increasing? Mostly because school leaders continue to use outdated ‘tools’ and traditional methodologies that are expensive, inefficient and ineffective. School leaders must ‘reform’ labor-intensive, paper-based, spreadsheet-based, general training and reaction-based methodologies and realize that innovative tools are available to improve efficiencies and effectiveness while also reducing their costs.
School leaders can do better and must be willing to look beyond the status quo, because the pictures clearly show it is time for change and better results.
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South Korea – Top 5 Observations
Posted In Uncategorized on January 17th, 2011 Tags: innovation, south korea
I went on a trip to South Korea of the holidays and had a fabulous time. The trip was great because I had never been to South Korea, so there were many “firsts” for me. I also love Korean food and had some “really fresh” seafood too!
I got to see a lot of South Korea via airplane from Seoul to Jeju Island where I ate a bunch of delicious hallabongs (small orange like citrus fruit grown only in Korea) and rode on my first bullet train from Daejeon back to Seoul….which was very cool and very fast.
My top 5 observations about South Korea were:
Incredibly Open to Innovation – most of the South Korean business people I met were very open to hearing about Awareity’s innovative solutions, which was a pleasant surprise compared to the USA.
President is Business Leader – the leader of the South Korea was previously the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction and it was so refreshing to see growth in all over South Korea and to hear people talking about growth instead of politics.
Discipline – the people of South Korea seemed to have discipline in their DNA and that was refreshing to see orderly control even in some of the craziest traffic I have ever seen.
Education – South Korea has over 200 colleges and universities and their emphasis on Education and creating a career for life was off the charts compared to the USA
Competition – South Koreans are very competitive and it begins in as students in school are competing for limited numbers of seats in the highest ranked colleges…not to mention golf, baseball, soccer, etc.
There were two obvious areas where I think South Korea could use some improvements:
Traffic…as I mentioned earlier it was very busy and can easily take almost an hour to go a few blocks in a taxi.
Beer…I like all kinds of beers, but South Korea’s beers could definitely use some work.
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2011 The Year of Awareness, Accountability and Measurability?
Posted In Uncategorized on December 14th, 2010 Tags: Accountability, Dear Colleague, Measurability, NSBA, OCR, Situational Awareness, WikiLeaks
As the end of 2010 approaches, it is a great time to review lessons learned and decide where you need to be to ensure better results in 2011.
Lessons learned from WikiLeaks, OCR and NSBA Dear Colleague letters, breaches, lawsuits, fines and numerous other failures clearly reveal how risks, threats, regulations, liabilities, vulnerabilities and obligations are changing. Are you, your entire organization and your partners prepared for 2011?
Status quo is not the way to keep up with change and status quo is clearly taking a serious toll on organizations around the world. Status quo is also expensive and perhaps Albert Einstein said it best:
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Wayne Gretzky is perhaps the greatest hockey player ever and he said the key to success was:
“Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is.”
Are your people prepared (situational awareness) and willing (accountability) to take a different path than status quo to achieve different and better results?
And management guru Peter Drucker is famous for saying:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Then I saw a great presentation from Brene Brown and she mentioned this version:
“If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.”
Organizational leaders who are able to ensure and measure individual-level situational awareness and accountability will be better prepared for 2011 and beyond.
Are you skating to where the puck is going or are you still skating to keep up with the puck?
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Pursuit of Success Radio Interview with Awareity’s President Rick Shaw!
Posted In Uncategorized on November 17th, 2010 Tags: Awareity, Leadership Resources, Pursuit of Success, Rick Shaw
November 17, 2010 6:00 PM
1240 AM KFOR Lincoln, NE
Awareity is proud to announce that Rick Shaw, President and CEO, will be featured in an interview on November 17 discussing his experiences as an entrepreneur, what led him to Awareity and how lessons learned continue to play a role in developing new services and solutions.
The Pursuit of Success is a local radio show sponsored by Leadership Resources and Waddell and Reed Financial Advisors showcasing regional entrepreneurs, business and community leaders, sharing key ideas of success designed to help other become more successful while making an impact in their company and community.
The interview will be available via podcast on www.thepursuitofsuccess.com if you are unable to tune into the show.
You can also visit Awareity’s Facebook page for more details!
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Third-Parties and the Protection of Sensitive Information: Is Your Organization Lacking Contractual Assurances?
Posted In Information Privacy, Information Security, Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, Uncategorized on September 17th, 2010 Tags: contractor agreements, Data Breach, GAO, Information Security, third-party breaches
A recent GAO report has revealed that federal agencies utilizing contracted workers are failing to implement contractual assurances with third-parties regarding the protection of sensitive information.
GAO auditors examined the contracting practices of three of the largest federal agencies and of those three, only one (DHS) required third-party companies to sign standard contracts requiring the contractors to follow best practices in safeguarding sensitive information.
In a recent data breach, a TSA contractor allegedly provided a Boston couple the social security numbers for more than a dozen TSA workers. Third-parties are increasingly responsible for data breaches, but most often, the hiring agency or company will face the resulting lawsuits, reputational damages, fines, etc. Outsourcers, consultants, contractors and business partners were responsible for almost half of the data breach incidents in 2008 and recent incidents show third-party gaps are mounting.
It is critical for organizations to require third-parties to be aware of, understand and acknowledge their responsibilities for protecting all types of information. Organizations should:
- Train contractors on best practices for protecting information
- Require contractors to sign non-disclosure agreements
- Require contractors to review and acknowledge organization-specific policies and procedures
- Require contractors to review ongoing updates as risks, challenges, requirements change
- Track all contractor agreements with legal-ready and audit-ready documentation
Lessons learned have shown that third-party data breaches will continue to occur if organizations do not change their status quo processes and connect the dots with third-parties more effectively.
How are you addressing your third-party relationships today?
Have your business partners, contractors, etc. signed off on your organization’s policies and procedures?
Do they understand their individual roles and responsibilities for protecting your customer / sensitive information?
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New Year’s Resolutions for Cutting Costs, Cutting Spending and Cutting Weight…
Posted In Uncategorized on January 5th, 2010
If you made resolutions to lose weight, which of the following options would you choose?
Option 1 – cut off an arm or a leg or both.
Option 2 – change your eating patterns and identify new ways to burn calories.
Both options will help you cut weight, but…
Option 1 would most likely limit your capabilities to achieve short term and long term goals and limit your ability to achieve better results overall.
Option 2 would most likely make you feel better and increase your ability overall to do and achieve better results.
As more and more organizational leaders face budget cuts, organizational leaders must decide if they are going to cut off their “arms and legs” or look for new ways to cut costs, cut spending and improve efficiencies.
Paying attention to lessons learned and other success can deliver impressive returns. Several of the next Lessons Learned Blogs will cover new ways to cut costs and cut spending while also improving your organization’s ability to achieve better results short term AND long term.
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Value of Lessons Learned Continues to Escalate
Posted In Uncategorized on December 31st, 2009 Tags: Connecting the Dots, Incident Reporting, Information Security, Red Flags, Risk Management, safety, Workplace Violence
Looking back at 2009, there were hundreds and hundreds of lessons learned that organizational leaders can utilize as we move into 2010.
I look forward to sharing even more lessons learned and analysis in 2010 and I am excited about some of the new additions and topics we have planned for January 2010 and beyond.
Because everyone has concerns about the bottom line, we will be sharing lessons learned that will help organizations reduce costs, improve productivity, increase discounts on insurance, reduce soaring compliance costs and prevent expensive incidents.
Safety, risk management, information security, red flags, workplace violence, incident reporting, secure information sharing and “connecting the dots” are a few of the other topics that will be covered in 2010.
We are making it easier for you to include your managers and your board of directors, so be sure to check out the new features of the LESSONS LEARNED BLOG – forward individual posts, search for categories, see the most recent posts, get updates via Twitter and watch for some new slideshows too.
Have a Happy New Year!
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President Obama’s 10-point Cybersecurity Action Plan – Part 10
Posted In Uncategorized on June 26th, 2009 Tags: Art and Science of Security Risk Assessment, cyber security, Human Factors, ObamaStep 10 is:
Build a cybersecurity-based identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties interests, leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies for the nation.
Step 10 is definitely needed.
Step 10 mentions privacy which is generally more about collection and dissemination of sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) than securing or protecting sensitive information. Privacy is generally more about People and Processes and security is generally more about Technology; however I think President Obama is smart to mention the need to build an identity management vision and strategy that addresses privacy and civil liberties.
I have to say….I am surprised that President Obama has not named the Cybersecurity Adviser yet. On May 29th, President Obama said he would personally pick a Cybersecurity Adviser and I was hoping by the time I got to Step 10 that President Obama would have made his pick known.
So for now, I will focus on Lessons Learned as my stack of Lessons Learned stories continues to grow taller and taller!
And just in case you missed the press release, be sure to check out Ira Somerson’s new book called “The Art & Science of Security Risk Assessment” as I was a primary contributor to Chapter 8 of the book regarding Human Factors.
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