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Workplace phishing

By Work

You’ve probably heard of phishing – it’s a cyber attack that uses a disguised email as a weapon, but have you heard of vishing and smishing? Vishing is the ‘verbal’ form phishing (for example, a voice message) and smishing is the ‘text’ version.

Hopefully you’ve never fallen victim to phishing, smishing or vishing…but have you ever been tempted to click the link or reply…just to see what would happen? Well, here is one story from a person who did exactly that. If you haven’t seen James Vietch’s famous TED talk this is what happens when you reply to spam email, then do yourself a favour and check it out.

June 15, 2021
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Risk appetite

By Work

Risk appetite is an expression often used within risk management and is now appearing in numerous publications and legislative requirements. To compound the issue, there is no universally agreed definition amongst various risk standards. So what does this jargon really mean?

This short but fun video proposes a simple definition using ISO Guide 73 ‘Risk management vocabulary’ as a starting point for further exploration.

February 2, 2021
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New normal

By That's life, Work

97 days since stage 3 lockdown…

…my transition to the new normal for lockdown #2 here in Victoria.

What happened to ‘play’?

October 13, 2020
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Risk informs decision making

By Work

Risk informs decision making

‘Risk informs decision making’ – Risk managers like to use this key expression to describe risk management’s value proposition. But what does this industry jargon really mean?

To demystify this, I’ve created a snappy 2 minute video. It will help you understand what this expression means in practice, so you can simply apply it to your important decisions at work or home.

PS. If you like this video, then check out my first one ‘What is risk?’

Let me know what you think

August 25, 2020
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Now is the time to exploit risk

By Work

We’re a train…

entering a dark tunnel, but there is light in the distance, and if we adapt and respond positively to the uncertainty we face, we can come out the other end a better train…. It will look different…. It will feel different…. And if we want it to be better, we will need to embrace change.

If risk is ‘the effect of uncertainty on objectives’ (ISO 31000), then unarguably now is the greatest moment of uncertainty we have ever faced (as individuals and as a business). Through uncertainty comes the necessity to look at things differently and to do things differently from before.

If we have to work from home and can’t travel to work, how can we continue to deliver timely and quality work to our customers?

Risk management is a means of preserving and creating value – Preserving value by understanding the threats is important, but equally important (if not more so now) is creating value by identifying opportunities for new ways in which to work. Risk management enables us to understand our objectives and paint a future of what could be, to help us identify opportunities.

A good way of starting this is to understand our value proposition by asking active and open questions so we can use our imagination to then ‘see’ things we couldn’t before. We can ask:

  • Which needs or products are taking centre stage?
  • What customer needs exist for which there is no current solution?
  • What are we not doing for our customers?
  • If we were starting over now, what company and offering would we build?
  • Why are today’s loyal customers still doing business with us?

By staying flexible and understanding how we can find opportunities in what’s different now, we can come out of this better, stronger and different.

Inspiration material: We need imagination now more than ever, HRB.org, 10 April 2020

May 2, 2020
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The discomfort you’re feeling is grief

By Work

“The discomfort you are feeling is grief” – this is the title to a recent Harvard Business Review article in response to the coronavirus – and when I read it, I felt an immediate feeling of … relief.

I guess for me, it was actually putting a word to a set of jumbled feelings that weren’t making sense to me. The article goes on to explain the various stages of grief and gives examples of the things we might be thinking and experiencing in our day to day lives in response to the coronavirus.

It ends with some practical examples of what we can all do to help navigate our sense of well-being, with four actions:

  • Find balance in your thinking
  • Stay in the present
  • Let go of what you cannot control
  • Stock up on compassion.

I thought I’d summarise the article in the attached drawing, as a visual reminder of what I can do every day.

Harvard Business Review has made all its coronavirus coverage free for all readers. You can find the original article here – it’s well worth the read.

April 7, 2020
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The blind carbon copy

By That's life, Work

I had a bit of fun this week, trying to personify the three email types: to, cc (carbon copy / courtesy copy) and bcc (blind cc). Couldn’t help but feel that the bcc was bit ghost like in nature.

July 27, 2019
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One word to describe a culture

By Work

Workplace culture icon

My little in-house community art project continues.  This drawing portrays our company’s ability to form strong alliances with other parties to enable us to bring the best offering to the table for our clients.

You may recall, this project is all about using images and words to describe a workplace culture. My fellow workers come up with the words and I draw the cartoon to best describe it visually. Each word is a new picture and over time the culmination of words and images forms a collage, expressing what it’s like to work in the business.

So what word would you use to describe your workplace culture?

September 8, 2017
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Networking

By Work


pictogram of business networking

A few weeks back I shared a cartoon from a work project we started in the office… just for that bit of daily fun. If you missed that post, fear not, I’ll explain here.

I’m calling it The Art of Us and it comprises of a series of cartoons that each portray one of our cultural  strengths as an organisation.  The panel above depicts networking as one of our key strengths in a business that spans the globe in over 40 countries and 100 offices. It resides amongst a set of other images that depict our culture and is slowly growing into a giant checkerboard of colour and inspiration.  Best of all, it’s a community project and allows anyone in the business to get engaged in the art.  These aren’t my ideas; these are the thoughts and feelings of people in the business when I ask them ‘What is our key business strength?’ All I do is bring their idea to life in a few cartoon strokes and a bold splash of colour (cunningly coloured in our corporate approved branding pallette 🙂 ).

I feel it is a small but meaningful way of introducing the inspiration of art into our workplace.  I’m a big believer that art helps spark people’s imagination and put simply, makes us feel good. Rather conveniently, it also allowed me to cover up that uninspiring beige wall adjacent to my desk.

So how would you describe your workplace in one word or sentence?

 

 

August 11, 2017
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