Normally I spend a lot of time complaining that vendors and consultants talk an awful lot of nonsense about risk management. It is only fair that I give praise when someone bucks that trend. Jim DeLoach is managing director of Protiviti, the global firm with a notable expertise in risk. Look here for his short and brilliant explanation of “what is ERM and why it is important”. I particularly liked his critical summary of the reality of risk management:

…risk is often an afterthought to strategy and risk management is an appendage to performance management.

Too true!

Reading the website of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) I was stuck by the similarities with the website of the Global Revenue Assurance Blagger’s Association. Both issue standards (on how to collect Bigfoot evidence, on how to blag that you are an RA professional), both issue regular news updates with no genuine news in them, and both were created by someone who spends too much time developing websites instead of having a proper job. This got me thinking about all the similarities and differences between Bigfoot and GRAPA. Here is what I came up with…

• One is a myth created by hoaxers and perpetuated by people with an overactive imagination… and the other is Bigfoot.
• One is studied by a large number of professionals and scientists… and the other is GRAPA.
• One is often featured in videos of very poor quality… and the other is Bigfoot.
• One has a large and active following in North America… and the other is GRAPA.
• One is banned from Wikipedia because it fails to meet the standards for an encyclopedia entry… and the other is Bigfoot.
• One is supported by extensive research gathered in the field… and the other is GRAPA.
• One is a hairy backwoodsman… and the other is owned and run by a hairy backwoodsman.

Apologies to any Bigfoot hunters who are reading this; I mean no disrespect to you and I hope you prove the rest of the world wrong. But if you see a thick-set and confused fellow wandering amongst the trees of Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, then please do not take his picture. Any kind of attention will only encourage him. He is not Bigfoot, but a far more terrifying beast of legend, known as the ‘Papa Rob’. Feed him, if you must, but never accept the pieces of paper he will try to force on you. They may look pretty when hung on the wall, but you will be forever damned…

Let me share a secret. My interest in RA accounts for only half of my interest in talkRA. The other half of my passion is exploring how cheap modern technology can open up new possibilities for communication and interaction. The RA community is niche, geographically distributed, and not particularly wealthy, making it a perfect testing ground for comms innovations. Also, we work in telecoms, so there are no excuses for not eating our own dog food!

The experience has taught me a lot about what techniques work and which do not work. It has also proven that empiricism beats theory every time. Never mind what I think will work, and never mind what you think either! Neither of us knows what forms of communication will lift off, and which will crash land. To find out, you have to try things. So, after mocking your ability to forecast what will be successful, I am curious to hear suggestions for what talkRA could do next… and what you might like to do next, if given the chance. As far as I am concerned, the crazier and more unexpected the suggestion, the better. But before you send your answers on the back of a postcard (or, preferably, as a comment to this post) then let me briefly review what has been attempted so far, and some activities that we are unlikely to compete with.

• Blogs. Well, duh. But it is worth a mention because we do it well. Looking at the Alexa rankings, talkRA is the top RA blog in the world. Why? My belief is the site’s popularity comes down to one simple proposition: a high turnover of informative and entertaining content. Yeah, that may sound arrogant, but when the choice is this site or a blog where every post is selling you training, or a blog where every post is selling you software, then it is not hard to be relatively informative and entertaining. Maintaining this site’s quality is very important. That is why, despite the desire to increase the volume of posts even more, we will never do what GRAPA does, and issue an open call for literally anyone to write a blog. Otherwise you end up with the depressing experience of reading Henry Whyte’s blog: first post = hello world!; second post = my plans for 2009 and why we should all blog more; third post… there is no third post. And yes, I know GRAPA creates lots of sites just so they boost their rankings through all the spurious links between them, but good content beats everything.
• Podcasts. This has been quiet for a while, because they are a pain to schedule and produce. However, they were surprisingly successful, even when erratic, and I expect they would be successful again, if resurrected. In short, there is a smaller but very hardcore audience that wants to hear interesting people saying interesting things about RA. If blogs are enjoyed during a 5-minute break at the desk, podcasts are enjoyed for an hour at 30,000 feet. The trick, then, is to find high-quality guests (and to let them do most of the talking whilst I stick to asking questions).
• Twitter. The use of Twitter has been stop-start, but in recent months the practice of feeding all blog posts to Twitter has driven a big growth in website traffic. Those dedicated tweeters seem to find it a useful form of news ticker, whilst they also spread the word on the posts they find most interesting. However, one thing we have not done is to foster and encourage unique posts in the Twitter community, or to reverse the flow and bring Twitter posts into the website.
• Facebook. This format does not seem to work for RA. People will join, as proven by the absurd accident that was the Facebook RA group (which I created just to stop Rob Mattison grabbing the name). People joined, looked in, but did not know what to do. Which brings us to the next interaction format…
• Online forums. Morisso Taieb got first mover advantage as soon as LinkedIn enabled people to create forum groups, and he has never looked back. He leveraged his long list of contacts and the inherent advantages of the LinkedIn proposition to maximum effect. Well done to him. As a result, he attained critical mass, and there is no point competing with him. Everyone who has tried has been a miserable failure in comparison. To try to compete would be like firing up a new star in the immediate vicinity of a massive black hole.
• Wikis. Though it would be tempting to set one up, and these have been successfully deployed to aid RA in some telcos, I find it hard to believe that a wiki would work for the RA community in general. I have seen wikis fail even when they address topics that appeal to lots of hardcore teenage internet nerds. Wikis work if there are plenty of freaks with a passionate desire to do the right thing. Hence, Wikipedia works, Wookieepedia works, but the RA page on Wikipedia degenerated into a spam bucket abused by scum buckets.
• Email. This is hardly a new technology, especially when there are news reports saying email is bound to be replaced by better comms technologies in the next decade or two. However, it still serves a purpose, and could be made to work harder for RA. Those ubiquitous emails selling little blue pills actually result in people buying more little blue pills, and GRAPA’s spam was the bedrock of its promotion. In contrast, talkRA’s reliance on word of mouth puts us at a disadvantage. I have always steered clear of spamming people for one basic reason: I hate spam. But should we relax our position, and let people subscribe to email newsletter-digests?
• Video. Considering the absolutely lousy figures GRAPA used to get for its podcasts, I have been surprised that some of its YouTube videos are now approaching the 500-view mark. However, there is no way to measure how many of these were multiple views by the same person, or the result of artificial promotion to existing GRAPA-philes/fools. Their most recent video has much less impressive numbers, which makes me think that even the silliest person will eventually realize that watching adverts is a waste of time. Videos are an obvious outlet for GRAPA: creating infomercials is just a natural part of their business model. In contrast, Tony Poulos’ video interviews are very interesting, whilst avoiding hard sell. However, Tony is backed by a different business model, and it does not apply to talkRA either. Could it be worth the trouble for talkRA to offer its own online videos? Would they be interviews, like the podcast? Or tutorials? Or some other kind of bulletin? And what would be talkRA’s motive in going to all the trouble to provide online video? I am not convinced we will ever deliver video content, but it would be interesting to know what other people think.

Did I miss something? Is there another interaction technology that is sufficiently widespread and popular that it could be harnessed for the RA community? Is there something new and unproven but which is worth the gamble to set up? Feel free to interact… by leaving a comment.

A seemingly naïve post/status update on Facebook caught my eye. The image spoke in volumes for anyone who was/is listening. Apparently intelligence in softwares can be an irritation if the tool is actually not intelligent.     (I know my name and Microsoft does not. So Mr.Software SHUT UP! I know what I am doing.). We know all about it, but speak very less. The same applies to ‘business intelligence’ kind of tools that ‘claim’ to provide intelligence. What is this ‘intelligence’ really? Is it making sense out of data? In that case only predefined graphical formats that showcases ‘things’ the way we wish to see is no where near the answer. Many of BI tools (or may be the vast majority that I have seen) present “beautiful looking” data. Actually these are pre-configured dashboard-like representations, typically configured by the engineers who know how best to use the ‘data representation’ software, or ‘views’ prepared by intelligent analysts who have actually found something out by digging in the data to make sense out of it.. But is that actual intelligence from the ‘supposed-to-be-intelligent-software’? No. It is completely left on the user to make ‘sense’ out from millions and billions of data records. According to me, a truly BI solution is one that would dig data and find from it something that “You did not know was/is there”, and end of everything would help You take better business decisions. Representation of the same is just for the usability expert who would patch an amazing visual component on that. When the tool works so effectively, well I am not sure who would care for a bunch of fancy charts on the same.

Hats off to risk vendors Active Risk, who are doing some research into an area long neglected. When recruiting, it is important not to judge the quality of a candidate based solely on their qualifications and experience. Personality counts for a lot too. Active Risk is doing psychometric testing of risk managers; see here. They found that 60% of risk managers are ‘reactive introverts’ per the DISC methodology. But Active Risk questioned if this personality type has the powers of persuasion needed to transform the culture of a business, and highlighted the importance of employing risk managers who can drive change. The other 40% of risk managers are inherently ‘proactive’. 30% are ‘proactive extroverts’ (aka ‘evangelists’) whilst 10% are ‘proactive introverts’ (best summarized as ‘demanding butt-kickers’).

You can find out your DISC personality type by taking the online test at Active Risk’s site. For the record, I am a proactive extrovert, but with a distinct streak of proactive introvert. Perhaps that explains why I keep mouthing off in public, complaining that risk management is too reactive… ;)

Because I keep tabs on what is happening in revenue assurance, I end up glancing over an awful lot of job adverts. However, I had to share this advert with you. The phrase that stuck out was:

experience in TELCO a plus (not a must)

Trust me when I say that I dislike being a sourpuss about the evolution of revenue assurance, but there is no hiding the truth. We have not progressed very far if a job as a revenue assurance specialist does not demand a passing knowledge of how telecoms companies work, never mind any experience or training in revenue assurance. I do not want to exaggerate the problem – this is obviously a junior role. At the same time, I think it inevitable that the global telecoms workforce is bound to contract. Cost efficiencies are needed in saturated markets, the trend is towards reducing cost bases through mergers and streamlining of group operations, and we know that even if we get explosive growth in some kinds of services (such as data traffic) this will not equate to explosive growth in revenues. On that basis, if vacancies open up in one telco, it should be increasingly likely they can be filled by experienced staff from other telcos. But this advert does not ask for specific experience, or relevant qualifications, or anything other than a general aptitude for using computers and working in an office environment. I can also sympathize with the employer; employing and training somebody with no experience may be cheaper than paying a premium for existing knowledge. All of which leads me to two conclusions:

1. We must be realistic about career paths in RA. If experienced RA practitioners have to compete with inexperienced people, then we must be failing to persuade HR functions and hiring managers that it is worth paying a premium for RA experience, qualifications etc.
2. You cannot demonstrate value by preaching to the converted. Many of the arguments made about the value added by RA only influence the people who already want to believe they are true. Pie-in-the-sky promises keep backfiring on RA people because nothing is gained by rigging the measurement of our own performance; other people have to tell us how much they value what we are doing. If they see the value, they see it. If they do not, they do not. Making the value apparent means accepting yardsticks that the rest of the world can understand, not devising complicated schemas that lots of RA people do not understand – or that sensible RA people will dispute.

These are grim conclusions if you like to think of RA as a route to getting rich quick. The irony is that is exactly how RA is sold a lot of the time: a short cut to riches, whether by using software to pick the legendary low-hanging fruit or collecting certificates from training courses that never fail a single student. The only sure route to success is to deliver indisputable value and to do it in a way that separates the superior performers from the also rans. And that means solid data that shows a clear and measurable divide between best practice and the alternatives. We need fundamental and consistent ways of scoring RA performance, and those scores have to be acceptable to the customers of RA, not only to its suppliers. For me, this means measures that transparently connect RA’s work to the figures in the accounts, the profits reported to the shareholders, and the cash paid out as dividends. That is the real must-have for RA, if we ever want to identify the A+ practitioners of RA, and underscore the value of employing the best.