Importance of Monitoring and Controlling Risks

Ricardo.
The podcast idea is good as it appeals to those who prefer audible communication from other forms.
On the content and presentation however I am critical so please take this as postive criticism to help you capture what the topic should alert in the audience. The presentation should be more dramatic. You are talking risk after all!

I would be more brutal in my selection of examples. The audience is after all adults in projects and trapped in a changing world as your examples try to convey. Universal change (such as globalization) introduces uncertainty, increases the chance of conflict situations and demands we prepare to compromise (ie negotiate give and take situations).
There is no more “It’s Our Way or The Highway” surpression of risk. Today the “Hire and Fire” mentality of the past poses big risk for companies today who struggle to find the right staff. People will not tolerate that mentality will go abroad to work. After all, internationally oriented US companies who are focussing on globalizing their business offer such opportunities. The risk of one is the opportunity of the other.
We cannot continue demanding “They Take it Or They Leave it”. We have all voluntarily introduced dependency by promoting such globalization. We are all in it together. The rough and the smooth, the problems and the solutions, the rewards and the losses, the risks and the opprtunities.

Take the 9/11 example of a risk the US hadn’t anticipated to occur on US soil. Why?
Because the US were so sure they had covered (insured) for every event in their cozy lttle (unchanging and stable) world that they forgot outside risks from the (unstable and volatile) 3rd world where globalization has made them aware of the priveleges others have had but also heightened awareness of their own predicaments.

The US expect that the US democratic system is the model which all others adopt and accept. This expectation is false, introvert and dangerously naive and therein lies the major risk for the US. It creates blind spots. What happens elsewhere outside the US is absolutely out of their control, especially WHEN such outside risks like 9/11 will occur. But 9/11 did occur.

How did US respond to this to prevent a re-occurrance? George W. Bush took affirmative action abroad to tackle the source of the risk (at least his perception) as well as other risks precautions at home aimed at monitoring the symptoms of such devastating risk before they escalated.
The travel restrictions, airport checks, baggage controls and other security measures put in place to monitor signals of impending risk were implemented and are still implemented today all over the world. What was the result?

Well the US can perhaps claim that a repeat of the magnitude of risk such as 9/11 has not occured since. Although elsewhere in the world similar risk events have happened (London 7/7 for example).
The military interventions in Afghansitan and Iraq have put US military and their allies at heightened risk, but these measures were aimed at eliminating the sources of risk events like 9/11 and 7/7 so it should not be expected otherwise.
So the result is that the impact of the major risk (9/11)has been reduced but other and smaller risks remain. This fragmentation of major risks is intended to make risk more manageable although risks will continue to occur more frequently but (hopefuly) with reduced impact.

Does this fragmentation of risk make us safer or better prepared to manage risk?
For some it will appear so but others will be faced with the uncertainty that these smaller risks could now impact them in future. So the message is that once we have experienced a big risk event (9/11) we are forced to face reality and accept that risk is there but we have become more alert to the devastation from such risk and now must accept that other (smaller) risks could still occur. Continuous monitoring is necessary since risk (like the devil) still lurk when your guard is down.

For the US culture, monitoring and vigilence may be equated to help dramatize the message. The right to bear arms after all means that others have the same right. So a confrontation will be more risky when both are armed. The solution would be to eliminate arms all together, but this measure would be impossible to introduce unless the mentality and attitudes toward risk drastically change.

Merry Xmas