Less Bad Future Stuff

About the name of the blog.  I did a quick search around for blogs relating to risk and they were either all about financial risk or really targeted towards people who speak the risk lingo – lots of less than plain english in use which is something that really gets me exercised (as you will come to learn).

The first thing people learn about risk management is the definition of a hazard:

A hazard = Something with the potential to cause harm

The second thing people learn about risk management is the definition of a risk:

A risk = The chance that a hazard will be realised

OK so its not so difficult.  But already we’ve introduced two terms that sort of compete for the same linguistic idea in most people’s heads and really its just jargon.  Unnecessary jargon in my opinion.  Jargon just excludes people who don’t know the insiders language.  (Its designed to be that way, conspiracy buffs.)  So lets chuck it out straight away here at the beginning.

Lets just call it bad stuff.

Bad stuff might be your bank’s shares getting wiped off the stock market, or falling over an electrical cable on the floor, or falling off your motorcycle, or your rocket missing Mars and heading off towards the infinite blackness of space.  

Bad stuff might happen in the future.  Some bad stuff is foreseeable.  That bad stuff you can do something about.  Other bad stuff comes plain out of the blue and wasn’t foreseeable.  Except after its happened.  Thats hindsight not foresight.  And anyway by then its too late.

This blog will be mostly concerned with foreseeable bad stuff that stands a good chance of happening.  Hence the title.  Less Bad Future Stuff.