Author Archives: Morgan O'Rourke

About Morgan O'Rourke

Morgan O’Rourke is editor in chief of Risk Management magazine and director of publications for the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS).

Steve Jobs: The Passing of an Icon

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The passing of Steve Jobs is a watershed event for the today’s digital world. He may not have invented the computer or the MP3 player or mobile phone or the tablet, but his innovations revolutionized the way we interact both with our technology and with each other. His impact cannot be understated. As President Obama said in response to Jobs’ death, “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success that the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.” Similarly, I’m typing this on a Mac and I’m sure many of you are reading it on your own Macs, iPhones and iPads. As one writer put it, he now joins the pantheon of American innovators like Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller. For many, he was and will remain a hero.

Back in 2005, Jobs delivered the commencement address at Stanford University. As was his style, it was a direct and inspiring address. The YouTube video is below and the transcript can be found here. Many quotes stand out but I wanted to highlight a couple that resonated for me. The first came after he told the story of how he was fired form Apple in 1985:

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

The next came after he spoke of his fight with pancreatic cancer:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Coincidentally, I also wrote a bit about Steve Jobs and his departure from Apple in the Preface of the October issue of Risk Management. In it I talked about Apple’s next steps in light of their founder’s departure. The article is not available online, so I share it here:

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced his retirement in August, the internet exploded as countless Apple fanboys wondered about the future of their beloved company. The unenviable task of replacing Jobs now falls to Tim Cook, who formerly served as Apple’s COO. He certainly has his work cut out for him. During Jobs’ 14-year tenure as CEO, Apple’s stock has risen more than 9,000%, taking it from a tech start-up on the verge of bankruptcy to a firm that now vies with Exxon Mobil for the title of “most valuable company in the world.” Perhaps more importantly, Jobs was the visionary behind such innovations as iTunes, iPods, iPhones and iPads that have not only changed markets but helped transform the way people interact. Talk about a tough act to follow.

Despite the size of the shoes he has to fill, it is unlikely that Apple will suffer with Cook at the helm. After all, he has been with the company for 13 years and even served as acting CEO during Jobs’ medical leaves. It is, however, a different world than it was when Jobs took over Apple in 1997. Hacking is no longer simply a hobby for basement-dwelling computer geeks. Now it is big business. And what better target than the products of the world’s most valuable company? Malware and viruses that were once virtually nonexistent on the Mac platform are already starting to proliferate as motivated hackers have become more creative. Case in point: hackers recently discovered a vulnerability in MacBook batteries—a place no one ever thought to look—that would allow them to take over the computer or even set it on fire. Based on this, perhaps Apple’s new CEO will need to focus less on growing the company and more on protecting it.

As I read through various message boards about Jobs, I came across a quote shared by many people in one variation or another that shows the impact he had on so many people. “Three apples changed the world forever. The first once seduced Eve, the second fell on Newton and the third was offered to the world by Steve Jobs.”

Modern society is typically given to hyperbole that is, in many cases, unearned. Steve Jobs is not one of those cases. It is the rare CEO that can inspire devotion and admiration beyond the products or services their company sells. But as the many tributes you are likely to see in the coming days will attest, Jobs was no ordinary businessman. He was a visionary and an icon and he will be missed.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs.

Ten Years After

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Of all the “where were you when?” moments, none resonates so clearly in my mind as the attacks of September 11, 2001.

I’m not a sentimental person by any means but even a decade later, I find myself getting choked up when watching or reading reports of that day.

Everyone has a story. I was working in Midtown Manhattan. From my 20th floor office window, I had a view of the towers and watched as they buckled and fell before my eyes. No one in the office said anything. There were no words.

As I made my way to the train that would take me home to Long Island, the city was in shock. The expressions of sorrow, horror, confusion and fear that I saw likely mirrored my own. As I walked, I stared in a daze at the black smoke in the distance until I realized that I had been walking in the middle of the street for blocks with no regard for traffic. But no car horns ever sounded. At the train station, the mood was the same. Even though trains were delayed, no riders complained. Who would dare when you were sharing the platform with downtown workers covered in the dust of collapsed buildings that once dominated the New York skyline?

When I finally made it home, everyone wanted to hear about what I saw, but I didn’t want to talk about it. How do you describe what it’s like to watch a skyscraper full of people fall to the ground?

Thankfully, no one I knew died. I was lucky. Loss was everywhere, however, and when I finally returned to the city after a few days, sagging shoulders and hollow, glassy-eyed stares were all too common. I had to stop reading the newspapers because the reports became too excruciating. It was all I could do to keep from crying.

It’s a cliche to say that the world irrevocably changed on September 11, but it did. In a sense, the world shrank. Terrorism was no longer something that only happened overseas. The fears of the world were our fears now. And with that came the increased need for more and better security. To a certain extent, Americans had always taken their safety for granted, but now this kind of thinking was obsolete. The attacks showed us that all risks were possible and our mitigation plans were going to have to change to reflect this reality. Ten years later, this mindset lives on every time we go to the airport or participate in a disaster preparedness drill. It is a testament to our resiliency that we now find most of these things to be annoying. Evidently, not even terrorists could stop us from complaining.

If there can be anything positive to take away from this tragedy, perhaps it is that September 11 has made us more vigilant to all the risks that are around us and, as a result, organizations and individuals alike have taken great steps to reduce these threats. We still have blind spots, as evidenced by Hurricane Katrina, for instance. But overall, the argument could be made that in some ways we may be safer than we were 10 years ago.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the painful memories of September 11 have vanished, particularly for the families and friends of the nearly 3,000 people who died that day.

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But there has been progress. At the World Trade Center site, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened on the anniversary of the attacks, while the new One World Trade Center steadily climbs to its eventual 1,776-foot height after years of political infighting and financial controversy. Hopefully, these signs of rebirth, coupled with the memory of those we lost, can inspire us to move beyond tragedy and create a new legacy for September 11 — a legacy of a better, safer world.

Bermuda Premier Paula A. Cox on the Lack of Women Leaders in Insurance and Government

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"It wasn’t sympathy that got me elected but ability," says Bermuda Premier Paula A. Cox

Insurance, like global politics, is still man’s world. Back in February, we ran a cover story about the hurdles and opportunities that exist for women in risk management and insurance.

With this in mind, I asked Bermuda Premier Paula A. Cox for her thoughts on the matter during our interview at RIMS 2011 Vancouver. Space concerns in our July/August issue didn’t allow for the entire conversation to make it into the “View From Bermuda” Q&A in print, so below are her thoughts on the role of women in government and business.

Risk Management Monitor: As a woman who has been successful in government and business, have you ever had to face challenges because of your gender? How were you able to overcome them?

Paula Cox: There are still too many boardrooms, when you look at the board of directors, where there are far fewer women who sit around the boardroom table. I don’t think that that is an indication that there is a lack of skill and ability among women.

I think that people are accustomed to doing business with those they feel comfortable with, and if a woman hasn’t made herself proficient on the golf course, perhaps she’s not necessarily going to get in the frame where some of the decision-making occurs. So I think it is [important] to try and demystify and debunk the myths that women aren’t capable or able to deal with the issues as are their male counterparts.

From a political perspective, there is a certain inherent chauvinism in politics worldwide. It is not unique in that regard. But the majority of the electorate and the thinking voters are women, and I think that it is going to be ability and sensitivity to the issues that get you elected.

That’s what occurred in October [in Bermuda] in terms of internal elections. I was the only female candidate, and I can assure you that it wasn’t sympathy that got me elected but ability. From my perspective, to be successful as a leader, my job is to do my job and not worry about keeping my job. That’s not my focus. There could be 20,000 people coming behind me who want to be a leader. That’s not my issue. My issue is to do my job.

I think you have to know why you want the job. I certainly don’t want it for glamour and style or for the money because none of those would be delivered by the role. It’s because I want to make Bermuda a better place, and it requires nothing more than hard work and having a team that is prepared to work with you.

You give me those skills and my gender is really irrelevant.

The Perils of Email

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In the business world, we send a lot of emails. More than 40,000 a year, according to a study by the Radicati Group. But as Felicia Harris Kyle of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP points out in an online exclusive article in Risk Management, this reliance on email is not without its risks, particularly when it comes to the legal threats it creates.

As email and text-messaging increasingly become the primary forms of communication, the continued widespread use of email and texting in the corporate setting creates a whole host of interesting issues for companies and their lawyers. In litigation, for example, emails are an important component of discovery and often contain the proverbial “smoking gun.” The best defense is a good offense, which starts with a thoughtful analysis of the threats, backed by sound policies and practices that may ensure the proper use, retention and handling of emails and other electronically stored information.

Among the topics she discusses are information retention policies, the effect of litigation hold notices, how to avoid sanctions and the usefulness of forensic reviews. So don’t miss this informative article, only on RMmagazine.com.