New guide to Examining Business Risk published by the Institute of Directors (IoD)

A new guide to business risk, published by the Institute of Directors (IoD) in association with Airmic, Chartis, PwC and Willis, urges UK Board members to improve their understanding and management of risk in order to successfully deliver growth and prevent future crises.

“Business Risk – A practical guide for Board members” lays out in detail the roles and responsibilities of the board in assessing and managing business risk, the risk challenges currently facing UK businesses and the structural, personal and strategic solutions which can be used to address these challenges.

The full report can be downloaded in PDF format here.

Comments about the guide:

Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors, said: “If companies and the economy as a whole are to grow in today’s environment, it is vital that directors put risk management at the heart of business strategy.

Understanding risk helps you to become more enterprising without jeopardising your business. On the other hand, take the wrong kind of risk and you are heading for disaster, whilst avoiding risk altogether means you are condemned to stagnation. This guide will help directors get this crucial balance right.”

Alpesh Shah, director in PwC’s Actuarial Risk Practice, said: “There are few aspects of a board’s functioning that are as crucial to long-term corporate success as risk management.

Organizations that understand the risks they face and can articulate their risk appetite and define their risk strategy accordingly can have better decision-making, greater agility and a sharper competitive edge.

The practical points in this guide will be invaluable as Board members strive to achieve this.”

Daniel Wilkinson, CEO of Willis UK, said: “Unpredictable emerging threats like cyber, reputational and supply chain risks require Boards to take a long-term focus on building resilience throughout their organizations rather than having a traditional risk management policy based solely on anticipation.

The resilience approach will help companies respond quickly and dynamically to threats by ensuring that the right expertise and processes are in place.”

ESA Euronews: Dragon and the Private Space - YouTube

Boldly going where no private company has gone before.

On 25 May 2012, Dragon, the first commercial spacecraft berthed with the International Space Station.

A private company achieved something only national agencies have ever done before: flying and recovering an orbital craft.

With private companies launching their own spaceships and designing their own orbital stations, it's the dawn of commercial spacefaring.

We talk to people involved in that development and we explore the world's first commercial spaceport.

The Five Great Skills of Speaking - YouTube

Through analysing thousands of speaking performances, these guys have determined that good speakers have developed proficiency in five skill areas. Every problem you experience as a presenter can be solved by mastering these.

Human Cognition - Is Seeing Believing? - YouTube

Scientific American takes a look at how sensory cross-talk helps us navigate the world. Here, the McGruck Effect, an intertwining of sight and sound, at work. Also see how synesthesia, the curious crossing of the senses, works.

The McGurk effect is a compelling demonstration of how we all use visual speech information. The effect shows that we can't help but integrate visual speech into what we 'hear'.

Understanding Social Media and the Statistics

The Holy Grail of Social Media is justifying the outlay and effort spent, on a business level.

There are no shortage of statistics that prove the value of Social Media. Here are some of them:

• Social media users revenue grew at 19% vs. non-SM users 6% 
• Client base of SM users grew at 21% vs. non-SM users 
• 61% of LinkedIn users gained a client through SM,
• 35% of Facebook users gained a client,
• 47% of blog owners gained a client,
• 36% overall gained clients, through a social network. 

The sources were a 2011 Hubspot Report, 2010 Socialware Survey, and a 2009 Pershing-Aite Study. Most businesses realize the potential of social media to enhance their bottom line.

Even the largest companies understand that the investment in manpower (social media work is labor intensive) is vital.

In fact, "research conducted by Buddy Media shows that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are always considered while making marketing strategies in bigger companies.

94% of the participating companies said that Facebook was the top priority when it came to social media marketing." Other statistics that this study ferreted out were more telling.

The respondents in this particular study were Chief Marketing Officers, and when asked what their purpose for using social media was, only 38% said for sales.

Another telling stat is that 35% of these CMOs reported they had no strategic plan for social media use. These study results were reported in a recent Geeks4Share article.

Another report, this one a Forrester study, reported by Mashable, concluded that just 49% of CMOs and Marketing VPs had fully integrated social media in to their brand building efforts.

Just about all of them realized the potential and the change that social media has made in how consumers and brands engage, but almost half were baffled about how to use it to make a dollars and sense difference.

There has been a lot of talk about the effectiveness of social media this week as GM pulled their advertising dollars from Facebook on the eve of their IPO.

On Social Media Today, Steve Olenski addressed it in The Real Reason GM Left Facebook.

If you are a GM fan, and have frequented their fan pages, you can attest that they never seemed to engage much--using them generally as broadcast tools.

This is too much like traditional media--one way communication, instead of the more personal dialogue that social media offers. So their strategy needs tweaking.

Overall, the numbers in this article seem to tell us that companies know they should market with social media, but do not know how to do it. In fact, half of the business to consumer marketers surveyed agreed with the statement “Social media has the potential to build my brand, but I’m not sure how to capitalize on it.”

That last statement excites me for the future we can expect from social media. Most social media devotees, like myself, realize that companies often do not understand how to implement social media-- at all!

The larger ones, of course, have figured out some things, but it seems there is a lot of opportunity to help businesses put an effective social media plan in place that drives traffic, engages customers, and encourages brand loyalty.

Glass is no longer Dumb: The growing market for Smart glass

Smart glass is a unique type of material used in windows that is able to electronically control glare and heat. It is primarily used in architecture and transportation, privacy glass and museum artwork expositions.

As a result of new production capacity entering the market within the year, production costs will go down, allowing the sector grow.

A new report from Pike Research predicts that smart glass production could become a nearly $700 million area of the flat glass market by 2020, eight time more than it’s worth today.

“High-performance buildings require a level of control over energy that many of today’s automation systems are only now starting to address,” senior analyst Eric Bloom says in a statement. “Smart glass is an innovative technology that both provides building owners unprecedented control over solar heat gain and offers a visually impressive alternative to flat glass.”

North America and Europe are expected to take the lead in this growth, but researchers also see the potential for a lot of growth in China, where a building boom is now underway.

And as more people start to adopt green building standards, industry will look to smart glass to address these needs.

Pike Research reports:

“This class of high-performance glazing products offers significant energy efficiency, aesthetic, and user comfort and wellbeing benefits as compared to conventional ’static’ glazing.”

To learn more about the report, visit Pike Research.

Recycle: Create Useful Aids from Trash

One man's trash is another man's treasure, and we've always been fond of finding MacGyver-like uses for anything and everything—right down to dryer lint and used candy wrappers.. Here are our top 10 favorite hacks for things you thought were headed to the garbage.

10. Make a Waterproof Fire Starter Out of Dryer Lint

For all the laundry we do in a week, we accumulate a massive amount of dryer lint. Wouldn't it be better off going toward something useful? Whether you're making an outdoor or indoor fire, you can always use a little help to get things started, and that dryer lint can help. Just throw the lint into a section of an egg carton, tie it up with dental floss, cover it in some old candle wax, and you've got yourself a waterproof fire starter for any occasion. It should last you about 15 minutes, more than enough to get a roaring fire going.

9. Make a Tablet Stylus Out of a Candy Wrapper

Steve Jobs may not approve of stylus usage, but sometimes you just need to let your inner artist out and a finger doesn't cut it. Instead of buying a stylus though, you can make one yourself out of an old pen and a used candy wrapper. If you want to go above and beyond, a bit of tissue paper or newspaper can make it all the better.

8. Turn Bread Tags Into Cord Labels

I dread the days when I have to reach behind my desk to move some cables around, since I can never figure out which one is which. Eliminate that annoyance by labeling your cables with old bread tags: just write down the device that each cord leads to and slap them on. You'll never have to run your hand through that bird's nest of cables ever again.

7. Turn a Plastic Bottle Into a Smartphone Bike Mount

While we recommend investing in a reusable water bottle, sometimes you just have to buy it bottled, and then you have one more piece of trash lying around. Instead of throwing it away, you can turn it into a rainproof bike mount for your smartphone—perfect for navigating you home and avoiding inclement weather. Alternatively, you could turn it into a lens cap for your camera, or an irrigation system for your garden to keep it watered while you're away from home.

6. Remove Bad Smells and Clean Windows with Newspaper

Old newspapers are good for more than just starting fire, and if you still haven't moved over to the digital edition of your favorite rag, you can use it as a household odor-killer. Just stuff it in drawers, refrigerators, shoes, or any other smelly place and it should clear that odor right up. Alternatively, you could turn it into an actual rag: newspaper is the perfect way to clean your windows with a streak-free shine.

5. Turn an Old Gift Card Into a Headphone Cable Wrapper

Once you've used up that gift card from Aunt Petunia, you don't have to toss it—with a few cuts here and there, it can make a great cable wrapper for your headphones. Of course, you can always use our beloved "devil horns" method if you don't have a gift card around, but the gift card can help keep them from unraveling.

4. Turn an Old Sock Into an MP3 Player-Holding Armband

If you've tried exercising with your smartphone or MP3 player, you know how much of a pain they can be bouncing around in your pocket or clipped onto your shorts. Clipping it on your arm really is the best way to go, and if you don't want to buy an armband, just cut the toe off an old sock and slide it up your arm. Then, fold the bottom half up to create a pocket for your device. It may not be quite as fancy as the store-bought model, but it's hard to beat the low price.

3. Turn a Shampoo Bottle Into a Charging Station

We all have one or two devices we dump out of our pockets as soon as we get home, and what better place to put them than in the wall? With an old shampoo or lotion bottle, you can create a nice charging cradle for them that hangs right off the socket, so they aren't taking up space on the floor. Alternatively, you can take those old bottles and organize your cables on the wall, too.

2. Turn Toilet Paper Tubes Into Cable Organizers

We tech nerds amass tons of extra cables over time, and we're afraid to get rid of them for fear we might need them one day. The solution? Take all those toilet paper tubes you use up and turn them into an ugly but incredibly awesome cable organizer. It'll keep all your cables stored and labeled neatly, without tangles, all the while making use of your trash. You can also use them to just control your cable clutter of individual appliances, too.

1. Turn a Soda Can Into a Wi-Fi Extender

We're always looking for ways to improve our Wi-Fi signal, and if you aren't ready to give up and buy a new router, you can try extending your range with a soda can. Just cut it up and put it on your antenna, where it'll act as a parabolic reflector and enjoy Wi-Fi on the far side of your house. Plus, when you're done, you can hang pictures with the can's tabs, too.