In an earlier entry, I mentioned Chet Richards’s book Certain to Win, which is about Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop. In this posting, I want to share how we came up with the name for the next book I am co-authoring.

It wasn’t easy.

The book is about forecasting. It will be published by Wiley & Sons early next year. The publishing team, co-author Steve Morlidge and I, brainstormed several titles, none of which quite resonated. more

Did it ever occur to you that you, Mr. or Ms. CFO, your executive team, and your employees are the biggest security threat to your organization’s data? The latest study from Ponemon Institute, Traverse City, MI, the parent institution of the Responsible Information Management (RIM) Council, identifies a number of common behaviors that jeopardize the organization’s data, confirming previous studies by others.

And the primary culprits are the organization’s own employees. The study, sponsored by IronKey, a secure USB flash drive vendor, suggests that it is mainly insiders, typically employees, who are putting corporate data at risk by routinely and knowingly violating a variety of policies. They aren’t being malicious or malevolent; usually they are simply trying to do their work in the easiest and fastest way. more

Kudos to the creative minds at Oversight Systems who developed a Web site that “awards” truly amazing instances of corporate fraud.

The tales are by turns juicy, ridiculous, depressing, and instructive (from a fraud management and prevention perspective): “This leading man used a corporate card to make over $4,000 in purchases from Victoria’s Secret,” reads the entry for one award. “The soft-hearted romantic was caught cheating by his company and then subsequently busted for two-timing his wife.”

Ouch.

Other awards honor fraudsters who:

• Rang up over $3,400 in charges to a psychic hotline on a company credit card;

• Used his company card to book his family of five on a $40,000 Mediterranean cruise; and

• Purchased international airline tickets on his credit card, filed for reimbursement from his company, exchanged those tickets for airline credit, and then (deep breath) sold the airline credit on eBay.

There are many more … ###

If you’ve been focusing more on your firm’s investment policies, you’re not alone. The battering investors have taken in the stock market – the S&P 500 is finally inching back to levels last seen in 2002 – has prompted many institutional investors to examine just where they’re placing their money. According to the annual review by Pensions & Investments, the funded status of the 100 largest pension plans slid 30 percent in 2008, eliminating the past 5 years’ gains. more