Thursday 9 April 2020

The need to understand the world we inhabit is not a new issue, but rather the eternal problem. However, what has changed is the pace at which our understanding needs to develop because the pace of change has accelerated and shows no signs of slowing up.

This constant change leaves us in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world – often outlined under the acronym VUCA. This is obviously a challenge to those striving for clarity and understanding, a VUCA world cannot be understood with just one simple model, it cannot be evaluated with just one measurement and it cannot be communicated with one simple narrative.

This is the problem we face when trying to evaluate, measure, assess, communicate and respond to the cyber risks we face. The cyber world is constantly changing, seemingly locked in a spiral of increasing reliance on technology that appears ever more vulnerable to outside influences.

We can never claim to fully know the cyber world, but we do believe that it can be better understood. Understanding needs to come from a diverse range of thinking and draw on ideas from wide schools of thought; in a complex world, diversity of thought trumps single models every time. The cyber environment is not a linear one and thus can be much better understood when different parts of the picture come together to form one wider illustration. We need to combine knowledge from several fields and use it to improve our understanding – combinative thinking.

It is such combinative thinking that John Donald brings together in this session. Taking his own inspiration from the master print maker Katsushika Hokusai, who himself tried to explain the changing nature of his own world by producing 36 different views of the same object, he brings together 35 views as he traverse around the cyber risk environment. This journey is never over but gives food for thought and helps explain away at least some of the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Facilitated by

Martin Smith MBE (info), Chairman & Founder, The SASIG

Presented by

John Donald, AXIS