The Black Swan Nassim Taleb is a Wall Street trader and writer with an interest in the questions of how to live and act in a world we do not understand, and how to come to grips with randomness and the unknown – this is his Black Swan Theory of unexpected rare events. His black swan theory refers to a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. The term black swan comes from the accepted idea for thousands of years that all swans were white. A black swan had never been seen so it was accepted that they did not exist. But when a black swan was discovered in Perth, Western Australia, it completely challenged existing thought and so the “black swan” became a metaphor for when something unthinkable, unexpected and unpredictable occurs. The link to Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Information Security Management (ISM) is obvious and clear. Just because it has never happened before – think the September 11 Terrorist attacks – it does not mean that it cannot or will not occur. Organisations and businesses need to be prepared for ANY eventuality – Be Ready For Your Black Swan! [Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6351-5.] |
|
