Cybersecurity Simplified: Best Practices to Reduce Risk

September 20, 2023 / / 0 Comments

After delivering the keynote at AgWest Farm Credit’s “2023 Forest Products Summit” in Portland, I parked myself in a seat on the side to listen and take notes during presentations on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and cybersecurity. This final talk, by Rachel Wilson, current Head of Cybersecurity for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and formerly an executive at the National Security Agency (NSA), changed the way I think about everything electronic with my team at Forisk and at home with my family.[1]

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity refers to protecting computers, data, and networks from digital attacks that destroy intellectual property or hijack systems via ransomware. Cyber criminals use simple, easily deployed tools to acquire access and personal information. Therefore, cybersecurity starts with educating ourselves on ways to minimize the risk and implications of attacks.

The basic “tools of the trade” for bad online actors include phishing and social engineering. With phishing, fraudsters send phony but reputable seeming emails or text messages to get you to reveal personal identifiable info. Hackers throw hooks in the water and hope you bite by clicking a link or attachment that downloads malware and disables your computer or network. 

Social engineering involves techniques to manipulate you to “bite the hook”, such as creating a false sense of urgency, appealing to your good will, or leveraging your personal network. For example, hackers sometimes check social media, pluck names of friends from your network, open an email account in that person’s name, and send you a phishing email from that account. (If unsure about an email, call your friend to confirm they sent it.)

Best Practices at Work (and Home) to Reduce Risk

To protect both your personal information and your firm, consider the following:

  • Keep all operating systems patched, updated, and current. This includes your phone, laptops, iPads, and anything connected to the web. Rachel Wilson emphasized that this is by far the most important and effective thing you can do.” 
  • Back-up everything with a “1-2-3 Strategy”. This means three back-ups in two locations with one disconnected from the internet (such as a regularly updated external hard drive). 
  • Practice uploading and restoring from a backup. Train to fight. If we don’t know how to restore a backup when needed, we’re not ready.
  • Use strong passwords (and a password manager). Use long, complex passwords with capital and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. Then use a secure password manager to organize and store them. Do not keep a “Note” on your phone or computer or desk labeled “Passwords” or a simple document on your computer that lists all your passwords.
  • Use secure wireless connections. Any public Wi-Fi connection, like drinking water downstream, is free but risky.
  • Enable two-factor authentication. This also significantly increases the security on your accounts. Two-factor authentication typically requires “(1) something you know and (2) something you have.” For example, logging in requires a password (something you know), followed by you receiving a confirming text message on your phone (something you have).   
  • Check your security settings on social media. Facebook and others often change security settings, and you may not be aware of how they’ve changed. A big risk to personal information is that you have little control over what your friends share, so if you don’t want your stuff going all over the place, prevent sharing via your personal security settings.
  • At home, consider having a single, standalone device for high impact activities and business. Typically, that would be a desktop or laptop computer, and the entire family would understand that “on this machine: no social media, shopping, gaming; only banking, investing, and business.”

Interestingly, your most secure device is apparently your mobile phone, so keep that in mind if banking by phone versus computer. That said, avoid letting people know when you’re not home by posting pictures from your phone while you’re on vacation. Share those exotic pictures after you return home.

[1] This post summarizes advice from Wilson’s presentation and from materials and videos provided by AgWest (https://agwestfc.com/education-and-resources/fraud-and-security).

Brooks on Books: Interested in Tennis?

August 27, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Books are magical and the most powerful of technologies. The fact that lines of ink on flattened pulp can transmit ideas, information, and inspiration to our minds remains remarkable to me. This post, one in the periodic “Brooks on Books” series (see “Recommendations on Recommending” and “What are You Reading?”) reviews four influential books related to tennis that offer lessons and strategies applicable to our lives on and off the court.

Deliberate Focus Quiets the Mind

Tim Gallwey’s slim 1974 classic The Inner Game of Tennis has informed coaches and players across sports and vocations. For example, recent editions include a forward from Pete Carroll, who has taught and applied approaches from this book as a college and professional football coach. The thesis of The Inner Game is that, to do anything well, one must master the ability to focus on the present moment and task at hand. 

This is not a tennis “how to” book. Rather, Gallwey highlights the connection between our mental self-flagellation and performance on the tennis court. Overthinking and trying too hard create tension in the body and mind. As Gallwey writes, “the inner game… is played against… lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt and self-condemnation… all habits of mind which inhibit excellence in performance.”

This book helped me relax when practicing and move past errors when playing. It includes techniques for directing your attention. For example, you can concentrate on specific things, such as the sound of the ball or the seams of the ball in play rather than on the score. In a way, Gallwey shows how tennis can help us practice living in the moment and focusing on the task at hand.

Learn and Plan

Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert and Steve Jamison builds on the idea that players should work as hard on planning and thinking as they do on their physical skills. It says, “you can improve your tennis game fastest and the most if you improve the way you think.” This includes advance planning, scouting opponents, evaluating yourself, and truly understanding how, given your strengths and weaknesses, what strategy puts you in the best position to win.

Winning Ugly offers lots of practical advice related to warming up before a match, correcting strokes during a match, scouting, and building game plans and strategies. Throughout, Gilbert and Jamison emphasize the importance of making sure you are mentally and physically prepared. These are in your control. 

The authors observe that this 1993 book, which focuses on the “administrative” left brain, complements Gallwey’s The Inner Game, which emphasizes the intuitive right brain. They write, “always believe that most of the time there is a way for you to win. You just have to find it.” In sum, have a plan and know what you’re trying to accomplish on the court.

Use Good Data

Many of us who go down the YouTube tennis rabbit hole eventually find videos by Craig O’Shannessy and his data-based analytics of tennis (click here for a great example).  However, Craig and other data-driven tennis professionals stand on the shoulders of coaches and analysts such as Vic Braden who co-authored, with Robert Wool, Vic Braden’s Mental Tennis. This 1993 book advises “eliminate uncertainty where you can” by developing plans based on hard data. 

The authors write, “your game is only as good as your data…Good data… is the reality of what is happening to the ball, to you, to your opponent…” Alternately, poor information prevents improvement. In this way, opinion and unsubstantiated assertions become enemies of progress. The only things that matter are those that help you concentrate effort and execute.

“Execution is the name of the game… getting into position to hit the ball, addressing it properly, and hitting it in the center of your strings…focus on the ball…The ball must be hit in a particular way… regardless at what point in the match… The ball…has no brain or emotions.”

Braden’s research findings hold up today. For example, while casual observers believe professional tennis players hit lasers from the baseline inches over the net, the data showed (and shows) the best players average four to seven feet (or more) above the net when hitting deep shots. Braden shares data on areas such as hitting crosscourt versus down the line, on return of serve, and approach shots. A key take home is the idea that focusing on and improving one element or stroke at a time can raise your entire tennis game. 

Maintain Perspective

Tennis is a game played within a larger human construct. John McPhee’s Levels of the Game, which alternates between the on-court action of the 1968 U.S. Open semi-final match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner and the off-court history and background of these two players, cuts a slice of U.S. cultural and social history with the tennis match. 

One of the individuals profiled in the book is Dr. Robert Johnson, a black doctor who fell in love with tennis, built a court next to his house, and ended up supporting, mentoring, and coaching some of the greatest African American tennis players, including Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe. The book reminded me how, relatively speaking, we have it easy today. Most of us, most of the time, can go hit balls or enter tournaments without a lot of contrived hooptedoodle. 

McPhee is a wonderful writer, and he captures the flow of the match and the character of those he wrote about. As Arthur Ashe told McPhee, “When you’re confident, you can do anything.” 

Four Qualities of Effective Coaches

July 30, 2023 / / 1 Comment

A friend of mine, a former professional baseball player, recently asked, “who is the best coach you ever had?” I played multiple sports growing up and baseball in college, and this question brought back a double-header of memories, from Coach White teaching us to shoot a basketball to Coach Williams on reading the outside linebacker to Coach Farber on when to throw a “high hard one” on the mound. I also remember guidance from trusted coaches on ways to prepare, practice, lead by example, and communicate.

Later, I applied these lessons when coaching middle school basketball and little league baseball, instructing at baseball camps, and teaching workshops on “how to throw a spiral.” Currently, one of my daughters plays tennis, and this has led to dozens of conversations with tennis professionals and parents about player improvement and working with coaches.

While my experiences, studies, and watching Ted Lasso do not comprise a coaching PhD or absolute answer, I do observe qualities that consistently correspond with effective coaching, which I define as helping individuals and teams improve and achieve pre-defined goals.

Organized

Effective coaches make and implement plans. This includes daily practice plans, weekly schedules, and well-communicated priorities and objectives for the season.  All my most effective coaches, as with my best teachers and managers, were organized. All of them. 

Disorganization frustrates players and parents. It wastes time and sends the message, “well, you aren’t important enough.” With an organized coach, every day has a focus; every drill has a purpose. After any lesson or practice, you or your child should be able to answer the question, “Hey, what did you work on today?”

Specific

Improvement, like greatness, is specific, not general or generic. Effective coaches improve the performance of athletes through sharing knowledge with concise instructions. This is about communication and the ability to demonstrate and teach specific skills and techniques. 

Expansive explanations and non-stop talking dilute, distract, and irritate. The longer a coach talks and the more suggestions they hurl during a single drill, the less they seem to know about effective teaching and how players learn and improve. As Tim Gallwey writes, in his classic The Inner Game of Tennis, effective coaching professionals understand that “…showing [is] better than telling, too much instruction worse than none…”

Effective coaches communicate and reinforce lessons with specific feedback and positively worded instructions. For example, instead of staying “stop swinging at pitches over your head” they will say “swing at pitches in the strike zone.” The brain processes these instructions, which seek a similar result, differently. This means effective coaches are also…

Self-aware

A self-aware coach understands the extent of their knowledge and the effect of their style on the individual athlete. Confident, self-aware coaches listen and observe and know what they don’t know. The best ones know when to suggest a different coach, league, or resource to help the athlete get to the “next level.”  

Both individual and team sports are cooperative endeavors involving coaches, parents, and players. Coaches don’t own their athletes and parents don’t control the lineup. The self-aware coach pre-empts conflict through organization and specific communications, not through politics or happy talk. [And the best coaches want self-awareness on the part of their parents and players, as well.]

Accountable

Effective coaches consistently hold their athletes and themselves to account. As part of being organized and specific, effective coaches clearly communicate expectations for behavior and performance at practice and when competing on the court or in the field. Then they reliably reinforce and role model these same behaviors. 

A less effective coach badmouths other coaches or talks about players and parents behind their backs. A less effective coach fails to enforce standards and expectations. If a coach has alternating “good days” and “bad days” to the extent where the team or athlete is left to wonder “what will practice be like today?” then performance, improvement, and trust suffer. 

Conclusion

While Mr. Miyagi’s “wax on, wax off” approach may resonate for some, my best coaches tended to explain up front why something was important and how it would help us improve and win. An organized and accountable coach supports athletes with specific, on-point training to improve and prepare physically, mentally, emotionally, and strategically. This, in turn, builds trust, respect, and lifelong relationships. 

How to Conduct Analysis and Think for Yourself

June 15, 2023 /

Recently, I wrote a two-part series at Forisk on “Forest Products and the Economics of Timber Markets.” It focused on (1) the practical connection between the things we use and where they come from and (2) methods for organizing our thinking when making decisions. Having a clear understanding of how things work helps specify appropriate questions so we can focus mental resources on analyzing, prioritizing, and deciding.

Anything we can do to avoid trapping ourselves in outdated frameworks or conventional wisdom offers light for insight and new ideas. In my field of forestry, when talking to the same people at the same events, year after year, we can unintentionally find our thinking congeal around a cosmic group consensus. The colleagues and clients I work with want to avoid this, but we remain subject to this risk. What can all of us do to improve our chances for useful analysis and independent thought? 

Get Out of the Truck

First, “get out of the truck.” Go visit mills and suppliers and clients. Read analysis from other industries and fields. Have a hobby that relaxes your mind and exposes you to other ideas. As travel guru Rick Steves says, “the more you see the more you see.” Talk to people in the field. Talk with researchers and equipment operators. Talk to bankers, lawyers, and accountants. Then, give yourself time and space to think about what you’ve seen and heard.

Harness Multiple Viewpoints

Second, harness multiple viewpoints. We don’t hire “yes men”; we rely on colleagues sharing different points of view and ways of looking at things. We have clients who feel the same. On multiple occasions, clients have assigned me a “devil’s advocate” role on behalf of Boards of Directors or investors, where my job is to challenge assumptions and come up with alternate scenarios.[1] Other people see things we miss, so avail yourself to that invaluable resource and opportunity to revisit your thinking. 

Deal in Specifics

Third, deal in specifics.[2] We rarely succeed when dealing in generalities. As an analyst, writer, and human, I find unsubstantiated, broad-based assertions to be damaging, distasteful, and unhelpful. While I value multiple viewpoints, I want people to have reasons and logic behind those views. Avoid the complacency of going along with a new idea, or abandoning your own, without understanding, at some level, the reasons and mechanism. 

As Seneca said, “Everything hangs on one’s thinking…”

[1] Ironically, just because someone asks you to disagree with their ideas or alternatives, it doesn’t mean they really want to hear them…

[2] This references number 8 from the post “Ten Observations of Human Behavior and Learning” which is “When we deal in specifics, we rarely fail.”

Ode to Weighted Averages

May 9, 2023 /

Several years ago, in the essay Average is the Enemy, I wrote about the “false shortcuts offered by averages” for making decisions. Averages give a sense for where the middle lies within a group. They offer a starting point for understanding a situation but, like stereotypes, are incomplete and can mislead. 

Mathematically, averages specify the arithmetic mean. Calculating an average represents one of many approaches for profiling data when conducting analysis. In fact, averages themselves come in different forms. When conducting forest industry research, my team at Forisk often uses rolling and weighted averages to address different issues and better leverage underlying data. 

Rolling Averages

A rolling, or “moving,” average provides a way to measure trends over time. This can be useful when studying the status of a situation from daily, weekly, or monthly data, such as housing starts, health trends, and the economics of different businesses. For example, in the forest industry, the COVID-19 pandemic initiated two years of extreme volatility with softwood lumber prices. Indexed monthly prices increased 71% in mid-2020 before resetting and spiking to an all-time high in mid-2021 and resetting and cycling steeply again in 2022 before, relatively speaking, stabilizing.

When evaluating product margins over time, we want to avoid over-exposure to outliers or random spot prices, such as when lumber exceeded $1,500 per thousand board feet (MBF) in mid-2021. A rolling average cuts a path through the cycle to “smooth out” reported prices while still including the most recent data. In this way, we might apply the last three, six or twelve-month average lumber price to fairly assess the break-even and potential profitability of a business or sector.

Overall, a rolling average provides a practical way to readily communicate insights from simple data series. The Economist calls them, “Among the unsung heroes of statistical methods…” I agree.

Weighted Averages

A weighted average accounts for the relative importance of certain aspects of the data. This differs from a simple average, which treats all observations in a data set equally. In this way, and depending on the question asked, a weighted average can improve our use of available data.

Consider another forest industry example. In 2022 in the U.S. South, the four-quarter rolling average price of pine sawtimber, the logs bought by sawmills to produce the softwood lumber used for homebuilding, was $27.79 per ton according to data from TimberMart-South. This number is a simple average of 11 state-level prices, from Texas to Virginia and down to Florida. However, when we weight those prices by log use (volume) by state, we get $28.59 per ton. 

The difference reflects how higher volume states with more sawmills and higher lumber production levels reported higher log prices and vice versa. For example, Georgia, with a 2022 average price of $33.43, consumed around 13 million tons of pine sawtimber in 2022, while Virginia reported a price of $21.17 while using around 3 million tons of sawtimber over the same period. 

We can also combine approaches to calculate a rolling weighted average. This will better reflect the state of the sawtimber market and the value of wood delivered regionally over time.

Conclusion

Systematic exploration of a situation benefits greatly from the proper, context-appropriate application of available tools and methods. The calculation of an average is, of itself, an agnostic act. However, its ability to clarify depends on the underlying data and question being asked. Rolling and weighted averages, and their combination, offer ways to improve our understanding of a given situation.