Order from chaos from order

Towards the end of last year, I wrote a series of blog entries expanding on 20 terms of art, mostly for fun, partly for education, and partly as an exercise in creative thinking ... and today I'm doing it again.

As a recap, here are the original 20:

  1. Accountability is ...
  2. Assurance is ...
  3. Audit is ...
  4. Authorisation is ...
  5. Control is ...
  6. Cyber is ...
  7. Fragility is ...
  8. Governance is ...
  9. Impact is ...
  10. Information is ...
  11. ISO27k is ...
  12. Oversight is ...
  13. Resilience is ...
  14. Responsibility is ...
  15. Risk is ...
  16. Security is ...
  17. System is ...
  18. Threat is ...
  19. Trust is ...
  20. Vulnerability is ...

Today, I'm nose-to-the-grindstone, writing my book on information risk management, doing my best to 'tell a good story'. I'm trying to make sense of the jumble of concepts and thoughts in my head, hopefully expressing things clearly enough for readers to understand and be inspired to think and do things differently. It's hard work!

Just because the book is non-fiction doesn't stop it being creative, so I've returned to the listing technique I used last year, elaborating on it a little. The revised process is:

  1. Think of an intriguing focus area relating to the topic.
  2. Think of some words and phrases associated with the topic.
  3. Write them down in the order they occur to me.
  4. Keep going until the rate plummets.
  5. Re-sequence the list in a more logical order - alphabetical for instance.
  6. Look again at the list, reconsidering words and phrases now in juxtaposition, sparking new thoughts and more entries to add to the end of the list.
  7. Resequence and cycle back again until bored. 
  8. Decide whether to keep, revise or drop near duplicate entries.  
  9. Resequence and recycle again, this time using a different order - such as the length of the words and phrases (the approach I used before) - to change the juxtapositions and spark new ideas. 
  10. Take a break. Let the thoughts quietly fester. Make tea. Update this blog (!).
  11. Come back for another go.
  12. Resequence yet again, grouping related words and phrases together on a hand-drawn roughly scribbled mindmap.
  13. Decide whether to invest the time preparing a more presentable electronic version of the mindmap, or simply use it as a writing prompt.
  14. Get back to writing! 

So at step 10 I had the following list of more than 60 words and phrases concerning various kinds of 'link', the topic that set me off on this path earlier today:

  • Network and point-to-point data links - wired copper, fibre-optic, wireless, encrypted ...
  • Personal/individual links plus family, group, national and cultural relationships
  • Links between threats, exposed vulnerabilities, incidents and consequences
  • Links binding industry, special interest and peer groups together
  • Statistical relationships linking potentially related factors
  • Penalties linked to noncompliance/nonconformity
  • Temporary/fleeting vs permanent/persistent links
  • Primary vs secondary and fallback links
  • Conceptual linkages and associations
  • Novel vs conventional vs established
  • Authorised vs unauthorised links
  • Shared interests and concerns
  • Hyperlinks of various kinds
  • Links between threat agents
  • Causal (cause-effect) links
  • Cyclical vs one-off/linear
  • Commercial relationships
  • Links to organised crime
  • Application system links
  • Fixed vs dynamic links
  • Database internal links
  • Valuable vs immaterial
  • Inappropriate linkages
  • Personal relationships
  • Covert vs overt links
  • Weak vs strong links
  • Mature vs immature
  • Organisational links
  • Departmental links
  • Loose associations
  • Stable vs unstable
  • Social media links
  • Unexplained links
  • Unwelcome links
  • Rigid vs flexible
  • Redundant links
  • Historical links
  • Informal links
  • Valuable links
  • Political links
  • Affiliate links
  • Relationships
  • Genetic links
  • Missing links
  • Curious links
  • Star network
  • Unwise links
  • Critical links
  • Formal links
  • Broken links
  • Connections
  • Sequencing
  • Friendships
  • Chain links
  • Illicit links
  • Mindmaps
  • Synonyms
  • Antonyms
  • Backlinks
  • Hook-ups
  • Bindings
  • Threads
  • Ad hoc 
  • Glue
  • Ties
From that little lot, I've sketched out this rough (real rough! Scrappy even) mind map:


Contemplating the mind map led me to add a few links between topic areas (links about links!) and a few more terms.

So now I'm at step 14: must press on ...

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