Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner talks risk at RIMS 2011 Vancouver.

It was an exhilarating, educational, exciting and eye-opening week for those of us who enjoyed RIMS 2011 in Vancouver throughout the past week. Having made the long journey back to New York yesterday, I sit here today leafing through my notes from great conversations, thinking back upon the events I attended and appreciating all the friendly faces I met.

In the days to come, we will surely have a few more posts related to what we learned or thought up during the show, but for now I’ll leave you with a look back at the week that was as we head into the weekend — one certain to include a lot of sleep for these battle-worn editor.

RIMS 2011 Coverage from the Risk Management Monitor:

• RIMS Kicks Off Annual Conference With a Bang
• The Risk Management Hall of Fame
• Zurich Talks “Ring of Fire” at RIMS 2011
• How to Avoid Reputational Harm
• RIMS Session Highlights Cyber Security Concerns
• RIMS 2011 Day One in Photos
• Senior Executives Address RIMS 2011 Attendees
• Strategic Risk Management: The New Core Competency
• The Top 10 Risks of 2011
• RIMS 2011 Day Two in Photos
• Making Sense of Social Media Risk
• The Risk and Insurance Industry Needs to Get Younger
• Discussing ERM at RIMS 2011
• Stephen Dubner on Predicting Risk at RIMS 2011
• FM Global CEO Shivan Subramaniam — Like Everyone at RIMS 2011 — Discusses the Japanese Earthquake
• RIMS 2011 Day Three in Photos

Stephen Dubner, author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, proved he is an interesting and extremely intelligent individual with the publication of his two books, which explore the hidden side of everything, from cheating teachers, bizarre baby names, self-dealing realtors, and crack-selling mama’s boys. Crazy, but smart.

The staff of Risk Management are fans of Dubner and co-author Steven Levitt’s work (read our review of SuperFreakonomics), so we were thrilled to learn that Dubner would be the keynote speaker here at RIMS 2011.

Dubner, a scholar and journalist, talked to the packed room about how difficult it is to manage risk, as he so aptly stated: “Assessing risk is predicting the future, which is somewhere between very hard and impossible.” He noted that even the “experts” cannot predict what will unfold in the future. As an example, he used football experts who predict the winners and losers every season.

“They have the best experience and access to info,” he said. “When you go back and look at their predictions, however, we’d have a better chance of predicting with a dart and dartboard.”

Why?

Because just like in business, you can’t predict acts of randomness. Though football experts may know what team or player they think is the best, they cannot predict injuries or turnovers, footballs acts of randomness. And it’s random events that can have a huge impact on your business. Though we can’t predict, we can prepare.

• Geoengineering in regards to the environment and climate change has increasingly been gaining mainstream interest over the past year after spending most of its days mired in obscurity or outright condemnation. I’ve personally written about it twice in the past few months both in regards to Bill Gates’ discussion on thwarting hurricanes and SuperFreakonomics‘ assertion that widespread geoengineering to slow climate change is a good solution. Still, the concept remains widely misunderstood and obviously has both positive and worrisome components. To help everyone become better informed about the concept, the MIT Technology Review has taken an exhaustive look at the possibilities of society geoengineering our way out of climate change.

• Yesterday’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake that triggered a tsunami and landslides has left some 1,000 people homeless in the Solomon Islands.

• A Learjet crash outside of Chicago has left two victims — although officials are holding out some hope that they may still be alive. “Asked if both were dead, an official on the scene said ‘This is a recovery operation.’”

• AIG has hired several new senior execs. The beleaguered insurer is also reportedly stalling its planned sale of its Chartis P/C arm.

• Rick Nason teaches an ERM class and while skeptical of the practicality of teaching this within an MBA curriculum, he has a question for you: “ERM has created a lot of excitement, but very few successful examples. Explain why you believe ERM has so few successful implementations.” Head over there to answer. And show your work. (via RiskCzar)

• “The Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up a US plane has provided ‘usable intelligence’ to FBI investigators, the White House says.”

• And in related news, new security rules for the airline industry are forthcoming from the Obama administration.

• The reinsurance world is in good shape. Aon is highlighting the “Remarkable Recovery” of the reinsurance industry in a new report and Willis sees all “talk of a hard market evaporat[ing]” in it’s January reinsurance renewals report. National Underwriter breaks down both reports.

• Les Krantz breaks down the 200 best and worst jobs in the U.S. in his “Jobs Rated Almanac.” And you know what’s number one? Actuary. “Actuaries, who evaluate the financial impact of risk on an organization, fared best because they work during standard business hours and in favorable conditions — indoors and in places free of toxic fumes or loud noise — as opposed to those jobs toward the bottom of the list such as iron worker, dairy farmer and the biggest loser from last year’s study, lumberjack.” Google “Norm MacDonald,” “Weekend Update” and “worst job” to find out what ranked dead last this year — again.

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