NEW YORK Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of the country's most creative, controversial and sought-after speakers, will deliver a keynote address on Oct. 5 during the 50th annual Nation's Restaurant News Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators, or MUFSO, conference in Dallas.
Author of the best-selling book "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable," Taleb holds a unique view of events, saying that: "The world is random, intrinsically unknowable. You will never be able to control randomness."
NRN Publisher Tom Larranaga said Taleb's main premise, the impact of the highly improbable, is ideal for this year's MUFSO theme "The Next 50. Are You Ready?"
"We live in unpredictable times," Larranaga said, "but Taleb argues persuasively that the world has always been unpredictable and is only becoming more so. The key is to build our businesses with the appropriate kind of risk management. By better understanding rare events, we prepare ourselves to act more effectively on common ones."
The "out-of-the-box" thinking that Taleb brings to MUFSO will also be reflected in the conference's significantly expanded program. The program was developed with input from an advisory board of industry leaders and offers powerful new insight into topics such as strategies to build sales and increase customer traffic and customer satisfaction, as well as best practices in social media and viral marketing, financing, cost-cutting, and profitability — all important issue during the troubled economy.
The "Black Swan" in the title of Taleb's book, which was published in 2007, is a reference to the once common belief that all swans were white. This was shattered when the first black swan was sighted in Australia.
"Every theory we have about the human world and about the future is vulnerable to the black swan, the unexpected event," Taleb said. "We sail in fragile vessels across a raging sea of uncertainty. The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in."
Taleb added, "I am interested in how to live in a world we don't understand very well. I am interested in how to turn lack of information, lack of understanding and lack of knowledge into decisions. My book, 'The Black Swan,' draws a map of what we don't understand."
Calling himself an essayist, belletrist, or fine writer, and researcher, Taleb said he is interested in only one topic: chance, particularly extreme and rare events, or the black swans. His academic and teaching credentials include being a distinguished professor of risk engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York University, a visiting professor at the London Business School, and co-director of the Decision Science Laboratory.
Taleb's trading and financial background includes being a member of the Derivatives Strategy Derivatives Hall of Fame. He has also been managing director and head trader at Union Bank of Switzerland; worldwide chief derivatives trader for currencies, commodities and non-dollar fixed income at Credit Suisse First Boston; chief currency derivatives trader for Banque Indosuez; and managing director and worldwide head of financial option arbitrage at CIBC Wood Gundy.
He holds a master's in business administration from the Wharton School of Business and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris.
The 50th annual MUFSO Conference will be held Oct. 4-6 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas. Register before June 30 for a 50-percent discount off the full conference operator price, or $475, versus $950. For more information and to register, call (212) 756-5201 or visit www.mufso.com.