I have a love/hate relationship with iTunes. I love the abilityto download a wide variety of single songs, but it annoys me that Icannot play my iTunes music library on a player other than an iPod,or transfer album purchases easily between computers. Still, whileI have peeked into Pandora Radio's box, and flirted with othersites, I keep coming back to iTunes because I love the way itorganizes and analyzes digital music.

iTunes Essentials contains groupings of music byperformer. Dozens of songs in each artist's catalog are all listedin order of their importance, prioritized in three sections,starting with the artist's most well-known songs: The Basics (thebiggest, best and most important songs), Next Steps (usuallycomposed of popular songs just beyond the hits) and in some cases,Deep Cuts (under-appreciated songs.)

Such categorization is also helpful to organize and illustratethe complex measurements involved in risk assessment, the processof gathering and analyzing risk information, and ranking risks bytheir importance or impact. This is the "second step" of enterpriserisk management (ERM), as described in my May 25 blog, Enterprise Risk Management – The Five Course Meal. Byaggregating standard risk metric data consistently through thecompanies, participants are able to analyze and illustrate riskcontrol and assessments across whole organizations.