I just realized that I had written, not didn’t post, the following article. It is still worth posting.

A couple of events at Digital ID World reminded me how small the Digital Identity world really is. The first happened when I happened to walk into the DIDW Novell booth and came face to face with Steve Carter, a Novell Distinguished Engineer who is one of the leading architects of Identity Management for Novell. Steve and I were hired in April, 1977, by a small company in Provo, UT, named Eyring Research. We worked side by side at the company for twelve years. I had exchanged occasional emails with Steve over the past few years, but hadn’t seen him for probably 15 years. It took a chance meeting at DIDW to re-unite us in person.

The second event showed me that others share small world experiences as well. At a Sun customer reception the first night of DIDW, I was introduced to a Sun ISV partner who had some some interesting concepts to discuss in the area of strong authentication. As an aside, he asked, “Do you know Nimish Radia? Sun is a huge company, but I had to ask. He’s my cousin.”

“Why of course,” I replied. “I talked to him on the phone this morning!”

So, out of 30,000 Sun employees, I know a cousin of an Identity guy I met at DIDW!

Much has been said in our industry about the importance of Identity relationships. It turns out that meeting together as Identity professionals now and then both strengthens old personal relationships and kindles new ones in unique and wonderful ways.

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