May I please wax philosophical tonight?

We humans are inherently a social race. We naturally gravitate to personal interaction, even the virtual kind. This simple truth has spawned a cornucopia of social networks and blogs and gathering places in cyberspace, as social humans seek new and innovative ways to interact. But this evening, I was vividly reminded that virtual interaction with others often pales when compared with the real thing.

This concept came sharply into focus when, within a 60 second span of time at the OSIS Interop Event, I physically shook hands for the first time with Johannes Ernst, David Recordon and Pam Dingle. I had not previously met any of the three in person; I learned about them only through their blogs. Only Pam and I had exchanged blog comments that I knew of. Yet when I physically met each person for the first time, looked each in the eye, and shook hands, there was an immediate depth of human relationship that transcended any previous virtual connection. Our connections in cyberspace set the stage for our meeting, but could not deliver the impact of a face to face introduction.

That is why social networks, email, instant messaging, blogs, and other mechanisms endemic to the Participation Age will not replace our need for face to face human interaction. We humans possess an innate need to break bread together and look at each other and listen to each other talk. All the Identity-enabled stuff we do online might extend our reach of interaction and will enable introductions that might never happen otherwise, but it but will never replace the warmth and immediacy of personal contact.

So my friends, may those of us whose relationships are yet virtual, find a point in space and time to look each other in the eye, shake each other’s hands and sense the power of personal interaction. And those of us whose virtual relationships have been already been confirmed face to face, may we seek for other points in space and time to re-connect.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Participation Age

I was privileged to participate today in the Concordia Project Workshop preceding the Burton Group Catalyst Conference. The Concordia Project is a “global initiative designed to drive interoperability across identity protocols in use today. It does this by soliciting and defining real-world use cases and requirements for the usage of multiple identity protocols together in various deployment scenarios, and encouraging and facilitating the creation of protocol solutions in the appropriate “homes” for those technologies.”

Today’s session featured presentations by five large implementors of Identity Federation technology:

• George Fletcher, Chief Architect, AOL LLC
• Mike Beach, Chief Security Designer, The Boeing Company
• Ian Bailey, Director of Application Architecture, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Canadian Province of British Columbia
• Jim Heaton, Global Director, General Motors Identity Management
• Georgia Marsh, Acting Program Executive, E-Authentication Program, Manager, U.S. E-Authentication Identity Federation, U.S. General Services Administration

I was particularly impressed that these organizations are real-world users of Identity technology, not ivory tower theorists. Their experiences and insight are extremely beneficial to the Identity industry at large and to product vendors like Sun in particular.

The key issues that seemed to permeate the presentations and subsequent discussions were:

• Huge Scale. The presenters represented huge constituencies. Identity federation technologies must support very large business and government user bases, with complex federation relationships.
• Usability. The user experience related to login, logout and transfer between applications needs to be much more intuitive. Details of federation and other “plumbing” should be hidden from the user.
• Multiple standards. The fact that multiple competing standards are in existence, with no single leader, makes it difficult and expensive for organizations to deploy federation technologies.
• Deployment. Particularly in large, complex environments with tens of thousands of businesses and government entities, it must become much easier to deploy Identity Federation if this technology is to spread beyond organizations with advanced IT capability.
• Business and legal issues. Several participants stressed that business and legal issues are more complex and harder to deal with than the technology. This area is begging for the development and adoption of best practices that will ease the broad acceptance of federation technology.

We in the vendor community would do well to listen to and understand these issues. The real world is doing great things. We must rise to help them take the next big steps to solve the challenges they face.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Federation,
Concordia Project

The Burton Group Catalyst Conference goes into full swing tomorrow. I will be unable to participate fully, but plan to attend the hospitality suites on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

I understand that Sun’s hospitality suite on Thursday evening will be a royal affair, hosted by King Jonathan Schwartz himself!

Perhaps it will be revealed that the Holy Grail is really perfection in Identity Managment. 🙂

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Sun Microsystems

Looking back through my blog archive, I realized that it was just over a year ago when I received my first OpendID identifier, using the Verisign “Personal Identity Provider” (PIP) service. I verified today that my year-old identifier still works!

David Recordon published a graph in his blog this week illustrating the rapid growth in the number of Relying Party sites accepting OpenID authentication:

At this rate of growth, what will the next year bring?

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
OpenID

This is a staggering statistic. Think of it. One carrier in China added more subscribers in May than Verizon Wireless (2 million) and AT&T (1.8 million) combined added in the final “strong growth” quarter of 2006. This is in a country where the per capita income is $1,740 per year, compared with the US per capita income of $34,500 per year.

China Mobile now has more subscribers (327 million) than the United States has citizens (302 million). And we smug US folk have the temerity to call ourselves enlightened!

We should note that the vast majority of new Chinese mobile subscribers (over 5 million new prepaid plans in May) are on prepaid plans, rather than the contract payment plans we favor in the US. “Many Chinese spend a greater percentage of monthly income on pre-paid phone cards than Americans spend on food. This says a lot about the perceived importance of telecommunications in that society,” says Julie Pohlig, senior analyst at Vital Wave Consulting.

A whole lot of new digital Identities are being added to the universe of electronic communications each month. It is not hard to imagine that the first Internet experience most of these new Chinese subscribers will have will be via a mobile phone, not a PC. I also think this speaks volumes about how Chinese central political control will continue to diminish over the next several years. Freedom always thrives in an environment of open communications.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Telecommunications,
China

The usual business drivers used to justfiy Identity Management projects are:

• Improved Regulatory Compliance
• Reduced Operational Costs
• Enhanced Information Security
• New Business Opportunities

It occurs to me that the first three drivers are like the San Antonio Spurs: deadly efficient, predictable, boring winners. The fourth driver is like the Phoenix Suns: incredibly exciting, up-and-coming, but still seeking the brass ring.

I predict, however, that this fourth driver, New Business Opportunities, like the “new age,” high octance NBA teams, will become the high profile winner before long. I recently gave a presentation entitled, “Identity-Enabled Business” to a group of telecommunications executives. The concept resonated. Today, I was asked back for a repeat performance for another group. Pretty exciting stuff.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
NBA

I consider my membership in Facebook an exploration of social networking phenomena, not a robust business value. Therefore, I was intrigued to stumble across Eric Norlin’s invitation to join the Digital Identity group on Facebook. I was group member #8.

So, for me, the question is quite simple: How many people have sufficient interest in both Facebook and Identity to accept Eric’s invitation?

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Facebook,
Social Networks

I have an immediate opening on my team for an Identity Management Systems Engineer to provide technical presales support to major telecommunications and cable companies in the US. If you are interested or know someone who is, please send me an email: mark.g.dixon “at” sun “dot” com. Please note that Sun will not pay agent fees for this position.

Thanks!

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Sun Microsystems

Maybe his forehead was more convenient than a post-it note, like most people use.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management

Yesterday, Deloitte & Touche LLP and Sun Microsystems announced a “new Enterprise Role Lifecycle Management (ERLM) offering that enables organizations to simplify compliance management, reporting, and user administration of identity and access management (IAM) deployments.”

” ‘Our collaborative efforts with Sun, strong industry focus and ability to deliver unique services around Sun technologies produce a successful, repeatable and customer-focused enterprise-wide delivery approach that addresses essential business issues,’ said Rick Siebenaler, Deloitte principal.

In my recent JavaOne presentation on Identity Trends, I predicted that “role management and role-based access control will drive increased value” for enterprises. We expect the new Deloitte/Sun offering to play a key role in deliverying that value.

Technorati Tags: Identity,
Digital Identity,
Identity Management,
Sun Microsystems,
Deloitte