I recently stumbled across an interesting site, Klout.com, which analyzes a Twitter account’s history and assigns a “Klout Score,” which is purported to be a “measurement of your overall online influence.

Of course, my inquisitive nature as it is, I had to try it for my Twitter account, @mgd.  The results were not great, but respectable, I suppose:

By contrast, the Klout Score of my favorite Phoenix Suns tweeter, Jared Dudley, was 70.

The three major components of the score are:

• True Reach – the real size of your engaged audience.
• Amplification Probability – the likelihood that your content will be acted upon.
• Network Influence – the influence level of your engaged audience.

Additionally, Klout offered a categorization for my twitter account.

I am certainly not a celebrity, but I do try to be consistent and focused.  I have a small number of followers who seem to be fairly well engaged.

For example, after I had received my Klout store, I joked on Twitter,

“Let’s hope that low @Klout doesn’t mean low worth.”

An “engaged” Twitter follower responded with this encouraging note:

“@mgd I’m sure our worth as human beings is not related to Klout. :)”

That was certainly good news.  I am glad that my intrinsic worth really isn’t dependent on my Twitter Klout score.  I was reminded of the profound observation printed on a framed picture my wife gave me many years ago:

“In a hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the type of house I lived in, or the kind of clothes I wore.  But the world may be much different, because I was important in the life of a child.”

The bottom line? Klout is interesting, but has little to do with my value as a human being and the impact I can make on things that really matter.

Value: “relative worth, merit, or importance”

I have been intrigued for a long time about the concept of the “Value” of “Identity”.  Consequently, I plan to devote several posts over the next period of time to this subject.  At this point, I don’ t know just what I will write.  I feel like I am entering a new phase of “Discovering Identity.”

Perhaps this train of thought has been triggered by the reality that businesses seek value in each procurement they make – including Identity and Access Management system purchases.  Nearly every customer meeting I have attended recently inevitably gets around to the addressing the need for a solid business case before a purchase can be made.

But I believe the value of Identity goes farther than business cases.  In his song, “Which Way Does that Old Pony Run,” Lyle Lovett reminds us,  “…what’s riches to you just ain’t riches to me …”.  The value placed on anything, including Identity, must be determined by individual people – the stakeholders in a given situation.

So, if you are so inclined to join me, let’s get on the old pony and explore the world of the Value of Identity.  If you have suggestions or ideas, please share them.  It will be a fun ride.

I had a conversation with a colleague this morning about the tension between two sales approaches:

1. Focusing on business value derived from implementation certain technology
2. Focusing on technical capabilities (AKA speeds and feeds) of certain technology

Our unified position was that the the second position only really made sense if aligned with the first.  Technology by itself is certainly interesting, but in real world markets, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify purchase of any technology unless it is very clear how that technology can deliver business value.

Therefore I spend most of my time focused on the business value of various Identity and Security technologies, rather than the technical details of how they are implemented.  Unless we can really make a positive impact on the business whom buy our products and services, our market is not sustainable.