Day: January 30, 2005

In response to my question about how Future Salon's Identity Meeting had gone, Robert Scoble just sent me a link to Niall Kenedy‘s amazing full report. The blogsphere still blows my mind.

Last night I attended a Future Salon presentation about digital and online identities. The event was hosted at SAP in Palo Alto.

Eric Sachs of Google spoke about Google's relatively new entry into the digital identity realm with services such as Orkut and Gmail. Jeff Hodges of Liberty Alliance talked about identity systems in the enterprise marketplace. Fen Labalme of Identity Commons talked about identity systems built at the grassroots level for non-governmental organizations.

I recorded all three speeches as well as the question and answer period using a directional microphone from my seat in the front row.

Eric Sachs

MP3 audio

19:14, 8.7 MB

Jeff Hodges

MP3 audio

15:40, 7.1 MB

Fen Labalme

MP3 audio

22:49, 10.3 MB

Questions & Answers

MP3 audio

36:34, 16.6 MB

Just in passing, Scoble's recent piece on geek jewlery was right on target. Coming back from Open Group I sat beside a cat who was flying the full shuffle regalia and did he ever look cool. And happy.

While perusing the Future Salon, I came across something which I have to call a must-see. To quote the futurists:

ACLU has an excellent video clip out that beautifully crystallizes what is at stake with you and your Identity

This is a brilliant communications work by Micah Laaker of Sedapa, who founded his agency “with the express goal of making content understandable through the use of solid information design.” He's worked for clients ranging from Def Jam Recordings to the Partnership for a Drug Free America, and here he has hit a home run in terms of clarity.

In two minutes, Micah conjures up, with sardonic humor that freezes in mid laugh, a world in which the laws of identity are all broken simultaneously. This is a battering ram for knocking over any system embodying disrespect for identity's laws. That might prompt some to just take it “as propaganda”. But anyone who did that would be missing the point. Micah's piece is a harbinger of what is to come should we, technologists, not succeed in understanding our own subject matter.

One can argue that ACLU has an agenda, and created this piece in keeping with that agenda. Certainly it intends to use the video to influence legislation. But ACLU too is a predictable entity responding to and creating objective phenomena. Another indication that, if we want a unifying identity system, the laws of identity must be taken as laws, not simply architectural principles.

A group of Bay Area futurists had a meeting on Identity this week called, “Who am I? Your identity online and beyond.” (Details here). The organizers were familiar with the Laws of Identity.

It featured Eric Sachs from Google, Jeff Hodges from Liberty Alliance, and Fen Labalme from Identity Commons. Does anyone who attended want to tell us how it went?

I've never belonged to a futurist organization, but it sure must be fun. Imagine an environment where you have to say, “Will you people stop thinking about the future for a moment, and just think about today?” Yikes.

Doc Searls, Editor of Linux Journal, has written a note pointing people to this conversation.

Kim's work would be remarkable in any case. The fact that he does it for Microsoft is especially portentious — in a positive way. Kim has always been a tireless advocate for heterogeneity, inclusiveness and interoperability. Given that fact, plus his genius, it's fun to watch the back-and forth between him and other important voices in the Identity Conversation.

I admire Doc as a man who understands a whole lot about our society and sees with super clarity that everything is in motion, in a process of continuous renewal. He always surprises me and that keeps me coming back to the fount.

And he's big enough to allow renewal to encompass all of us, instead of just those of us on “this side of the barrier”. He's one of the main reasons I wanted to blog.

My reference last week to Governor James should have been to James Governor – which just goes to show I'm a dyslexic colonial. But I'm proud of it.

Thanks Governor – I mean James.