Day: March 31, 2005

Everything I do professionally has as its goal the creation of an inclusive identity metasystem for the Internet.

Inclusive means that every vendor, every innovator, every thinker in every generation can be part of it, shaping and using it as they see fit – a real ecology.

Metasystem means that identity claims can be provided by many different types of parties, each meaningful in some context which unites those in an interaction.

Metasystem also means that no one gets to proclaim they have the culminating technology – there is always room to innovate and evolve the underlying pieces as fresh thinkers inevitably transcend what we can do from our vantage point here in 2005.

In other words, I want to build a system flexible enough that it doesn't fall down the first time the world shakes.

It would be silly to hinge anything this important on a personage as imperfect as I am. I would rather hinge things on a set of objective statements, which is what I have done in proposing we converge around the laws of identity.

But in moving forward, I want to reach out – even to fellow techies who think like this:

Microsoft is trying to put on a kinder, gentler shell, but underneath it's still the same old dictatorial slimebags.

This is where it comes down to real people talking about their real lives and inner worries and reflexes and – dare I say it – ideology.

It is so important that people see the Identity Big Bang is not a game of Dungeons and Dragons, but rather a defining moment in laying out a governable infrastructure for our transition into cyberspace. It takes a bit of serious thought.

It's embarrasing for me to point skeptics to this wonderfully kind piece by standards activist Drummond Reed. Let him be my final witness before we return to a discussion of what is objective:

I just want to go on record that Kim is 100% the real thing. I’ve never met anyone like him. The Laws didn’t come from any preconceived agenda or marketing spin, they came straight from the heart of Kim’s lifetime of messaging and metadirectory experience and his passion for creating a true Internet-wide identity infrastructure that will finally usher in what he calls “the big bang” – the explosion of new applications that will be possible with authenticated online trust relationships (also known as the Social Web.)

As he began to talk to the open standard/open source/open trust community about the basic principles and architecture underlying InfoCards – and the fact that it must be an open, platform-independent solution that we all agree to, not unlike TCP/IP itself – he ran into a steady stream of gaping jaws. Could this be this the same Microsoft that had only three years ago proposed Passport and Hailstorm to the world?

Well, it’s not the same Microsoft. It’s the Kim Cameron-inspired Microsoft. Call me a starry-eyed optimist, but to put a twist on my favorite quote from Margaret Mead : “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change Microsoft. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Kim needs our support to pull this off. He’s got mine.

This endorsement says way more about Drummon's vision and immunity to ideology than about me as an individual. He's a clear-eyed guy who wants the same metasystem I do. Like many others, he wants Microsoft to be part of the conversation and do its extensible (pluggable) backplane thing because if we're not there, it's going to take a long time (read long long time) to get Internet identity in place.

As for my relationship with Microsoft, I won't say I never “argue passionately with myself”. But I do my best to represent the Microsoft which turned computers from a bureaucratic contraption to an extension to the human mind and cortex. Not alone! And not perfectly! But in a way that transformed human reality for the better. And I see myself as one of the many who are calling on her to be true to her DNA, and in light of all she has learned as she matured, to apply her shoulder to bringing forth a new era in software, where again it becomes obvious that there is opportunity for everyone.

Scoble really broke me up with this one:

Dave Winer breaks away from the EFF over the role that copyrights will play in the future.

I've been having passionate and interesting arguments about the role of copyright in our future systems and communities too. In fact, I've found myself arguing with myself over copyright. (emphasis is mine)

Funny, I was just talking with an old friend who has been looking at the differences between Hegel's and Aristotle's view of dialectics. Aristotle saw dialectic as elucidation of truth through questioning rather than assertion. Hegel saw it as transcendence of the contradiction between what is and what is not. Whatever flavor your prefer, I love how Scoble makes it seem so appropriate and natural. I really like that side of him.

The continuous collision of the cyber and mortar worlds will release vast fields of energy. And I think we'll all be having a lot of passionate arguments with ourselves on our way to understanding what is happening.

I've tried to keep my day and nighttime existence somewhat separate, but it's hard. After all, the laws of identity are the same at work and at home.

I know a number of you are following the drama that is currently unfolding in light of an early (unprompted) round of stories on ‘InfoCards’ (a code name). If people at a place like Microsoft try to do something “open” and “inclusive”, word gets around. And I've been trying to adopt what is – to my knowledge – a relatively new approach: “Innovation by blogsphere”. So it's not exactly like my ideas are top secret!

But then you end up with an investigative guy from outside the identity realm who puts the pieces together and sees a “kaboom”. Even if the initial story is more or less accurate (if profoundly incomplete), it turns into one of those cases where the other press and analysts haven't been briefed – but are none the less required to write something. So they end up drawing conclusions that in many cases can't be right. And a spiral can ensue.

Somehow we have to turn “the press” on to the things that really matter to us – by “us” I mean those who participate in this concersation – what the masterful Marc Canter of Macromedia fame calls the “emerging mega meta momma backplane”. Is this a case of blogsphere versus mainstream media?

I guess this frames the neat piece by Eric Norlin:

Cnet's got this story about Longhorn today — complete w/ a bit on InfoCards:

The company is also looking to bring back some old ideas. It's working on a technology called “info-cards” in which consumers could securely store information that is to be shared with online commerce sites. Based on the WS-* Web services architecture, info-cards will help customers manage multiple identities, Microsoft said, much as people have multiple cards in their wallet: credit cards, bank cards and membership cards.

In many ways, the idea is a throwback to Microsoft's Passport authentication program, which met with only tepid interest from e-commerce companies and others. The software maker said it is talking with partners but would not say who it might have lined up in support of the info card plan.

Ugh. I don't even work at Microsoft and this frustrates the hell outta me — reporting that can't understand something on its own terms, so it must use *bad* analogies….ie, InfoCards really *isn't* an “old idea” being “brought back.”

For a while i had this bright (or not so bright idea) that i'd go back to the original Hailstorm/Passport Press Release (yes, i have it bookmarked in my IE browser) and rewrite the thing to see if I could make it a more effective message in hindsight. But as I read this piece, I'm realizing that's somewhere beyond the town known as pointless — the preconceived stigma around msft is just too thick.

So – whadya do? Simple – make it personal.

People want to know the people behind things — and (much as its not Kim's schtick) Kim Cameron (who's behind this InfoCards thingy) is a *great* story: likeable, canadian (i think ;-), working on something open in the open, having these cool pc forum conversations, engaging with folks like me, dick hardt (sxip), drummond reed (cordance), mitchell baker (mozilla! hullo!)…..its a great story — *if* its told as Kim's Identity Work…..

now i know that kim doesn't want it to be that way – but this stuff needs a face and a person right now. Its so much harder for a reporter to write a bad story about a good person trying to do good things.

there. that's my no-sleep, early morning, blogging marketing thought for the day: Microsoft should make it personal — and trott kim out to become the face of their InfoCards stuff — and let him just be himself (no PR prepping for this one; kim should just talk and say whatever the hell he wants). Otherwise, we're gonna hear the endless droning on of passport comparisons (which is already sickening and it hasn't even really started) — and this stuff is gonna have the uphill battle from hell.

I'm not trying to be critical of the msft guys (i really like what they're trying to do over there) — but sometimes i wonder if the msft marcom machine doesn't get in the way of their own succeeding…..

(ps: i'm not sure i've ever actually met someone from that machine, btw — outside of the WagEd guys that were assigned to me when I was covering Palladium for DIDW)

Maybe, rather than putting me on tour, Eric, Doc, Craig, Mark, Dick, Drummond, Chris, Dave, Paul, Phil, Mike, Johannes, Radovan, Identity Woman, the Head Lemur, Scoble and all the rest of the Gang will be able to start telling the true story of what we are all attempting to do together.

Anyway, one thing for sure. I remain confident that in the end, the truth will out. And I mean the real truth that we are making as an industry – the Identity Big Bang.