Posted 8:49 AM (0) comments

Catalys: Jamie Lewis Keynote

In his keynote presentation this morning, Jamie Lewis
noted that "User-centric IdM is the next new thing." His talking points were:

*Heady mix of optimists, pessimists, idealists, cynics
*Agendas, governments, commercial interests could subvert the process
*Indicators of the constant tensions virtualization, digital ID create
*The tug of war will continue, and we all have a stake in the outcome
*Demonstrates the relativistic nature of identity, need for polycentrism

THis, of course, is the conversation that many of us (including Jamie)have been having almost since the end of last year's Catalyst. But now the message is going out to the corporate masses. THat is good.

Posted 9:44 PM (1) comments

Catalyst Conference

I'm in San Diego this week for the Burton Group's annual Catalyst Conference, the yearly gathering of the identity faithful (among others).

This year, there was a new event, the Virtual Directory Users Conference - a single afternoon devoted to virtualizing directories and putting identity into context. It was sponsored by Radiant Logic and drew a small crowd of customers, partners, potential customers and potential partners. I was privileged to be allowed to address the group and, as I promised, my slide show is now available. While it really isn't too effective without the narration, regular readers of the IdM newsletter (click here and search on "context")should be able to make sense of it.

I did run into Phil Becker tonight at the opening reception and he looks great for a guy who had emergency gall bladder surgery less than three weeks ago. Heck, he looks great even for a guy who didn't have emergency surgery!

More on the conference as the news breaks.