The first person who I heard calling herself a Yenta was Deborah Elizabeth Finn who I met via my participation in the Nonprofit Technology world and the NTEN community. She is “the Cyber Yenta” helping nonprofit folks figure out their technology needs and match making. Yenta is a Yiddish word for a woman who is doing mate matchmaking.
This last few weeks I have felt like a “Cyber Yenta” when it comes to NSTIC (National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace) Pilots because many folks have come to me to share their idea for a Pilot. Given what I know from reading the NSTIC Pilot FFO and having attended 6 out of the 6 so far NSTIC face to face (I attended the last one virtually) events:
- NPO Announcement
- NSTIC Release
- NSTIC Governance Workshop
- NSTIC Privacy Workshop
- NSTIC uses IIW as its Technical Workshop
- NSTIC Pilot Proposers day
They clearly want to solve issues/challenges that are multi-party in nature where the $ will help to create incentives to do interoperability beyond what one company, organization or technology can do on its own.
Many of the people sharing bid ideas involve, unsurprisingly, their project being in the big part of a bid. I listen/read and think… given potential purposes outlined in the NSTIC Pilot FFO (Federal Funding Opportunity) you know this one echnology/legal framework is one piece of what is a many-piece problem. It is hard to dissuade them of that.
They really want relying parties, so if you come to the table with those, you are in a much better position. They need legal issues solved along with technology ones.
I am not discouraging anyone from submitting a proposal for their technology/legal framework, but it would be helpful if people both thought about how they can be the center of their “own” bid ALONG with how they think what they have could fit with other organization’s companies bids too. How does your piece of the puzzle fit with other puzzle pieces. What do you have to give/contribute/share with others? How could you participate in a bid even if you didn’t get paid to do so?
It will be way easier for me to help network/connect across the landscape of potential bids if I know how you can play/contribute if you get a large sum of money (several hundred thousand), medium sum of money (tens of thousands), small sum of money (a few thousand), and no money/just participating (you just got new users pointed at your service that interoperates with a broader universe of relying parties, for example).
I have felt caught in the middle not wanting to lose trust by sharing things I shouldn’t about people’s ideas and bids, but also feeling like they need to connect and know more about others. I am hoping that we can all put more information out there about how ideas for the ecosystem can fit together. I also hope that people can be realistic about how they have key puzzle pieces, but not “all” the puzzle pieces.
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