I just found this on Boing Boing and thought it was very appropriate to re-broadcast. It is from xkcd: A webcomic of romance sarcasm, math, and language that is quite entertaining comic strip.
I think this map also reflects the nature of identity on the web…we show up in a lot of different places and need identities that work across them – with the freedom to link and de-link them. It also highlights how fundamentally identity is social and for engagement with people in community.
<img style=”border: 2px solid #000000″ src=”http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities_small.png”/>
Community
NoSo
NoSocial is the Web 2.0 Antidote.
Make no connections to no people at no events.
It is very a entertaining.
My ETel Talk
Empowering People and the Coming Layer of Identity (Link to Slides)
win-win-win for Citizens – Applications & Communities & Operators
People are empowered with their identifiers get good service at reasonable rates along with the Freedom to Access the tools they want to on the network (free from operator interference and packet discrimination)
Application Builders and Service Providers can innovated new tools that work on the web and mobile devices.
Operators can have a business model that is more then just bit-haulers. They have a special relationship with the customer which means they can leverage:
- Authenticated End-points to physical devices.
- be OpenID / Identity Providers
- the Billing Relationship with the customer and the asset of their billing system they can open up to others.
Here is a list of Further Resources in the talk.
Identity Commons
OpenID
i-names
Card Space and Laws of Identity
Higgins
OSIS
Johannes Ernst who presented namespaces out of control.
Andre’s Diagram of Identity and Payment Networks converging.
EVENTS
Identity Commons Community
Internet Identity Workshop May 14-16, Mountainview
Identity Open Space April 26-27, Brussels
International Telecommunications Union Focus Group on Identity Management
Basically dealing with How do Network-centric, Application-Centric and User-Centric Identity Play well together?
Wiki on the last meeting Feb 13-16
April 23-25 Geneva
May 16-18 Mountainview
Technorati Tags: etel, etel07, identity, Identitycommons, Identitygang
Weddings this Weekend
Chris and Ponzi and Raines and Betsy both got married on Saturday. One couple in Seattle and the other in Berkeley.
I had the pleasure to be witness to Raines and Betsy’s quaker wedding. Their was no celebrant we all sat quietly and they came in and sat at the front under the chupah. Then one of the quakers opened the meeting and said we would all sit quietly and wait for Betsy and Raines to say their vows and then sign the certificate. Once they did this then people arose as moved by the spirit to share thoughts. Then once it was over we all got to sign the certificate.
When I thought about it more and this blog post I came to think of it as a peer-to-peer wedding. Their union is real because we were all there to watch it happen – not because someone in ‘authority’ said it was so. I think of the social web we are building a bit like this. It is also more like how informal economies work – people own things (houses, trees etc) because everyone knows they do not because they have a piece of paper that says they do from a government ‘authority’.
Congress Targets Social Network sites – to be blocked from Schools and Libraries
WOW this is really intense.
The freedom to meet and organize is FUNDAMENTAL to what it means to be a citizen in this country.
This was in slashdot headlines and is quite shocking.
MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are the potential targets for a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category’s most ardent users.
High Impact
What’s new:
A proposed federal law would effectively require schools and libraries to render social networking sites inaccessible to minors.
Bottom line:
Law would likely affect more than just social networking sites. Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo’s instant messaging features might be included in proposal’s definition.
advertisement
“When children leave the home and go to school or the public library and have access to social-networking sites, we have reason to be concerned,” Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNET News.com in an interview.
Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public “Web pages or profiles” and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service.
That’s a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google’s Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo’s instant-messaging features, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat.
Fitzpatrick’s bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters. Republican pollster John McLaughlin polled 22 suburban districts and presented his research at a retreat earlier this year. Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, is co-sponsoring the measure.
The group, which is calling itself the “Suburban Caucus,” convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce new legislation it hopes will rally conservative supporters–and prevent the Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives during the November mid-term election.
Identity Map Developing
I mentioned this earlier in my reflections about the conference. I had seeded a map that outlined the history of our community, gatherings, protocols, blogs, papers, podcasts, wikis, mailinglists. One of the participants took a very high resolution picture of the finished map. Phil has a picture of the initial map. On my original Omnigraffle version I have Kim’s Laws of Identity but on this one I didn’t get them up and Kim just pinged me to let me know it needed to be added. If there are things you think need to be added feel free to let me know.
I hope to bring the big map or another version to the conference at Berkman and DIDW for others to add more information to it.
Where is the Valley's political power?
I have been wondering about this for a while. Where is the companies in the Valley’s political might? and where is the political organizing amongst the people who work in this industry? In Europe the geeks organized to get the European parliament to ban software patents. It seems like it should be easy enough to organize to save the internet. I am going to do my part and organize Planetwork’s activities around One Web Day.
This was articulated by Marc Evans on his blog:
The Net Neutrality campaign (a.k.a. Save the Internet) to keep the Internet tollgate-free and/or tier-free continues to gain momentum. What’s troubling, however, is Om Malik’s contention that many start-ups and Silicon Valley companies and fairly of the issue and why it matters. One of the Silicon Valley’s weaknesses is a lack of political savviness. Sure, many companies and executives donate money to politicians and political parties but there does not seem to be a well-organized and effective lobbying team that can be turned on in Washington when needed. Peter Chester suggests a reason for the lack of activity among the bigger players such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft is they have relationship with carriers and cablecos that they don’t want to damage.
Change your identity online a how to guide
Today I am working on the first day of IIW – how we tell the story of our community and current lay of the land in user-centric identity. I came accross this site… Change Your Identity – it is selling you a 165 page book on how to do it. New in this years edition is the “internet method”.
Identity at Earthday Digital Be-IN
There is a lot of activity happening. I wanted to let you all know about the Earth Day Digital Be-In happening on April 22 at SOMARTS in San Francsico (934 Brannon).
It is going to be a wonderful event that moves from a Networking social hour put on by the Urban Alliance for Sustainability to the Planet Code Symposium that Planetwork and imaginify pulled together into an evening of Eco-Activiation – transformative art music and inspiring speakers. There will be a Green Frontier Exhibition with number of green and sustainable projects presenting their work in an exhibit. Join us in a true fusion of Northern California culture, art and technology.
Here is a video that gives you some sense of the groove of the day.
5-6 Networking Salon hosted by San Francisco Alliance for Urban Sustainability
6pm – 8pm The Planet Code Symposium with several panels.
http://www.be-in.com/symposium.html (updates posted here)
Panels on Digital, Organic and Integral Solutions.
Speakers include:
Jim Fournier, Eprida; Karri Winn, Planetwork; Kaliya Hamlin, Identity Woman; Jair, imaginify; Marc Kasky, co-founder Green Century Institute; “Redwood Mary†Kaczorowski, United Nations; Melinda Kramer, Women’s Global Green Action Network; Greg Steltenpohl, Interra Project; Eric Sundelof, Stanford Digital Visions Program; Rick Tarnas, California Institute of Integral Studies; author, Psyche and Cosmos; John Clippinger, Berkman Center at Harvard Law School; David Ulansey, Mass Extinction Network Awareness; Randy Hayes, Rainforest Action Network, Oakland Sustainability Director; Gavin Newsom, Urban Environmental Accords ; Chris Deckker, Earthdance; Erik Davis, Evolver Project
Performances form 8pm on include:
http://www.be-in.com/ecoactivation.html
Live performers: LunaGroove, Foxgluv, Irina Mikhailova, Waterjuice, Living Alliance of Love, hands upon black earth, Artemis, Divasonic, 1000%, Random Rab
DJ’s Cybervixen, Dov, Goz, KJ, Kode IV, Maximillian, Mozaic, Neptune, Shawna & Laura
Performance and Dance: Dreamtime Awakened – directed by, Davin S, Mystic Family Circus, Estara, Décor, Anon Salon, Trinity – Sacred Space Altars, Sacred Treasure House
Green Frontier Exhibition
Formerly known as the Digital Frontier, this edition of the Be-In will feature the “Green Frontier†– emphasizing the new initiatives, projects and products that are leading the way to a green economy and sustainable culture. In addition to paid sponsor exhibits, the Be-In each year invites a range of groups whose causes or products are worthy of broader exposure. The Green Frontier is a lively forum where leading technology creators can meet and exchange ideas with sophisticated users and professionals. It is also a place to expose forward-thinking ideas and initiatives to a community that is in the business of changing the world through evolutionary technology and social innovations. The Digital Be-In is well known as a catalyst to influence trends, spawn important ideas, create alliances, and showcase creative possibilities. The Green Frontier—at the event and on the ongoing Be-In websites—is where the tribes gather and connect.
What is the map of the challenge? Usability and Web Authentication
Last week for two days I was at the W3C workshop on usability and authentication. It was hosted at the top of a citibank building in Brooklyn. We had to present ID at the door to get upstairs.
The room was a very long rectangle room with three presentation screens and 2 giant columns. It is a terrible lay out. The first morning we heard 3 ppt presentations about ‘the problems’ of for usable security and authentication. Maybe people are 1/2 present doing e-mail and other things.
I really wanted to interactively (as in facilitated face to face discussion) create a map of the problem space. By the end of two days I sort of got it but I know we as a room could have come up with that in 1/2 a day and then sent the rest of the time really working on ideas for solutions.
There are a bunch of constituencies.
Browsers – Firefox, Opera and IE (Microsoft)
Big websites – AOL, Yahoo, Google.
Certificate Authorities – Verisign
Banks
They all want security of verifying websites to be more usable and understandable to normal folks. So there was usability experts.
I think I understand why ‘standards bodies’ and processes get bogged down. They are really not very innovative in their face to face technology – presentations for a two days do not create a positive energetic vortex and community to move forward on solving problems.
I am really tuned into this need to get better at our face to face process so our ideas and innovations for the online world can actually work.
Internet Identity Workshop is announced May 1-3 in Mountain View
It seems only appropriate that while PC Forum is going on with the theme Erosion of Power: Users in Charge that the we are announcing the second Internet Identity Workshop.
May 1-3, 2006, Computer History Museum, Mountainview CA
Workshop Wiki
The Internet Identity Workshop focuses on user-centric identity and identity in the large. Providing identity services between people, websites, and organizations that don’t necessarily have a formalized relationship is a different problem than providing authentication and authorization services within a single organization.
Goals
The goal of the Internet Identity Workshop is to support the continued development of several open efforts in the user-centric identity community. These include the following:
* Technical systems and proposal like YADIS (LID, OpenID, Inames), MetaIdentity system, Infocards, and the Higgings Project
* Legal and social movements and issues like Identity Commons, identity rights agreements, and service providers reputation.
* Use cases for emerging markets such as user generated video (e.g. dabble.com), innovative economic networks (e.g. interraproject.org), attention brokering and lead generation (e.g. root.net), consumer preferences (e.g. permission based marketing), and civil society networking (e.g. planetwork)
The workshop will take place May 2 and 3, 2006 at the Computer History Museum. We will also have a 1/2 day on the first of May for newbies who want to get oriented to the protocols and issues before diving into the community. If you are new to the discussion, we encourage your attendance on May 1st because of the open format we’ll be using to organize the conference.
Format and Process
At the last identity workshop we did open space for a day. It was so successful and energizing that we will be using this format for both days. If you have a presentation that you would like to make or a topic that you know needs discussion in the community you can propose it here on the wiki. We will make the schedule when we are face to face at 9AM on May 2nd. We do this in part because the ‘field’ is moving so rapidly that we your organizing team are in no position to ‘know’ what needs to be talked about. We do know great people who will be there and it is the attendees who have a passion to learn and contribute to the event that will make it.
Part of the reason for moving to the Computer History Museum is to have better space for running this kind of effort with an expanding community. We expect a large and energized community to attend and are counting on plenty of participation. Don’t be put off by that, however, if you’re just getting into this. Come and learn. You won’t be disappointed.
Cost
We are committed to keeping this conference open and accessible. Having a venue that will support our doubling in size also means that it costs a bit more.
We decided to have a tiered cost structure to support accessibility as well as inviting those who are more able to pay to contribute. If you want to come we want you there. If cost is an issue please contact us and we can discuss how to make it work.
* Students – $75
* Independents – $150
* Corporate – $250
The fees are used to cover the cost of the venue, organization, snacks and lunch both days. We encourage you to pre-register since we will limit attendance at the event to 200 people. The IIW workshop in October sold out and we expect strong interest in this one as well.
Sponsorships
Our goal is to keep the workshop vendor neutral, but we will be accepting limited sponsorships for the following:
* Morning Break, May 2, and 3 ($800 each)
* Afternoon Break, May 1, 2, and 3 ($800 each)
* Lunch on May 2 and 3 ($2400 each)
* Conference Dinner, May 2 ($4000)
If you or your company would like to sponsor one of these workshop activities, or have ideas about other activities contact me. You will not get any extra speaking time for sponsoring but you will get thank-yous and community ‘love.’
Organizers
IIW2006 is being organized by:
* Kaliya Hamlin
* Doc Searls
* Phil Windley
The Brigham Young University Enterprise Computing Laboratory is providing logistical support and backing for this workshop.
Technorati Tags: pcforum
The Intention Economy by Doc
This piece on the Intention Economy by Doc is really great. It speaks to what I see as the subtle convergence of ideas from communities that I belong to. In spiritual activist world intention is a big deal “what is your intention” is not an infrequent question or frame invited around self reflection.
The social venture and social enterprise communities are big into finding a balance between intention and making money.
From the article.
Is “The Attention Economy” just another way for advertisers to skewer eyeballs? And why build an economy around Attention, when Intention is where the money comes from?
I have developed a real problem with the perspective behind what a number of people have been saying about Attention behind the podia. That perspective is sell-side. Its point of view is anchored with sellers, not buyers.
Hence my idea: The Intention Economy.
The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don’t need advertising to make them.
The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don’t need marketing to make Intention Markets.
The Intention Economy is built around truly open markets, not a collection of silos. In The Intention Economy, customers don’t have to fly from silo to silo, like a bees from flower to flower, collecting deal info (and unavoidable hype) like so much pollen. In The Intention Economy, the buyer notifies the market of the intent to buy, and sellers compete for the buyer’s purchase. Simple as that.
The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just “branded” by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.
The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or “capturing”) buyers.
Even though I’ve been thinking out loud about Independent Identity for years, I didn’t have a one-word adjective for the kind of market economy it would yield, or where it would thrive. Now, thanks to all the unclear talk at eTech about attention, intentional is that adjective, because intent is the noun that matters most in any economy that gives full respect to what only customers can do, which is buy.
Like so many other things that I write about (including everything I’ve written about identity), The Intention Economy is a provisional idea. It’s an observation that might have no traction at all. Or, it might be a snowball: an core idea with enough heft to roll, and with enough adhesion to grow, so others add their own thoughts and ideas to it.
As for the Linux connection, I believe that The Intention Economy is, by necessity, built on free software and open source principles, practices, standards and code. It’s not something that requires any company’s “platform” or “environment”. That’s why, much as I like the services provided by companies like Orbitz (which is built on LAMP, and does a very good job), I believe no company’s system can encompass The Intention Economy. The encompassing has to work the other way around. In other words, silos are fine. But the choice can’t be “nothing but silos”.
I think the foundational statement here is this necessity these new economic models be built on free software and open source principles, practices, standards and code.
You can see this trend happening in the face to face community gatherings of techies with the flowering of independent conferences that are built on open source principles. They don’t have a high barrier to entry and people come together because they have an interest – they figure out what they want to talk about and do together. We have used these to bring the identity community together at the Internet Identity Workshop. Camps are happening etc.
The essential nature of identity systems that go to the core of who we are – or are becoming in the digital age means that the platforms that we use to exchange this information must be OPEN. Jair and I have talked about this a bunch. We must be able to see the code that our operating systems are built on if they are managing our personally identifying information. How do we know there is not an NSA back door into Microsoft vista to peer on us. Despite what MS says can we believe them – we could if we could see the code. Hopefully they will get with Jeffery Moore and understand the comodification of the stack.
We also must improve privacy protection for third party storage of information – breaking out of the ‘secrecy paradigm’ that the courts interpreted – if someone knows information about me then it is not secret so they can share it. This does not jive with or norms of social disclosure of information.
Thanks for the women's shirts – Matt
I just had a fun time at SXSW. One of the highlights was getting a wearable girl ‘t’ for the first time ever. Matt “mr. wordpress” was handing them out at Bar Camp Austin. (normally when you get girl teas they are ‘way to tight’ for my body architecture – so I have a few but they are unwearable). These ones are GREAT! I am wearing mine on the plane on the way to PC Forum.
In the t-shirt vein there was this one I know HTML (How to Meet Ladies) and the I was once internet famous.
On that note Mary and I were leaving the party and introductions happen and the guy meeting us says to her – oh your internet famous.
The best talk at SXSW (for the little bit we were there) was Creating Passionate Users. I hope that some of what I learned can be applied to the usercentric identity space.
Panels are yucky…
RSA: Symantic CEO Keynote
I wonder how much he paid to talk to us. He was black which was interesting. Later in the Day at the Cyber-Security Industry Alliance party he was the center of the conversation. He sounded like he was channeling Marc Canter about eLife and DLA’s. He also mentioned this line in the middle that speaks to some of the issues we are working on.
We can’t allow trust to continue to erode. Trust is the foundation of the online world.
Chair of the Board and CEO
His vision for the digital lifestyle
Any time, anyw here
- e-life
- buyit
- destintation
- package
- e-busines
- building relationships
- enabling ideas
- Drving business growth
- increating productiv ity
- Imagine a connected world
- that just gettings started
The digital lifestyle that we all live today.
The way that people access the web.
Digital interactions are ubiquitous.
- Bills, Mail – scanned and tracked.
- Groceries – plugged into supply change.
eLife is here and changing how we live and what we expect out of our lives the two are intertwined.
Expectations for us are growing everyday. To protect family photos fincaical plans. Trust is the issue and they expect that we protect this information as if it was their own.
They want companies to protect their identity and protect critical digital assets – this is a customer demand.
Protect the databases of prime target information. New compliance and regulatory demands…expensive operational changes. Risk based aproach. Shift – burden on the enterprise…each and everyone of us enterprises adn consumers must prove that we are trusted partners risk must go down.
Companies have built into business models – real time tracking managing, self service customer.
Written into assumptions about growth. Cost to process a consumer loan – $10 now, was $200. Can’t go back to old way of doing business. this new way must succeed. Give business to someone they can trust.
Security becomes competative advantage. Security garatees – trump comfort of local we will hurt the whole economy…this is the real hidden threat. LOSS of consumer confidence in the digital world.
Broad adoption of firewalls and intrusion detections. Mitigating the virus and worm challenge – low hanging fruit. Today bigger challenge.
Sophisticated criminal elements. They are interested in anonymity then notoriety. Looking for personal financial information. Not that technically sophisticated.
Socially engineered attacks. Nieavate of most internet users.
150 million fishing e-mails…
Large scale data breaches. Identity theft growing threat to the digital lifestyle. 6 years top list of FTC…50 million americans exposed.
We can’t allow trust to continue to erode. Trust is the foundation of the online world.
Protect the relationships of these digital interactions of this great new world we have created. We need to debunk the myth that just securing the divice. Impossible. to one narrowly focused company to secure
We must join together to solve the global community challenge.
Create a trusted online community. In the digital worlds consumers are the weakest link…we must protect them from themselves.
Customers must meet minimum security…symantec…end point solutions.
Enterprise brand is protected…More aggressive ensuring information protection. Data be retained in a secure manner. Actively look for ways to protect things.
New – Scan for anonomlyes [yuck] Managing security risk part of keeping informaiton safe. Backup and recovery…
Join togehter create trusted online community- end users convienent and safe experience. easy to walk into store get a sense of place – feeling about if it is smart to give them our business…we don’t have our sixth sense….up to the business commuinty to asses what is safe. Must develop sixth sense for
Process for costomers and busiensses authenticate identities to each other. you are your…they are they…authenticated as real.
Trusted community – way to search online world safely. Does the site pose a threat to you? Click and hope. Site safty and security. sites credability in search results. credability rating updated by users as part of broad community.
We all need to develop interactions and information protection. Relationships between costomers and businesses. All of us need to take the lead in pushing for policy changes – privacy protection the business community should push for comprehensive privacy legislation.
US privacy legislation. Protecting children online. Comprehensive response. Information protect and every step along. We need one law that protects all consumers and encourages inovation in data security technology. Uniform laws. TRUST is the foundation of this new world. millions relying on the digital world for work and play. No company can ingonore the safty of there interactions. undermines the trust in brand and business.
Ease and enjoyment of digital lifestyle. Online banking…credit card…healthcare focus on protection.
- We must join together and take responsibility.
- Beyond walls of individual companies.
- Comprehensive end to end.
Continue to eductcat consmerus…
Nancy's 'very human' Presenation at MooseCamp
Nancy White gave a great presentation about people and the interaction with the blogosphere at Moose Camp. Here are the notes that I took.
Roles in Network:
Filters
Amplifiers
Conveners
Facilitators
Investors
Community builders
Skills for learning with others:
Listen, Fliter (search, Tag, bookmark) annotate, blog
Be unkonwing
REciprocate
Facilitation for:
Relationshiop
Identity/REputation
presence
Flow
Facilitation skills:
the Classics
Informed by ICT
Space Holding
Improvisational
Creatively Abrasive (Leonard)
Shouting doesn’t work online the way it does face to face
Convening Conversations:
Invite
Name the Question
Initiate
Design for local choice
Nurture
Art of the Invitation critical compencay:
Intercultural antennae
Broadly defined
“default” culture
Heart variations
Biggest Challenge?
Intercultural skills:
look…read
live/work/play
Fala! (speak)
Bridge
Tolerance for Ambiguity:
OK with ‘not in control’, not knowing
Move forward without certainty.
Ability to switch contexts:
Multi-membership mavens
connectors
Networkers
multiple perspectives
Outsiderness
The struggle is the solution:
See the reality in the current situation
Grieve the cost for what exists now
Treat the conversation as action.
There are two ways of spreading the light:
To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Valentines Day at RSA
I had a great day yesterday here at RSA. I awoke at 5am to make the train down to the valley. Arriving at 7:30 at the wrong convention center (Santa Clara instead of San Jose) I managed to take a taxi and make it in time to see Bill on stage and the Demo of InfoCards. Talking with a blogger over at ComputerWorld – his impression is that it is the “son of passport” unfortunate given how involved Kim has been in the community and how it seems that it is a good innovation that will be open to adoption by others. In that discussion it occurred to me that it might be wise to have a ‘search champ’ like event for the role out of this identity stuff. So that marketing doesn’t just walk and talk like it always has. If it is really different then it needs to be different. Maybe Liz can help out 🙂
I went on to the show floor and ran into Jeff ubois.
I interviewed the HP guys on their identity management solutions. Particularly the customer facing ones. I got “provisioned” (they asked me for all my real information – I assume for later marketing purposes – isn’t that ironic you go to a security show and they are harvesting you data like crazy.) I was Identity Woman ‘agent’ at the MK-6 and I went and logged into the CKA (central knowledge agency). in the process i checkboxed what information I wanted them to have. [I have pictures of all this but lost the camera battery so will have to wait on finding that to get them uploaded]
‘they get it’ the differentiation is not in “security” or the protocols – SAML they all do that. It is in user experience and supporting end users being in control of the flow of their information. We talked about two
I found the guys at Biopasswords – they two factor authentication by creating a algorithm of how you type. This way you type your password and it has to be write along with your pattern of typing it.
I went to the ping party and ‘formally’ met Andre Durand and talked to Eric Norlan.
The evening was concluded with a lovely dinner with Pam and Janelle from Nulius Secundus and Bob. We figured out that if added up how long the three of us had been married in total less then 1/2 as long as Bob has married.
Then we had a ‘women of identity’ slumber party.
Conferences…issues
Scoble just did this long… post on conferences and the issues around creating them. Adding to Jeff Jarvis’ post here.
I left this comment….
Hey Scoble,
We in the identity community are trying to figure out the venue thing too. 1st key is a place that lets you bring in outside catoring.
We are also doing 75% open space at our next conference – so no planning for ’sessions’ the attendees create them based on what is alive in the room that day. This is how you have a discussion with 2000 folks – not trying to have it all in one big room. You can also use process like Appreciative Inquiry where a whole room of over 5000 folks can have a meaningful conversatino ‘together’. I think we should have a conference for conference organizers to mull on options and issues faced by our crowd. Innvation is needed in this space and market needs are largely unmet.
The breakdown on the Identity Workshop was a fee of $75 for a two day conference that included lunch.
Those of us who organized it did it volunteer and we broke even. Everyone loved us bucking the trend of the ‘expensive’ conference. We are hoping to pull it off again this year in May.
The details – We had about 70 paying attendees. 80 people attended. Lunch was $800 a day -$10 a head (and people liked the food)
We paid the venue about $800 a day (but the wifi was iffy and chairs not super comfy). We got someone to help with refreshments for about $400. A neutral sponsor came through and sponsored dinner for everyone the first (and only) evening of the conference.
analog-digital Clash – HIGH transaction costs
Today I have had two analogue-digital clashes. Or perhaps digital loops that had to pass through an analogue phase
I went to the bank to get a print out of all the transactions on my account recently – so I could notify them of the fraudulent ones. You would think that i could tell a bank employee which ones are fraudulent and they would ‘mark them’ on my account electronically and then investigate. Nooo… I get a form that I must fill with a pen writing out each fraudulent transaction.
Then I have to come back tomorrow when the guy who can notarize them is there to mail the documents into the bank. It will then take them 15 days to even look at my claim – more time to investigate and no money is returned until they complete investigating…potentially a month or more away. Meanwhile I am out $2800.
Second clash. I did some work for PR company. They call me last week and leave a message that says…call us back. I really don’t like voicemails like that you have to write the number down. Then punch it back in to call them. I figured it was about my SSN for taxes. I changed my voicemail message that said if you really want me to call you back you have to e-mail me and left my e-mail address. So today I get this e-mail that is a W9 that i have to fill out and sign and fax back to her. Shouldn’t you be able to submit this to the company in some electronic way and then be assured they destroy this information (revocation) so it is not floating around forever in there accounting system. Not yet apparently. So first I fill out the PDF boxes then print it out to sign it. I don’t have a fax machine. So Then I scan in back into my computer and send her the JPEG.
Ross Mayfield said at an event last year that 50% of the economy was transaction costs. These experiences both have a lot of cost associated with just doing the transactions. We as a digital identity community need to address real costs baked into the system that are not working for people or organizations.
Thinking about the Valley
This morning getting to the SD Forum I had an adventure getting there. I was going to take the train but missed it. Got to the light rail but missed the train that was in the station…then got the next one. Got of one stop to late – Great American instead of Old Ironsides. Then walked the wrong direction across the Great America parking lot.
this wide open space was nice…you could see the myst around the edges of the mountains. It was overcast with the sun none-the-less shining through. The air was moist and i was listening to my i-pod. I thought about how early settlers here might have felt looking towards the horizon. “a promised land” of abundant fertile soil – the opportunity to plan trees and grow fruit. I felt sad for the trees that I know had been ripped up to make the parking lot I was walking over.
I got back out onto the street. Very wide full of cars streaming off the freeway. A massive scale. There were no people on the sidewalks with me. I thought about how this landscape built for cars shaped the thinking of the people here. The technology developed in this valley is spreading “everywhere”. What does it mean that it comes from a place that is so car-based on such a large scale almost trans-human. The scale here reminded me of the scale of the government buildings in DC – massive.
Can we build technology that is rooted in community that serves the human scale and has life serving values at its roots.
ETel – Rural wireless and Voip – Racoons and Ants challenges
I am Etel today (and for the next two days) and watching this great DIY presentation by Brian Capouch from Saint Joseph’s College. He is giving us all the tricks and tips to get rural wireless networks going for farmers.
The biggest challenges – racoons who turn the switch on the box on and off not infrequently and ants that invaded the box once.
The biggest threat to him being able to provider services to his community is regulation.
Zen, Silent Holidays, TransPeople, Back in the World
I abstained from Christmas for the second year in a row. It was fun to watch it all go buy and not participate. I had a few flashed of positivity that made me think next year I could get into the season again. I had papers in hand for the first time in 4 years to go to Canada and back but my aunt said I couldn’t sleep in her basement so… I just declined to return.
I found a retreat to go on at Manzanita Village for 10 days. I was not quite thinking it would be about 6 1hour+ sits each day – this with meals and a work shift left little time for myself. All that meditating and eating in silence was GREAT though. Of course they didn’t mention Christmas at all (Even though I was there for Christmas) but we did all 8 nights of Hanukkah and 7 of Kwanzaa. I should add that not mentioning Christmas at all was sad for me – I generally think of myself as a happy Episcopalian and I get tired of inter-religious meaning ‘everything but christianity’ in California.
I got thinking about our community around identity while there because there was several non-binary-gender choice folks who were also meditating. Are we going to build identity systems that are inclusive of non-binary gender choices?
I sat beside a young Transwoman named Hanah, beside her was a woman named Fred who by the end of her stay was wearing a bright orange button that said I might be transsexual. There was a Transgender Man named Jaran. It is not to surprising that there would be some transgender folks at the treat because Caterian Reed one of the Dharma teachers there is a Transwoman. In the end sitting there meditating – people are just people.
It is good to be back now. Everything is moving just a bit slower. I am breathing more consciously and overall refreshed. I just did a sidebar revamp that includes events that I am going to or might go to all the way to October (you have to scroll down to get it).