My friend Allen who was at Brookings got a job with NTIA to figure out what issues to focus on and how to get multi-stakeholder collaboration on cyber security issues. Because he asked me to respond I took the time to give him my thoughts and input drawing on my experience with the attempts by NSTIC to do this same thing. Here is the PDF document. IPTF-Kaliya-2
I will in time work to publish it in blog sized sections online so it is more internally linkable (starting with an index from this post). Until then enjoy.
Facilitation
Alignment of Stakeholders around the many NSTIC Goals
The Many Goals for the Identity Ecosystem & NSTIC Governance
The NSTIC governance NOI articulates many key activities, qualities and goals for a governance system for NSTIC. NSTIC must:
- convene a wide variety of stakeholders to facilitate consensus
- administer the process for policy and standards
- development for the Identity Ecosystem Framework in accordance with the Strategy’s Guiding Principles
- maintain the rules of participating in the Identity Ecosystem
- be private sector-led
- be persistent and sustainable
- foster the evolution of the Identity Ecosystem to match the evolution of cyberspace itself.
Achieving these goals will require high-performance collaboration amongst the steering group and all self-identified stakeholder groups. It will also require earning the legitimacy from the public at large and using methods that surface their experience of the Identity Ecosystem Framework as it evolves.
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Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders
This is the “punchline section” (in my response it is after what is below…the history of collaboration in the identity community):
Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders
In 2004-5 the Identity Gang (user-centric identity community) was 1/10 the size of the current NSTIC stakeholder community. It took us a year of active grassroots effort to develop enough common language and shared understanding to collaborate. NSTIC doesn’t have 5-10 years to coalesce a community that can collaborate to build the Identity Ecosystem Framework. To succeed, the National Program Office must use processes to bring value and insight while also developing shared language and understanding amongst stakeholders participating.
[Read more…] about Proactive Development of Shared Language by NSTIC Stakeholders
Making ID/Social Web Products Better
This Friday I am going to be co-facilitating a day of learning and exchange about Innovation, Design and Serious Games Exchange this Friday in San Francisco. I would like to invite you all to participate. It will be an open space style unconfernece – with attendees creating the agenda – it is open to all.
Last September I took a training with the founder of Innovation Games Luke Hohmman (to be a game facilitator) and it was amazing set of fun “games” to play with the users/customers of one’s products. Quite different then a focus group in terms of the kind of information that you get about how to shape/design your products. (wikipedia article – details all 12 games and information about selecting the appropriate game)
I know what you are asking how is playing games going to help with my products, workplace or process. I wondered this too….her is a simple example.
I explained one of them (Buy a Feature) this way at the Online Community Unconference – say you have a next generation set of features to build for your product – you have 10 potential features but only time to build a few of them – how do you prioritize/decide about which ones to put in the next release?
Buy a Feature is a game you can play o do this (and it is both online and face to face)
You bring in 10 current customers together and give them each $200 of play money. You give each of your features a cost totaling $3000-$4000 (one might be $100 (really easy to build) $500 (harder/more time) etc.) They must amongst them selves figure out how to spend their $2000 to by a limited set of the 10 features. You could play this with several sets of customers and then gather information about what they want. It helps you make decisions about what to build AND it is fun for them to play the game of “buying” the features they want.
The conference is not limited to “just” innovation games but also includes other design and “serious” games.
- Design games: Offering collaborative design activities within a game format improves idea generation and communication among stakeholders. By shifting focus to the game, power relations and other factors that might hamper idea generation, are downplayed
- Serious games: Ranging from theater improvisation to interactive games technology within non-entertainment sectors, serious games have uses in education, government, health, military, science, corporate training, first responders, and social change
You don’t have to be an expert to attend – if you are just exploring these things we invite you along.
There have been a few companies in the identity space that have used these tools – I just can’t say who.
I am also happy to talk with folks if they are interested in using games to innovate and do better product design in the identity and social web space.
Here is the book if you are interested in learning more.
“Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play” (Luke Hohmann)
Speaking this Spring
I have actually put a bunch of work in to moving all the content that was on the sidebar of my blog up into pages that you can see along the top navigation. They still need some more work but it is good to finally have them there. One of the pages is about upcoming talks.
SXSW Interactive,March 13-17, Austin TX.
I am facilitating a panel about OpenID, Oauth and the Enterprise. It includes Joseph Smarr, Bob Blakley and Danny Kolke the CEO of Etelos.
This is the description. I hope we broaden it to include other identity technologies too.
The debate over identity, data and authentication is gaining ground in the social networking world. The more difficult discussion regarding enterprises and Web 2.0 has yet to start. Businesses realize that they must protect the data of their company, employees and customers. Join brave leaders from several Web Application companies that are beginning the discussion – Are OpenID and OAuth good for the enterprise?
I will be facilitating a Peer 2 Peer session at the RSA security conference April 23, 10:40-11:30 on the topic Claims-Based Identity – What is the Business Case?
The user-centric identity community has been working on information cards an open standard for claims based identity architecture (as opposed to a network end-point architecture). The big question that arises is “what is the business case?” This session will be an open discussion around the existing and potential business models and cases for such a meta-system to emerge.
I am speaking at Community 2.0, on Identity Across Communities – Tools for Making it Real. May 13, 2009 San Francisco, CA
This presentation will cover the core user-centric identity technologies that are emerging to support people being able to port their identifiers and information about themselves between websites. The goal is to make it easier for people to share information along with support the emergent social effects like trust that come from persistence across time and space and ultimately build stronger communities faster. The tools include OpenID, Open Social, Information Cards, The Relationship Button from Project VRM (Vendor Relationship Management).
Online Community Unconference East
I am heading out east in February and will do several identity related events – more on those by the end of the week.
I will be once again facilitating Forum One Networok‘s Online Community Unconference East February 11. Bill Johnston has been great to work with on this event and has extended early bird for $145 registration until the Jan 22nd.
The Online Community Unconference East is a gathering of online
community professionals – managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors – to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. Those involved in online community development (and social software in general) share many common challenges: community management, tools, marketing, business models, legal issues. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners.
At all the online community unconferences I have offered a session about identity technologies. I am hoping that some community members working on OpenID and Information Card maybe even some ID-WSF and SAML folks too. will also join me at the event. It is a great opportunity to talk with actual adopters/potential adopters of these technologies they represent hundreds of thousands of users and because of the focus on online community managers – there is an emphasis on the human side of things not just “business models” or “technical how to”
DIDW Panel on Internet Scale Identity
Here are the slides for the talk. Will write more about this panel after it happens.
Supernova Open Space June 19th – come talk about Identity
I am working with Supernova to facilitate their Open Space day on June 19th at Warton West this is going to be great. It is basically free with a price of $25 (this is so that people who say they are coming actually do).
The Supernova Open Space Workshop is an open forum on the social, moral, technical, and strategic questions impacting the increasingly connected world in which we live. Discussions about topics like user control, neutrality, identity and open standards are setting the stage for future policies and economic decisions. Come to this event to learn more, participate in the community and shape the future of the New Network.
Doc is going to be actively involved and hosting active conversations around Vendor Relationship Management. I hope we can also dive into other aspects of identity and the next web.
Creating Spaces for Innovation and Conversation
I have just gotten back into the swing of things – reading all the blogs I should be etc. I am starting off where I put things down about two months ago (I have 4000+ posts to scan/read in my identity streams folder).
Reading this post by Mary I remember the citizens jouranlism day that was less then ideal. The whole event got me thinking about the art and skill involved in creating good containers for people to gather in. The day was a disaster on a bunch of levels.
- First of all there was no clear map to get to the location. After we arrived Mary and I made a sign out of a paper bag to make sure others coming after us would actually know where to turn in.
- It was summer in SF at the Precido – for those of you who don’t know that means it will likely be very cold, windy and foggy. People were not warmed of this and so basically everyone was freezing.
- This was a meeting about internet citizen journalism – I had assumed we would be meeting in a building with wifi – not the case.
- When one calls an event and it has a start time – it is good for the host to actually show up prior to that time to welcome folks. Our host that day arrived an hour late and got to saying hello to everyone at 1.5 hours after the stated start time.
- It is good to feed people at events – so there was some effort made in this direction – hotdogs and hambergers. No one was really organized to actually cook the food. Two of the women who were just there to participate ended up taking the lead in preparing food. They had not volunteered for this role before hand but no one was doing it so they stepped in and cooked.
- After introductions concluded we all moved down to the internet archive – this was a packed room and 30+ people were trying to have one conversation. We were all looking to the organizers for some structure to the conversation – none was really provided.
- I am told that after I left the conversation did get better.
I am not writing this to be purely critical but to highlight some real world examples of the challenges that aries when organizing in person event. Consciousness about how to bring people together could be further cultivated in this community. 40 amazing people were asked to and willingly volunteered 6 hours of their time on a SUNDAY to join this discussion. More attention and for thought could have been given to the container created.
This metaphor of the container is one that comes from my work in spiritual activism. How are you going to honor peoples time and the gifts they are bringing to what ever purpose you have. This container involves the whole of the event:
- the initial intention
- who is included in manifesting the intention
- who is invited
- choice of process and facilitation
- proposed goals outcomes
- the physical aspects of the event –
- Location – inside/outside – bigroom/lots of small rooms – bathrooms or not
- nourishment needs (food and drink)
The creation of a strong community container is one of the keys to success for online worlds too. Claire from SUN has this post referencing Caterina Fake about how they (FLICKR) focused (and continue to focus) very strongly on the container of community. This positive field of feedback has drawn energy towards them.
People are more likely to work well together well not only when they have a common interest or shared set of goals – but also when there is a personal connection. I try to work well with most people, but I’m much more motivated to to cut people slack when I know a little bit about who they are, when I can tease them about their taste in a band called FloggingMolly, when I know that they like to delve into 1337 5p34k on occasion, or if I know that her talented brother went to RISD and is friends with the infamous creator of of Andre The Giant Has A Posse.
Caterina Fake of Flickr fame recently blogged about building a flickricious sense of community (gotta love that word) – and the importance of personal connections caught my eye. One relevant quote from Caterina – the part about personal – and authentic – communication is at the end of the paragraph:
“In the beginning, the creators of the community space have to create the tone and attitude of the place, set the parameters of what is and what is not allowed, and participate heavily, engaging directly with other people, mercilessly kicking/banning trolls, creating a real sense of there being a there there. Friendster, and the banning of “Fakesters” is often used as an example of a misunderstanding of online community — but I think this misunderstanding went back further, to the beginning. I was an early member of Friendster and, the first message I got was from the founder. “How do you like the service?” he asked, and not — and this is really the crux of it — “Pynchon! Man, how can you read that stuff! DeLillo is 10X better.” or “ZEPPELIN ROX! Zoso is my favorite album!!!” I’d filled out a profile. See what I mean?”
What’s the conclusion? Growing the OpenSolaris community is going to involve building lots of these personal connections. Personal and authentic, not stiff and corporate. Cool.
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