This video is the first of eight parts of a panel discussion from RSA 2009: Panel of Identity Organizations. This panel discussion is a bit technical, with speakers talking about standards and how things work (or not). RSA, the company hosting this conference, is involved in security, cryptography, and related technologies.
The entire series in this panel discussion is about an hour long. Sometimes I don’t mind listening to discussions that are over my head in terminology or technical detail if I can take away a general idea of where things are. From this hour, I came to understand the following things:
- open source, and more importantly open standards, are key to developing interoperable tools
- making all of these ideas work together is “in progress” as there are lots of pieces in each idea
- it’s tough to find a balance between putting us in control and giving us too much to control
- there are many bright and determined minds working on this
Coaching moment: I’m optimistic that a day will come in which you can choose to represent yourself with greater detail. For example, you may not wish to “friend” everyone who asks you on Facebook or MySpace, and you might not follow everyone back on Twitter. If you did, you might want to choose to see (or not see) certain people in your friend or twitter streams every day. It will be easy to, say, turn off “loudmouthguy” for a few days, or “use this account to log into those other accounts.”
Mind boggling, eh? Here’s the secret: it all gets down to trust and attention. Both are your most valuable assets.
Who in your life do you trust most? Who would you like to pay greatest attention to? Now imagine some form of customimized slider bars that you could adjust for everyone you know: from 0 (not much trust or attention) to 10 (alert me if this person says anything). Once you set this up, what would your world be like?