All in good time

Johannes Ernst, in a blog post entitled Why Digital Identity Matters, poses the broad question answered by the post's title. In the text though, he redirects the message to wonder, "Why this, not that?" In response to his invitation for comment and feedback, I offer the following.

Johannes, to answer your question:

Is Digital Identity only important to a small minority . . . who have drunk the Cool [sic] Aid, or is the Digital Identity cause inevitably going to take over the world at some time?

Yes. But it's not an either/or question situation. Digital Identity ("d-ID") is now only important to those of us who have quaffed the Kool Aid. It will be important to increasing numbers of others over time. Whether it "takes over the world" all depends on what that means. If the question is whether identity -- especially for/of people -- will be manifested broadly in some digital form, then the answer is self-evidently "yes." It has and is moving that way already. If the question is whether some accepted standard form for representing "identity" -- whatever that turns out to be when we've finished our fun fights -- on the Internet and in other ethereal worlds will eventually supplant pervasively all other forms and systems around the world, only a fool (not a visionary) would stake more than a nickel on the guess.

But that's not really where you were hoping to go with your post, I suspect. Your appropriately more earnest question is, I think, "Why are we splashing around in the shallows of an institutionally-framed, banal discussion about security, costs, and efficiency rather than rising to a visionary one focused on the power for d-ID to have a transformational effect on humans and society as we know it?" (My apologies for the hyperbole.) Well, to be glib, d-ID just isn't quite as significant as the move from foraging to agricultural society; it isn't the wheel, moveable type and the printing press, or the steam engine. As much as I too believe in the game-changing value of d-ID to unlock greater potential of Internet-based Electronic Communications, I can't see it. And that is why the visionary discussion can't happen yet beyond the ranks of the believers and the faithful.

I have to admit that I'm at a bit of a loss to imagine how your tool of empowerment (no. 5 in your list) would or could catch hold. These things tend to arise organically. Perhaps it's merely my cynical eye, but would "quixotic" not be as apt a description for "If you and me could claim our place in cyberspace, just like corporations . . . we could create a shift in the relative distribution of power from big companies to the individual," as it is for where you've used it appropriately in reference to stirring up excitement for the mundane? People generally die or get hurt on such campaigns and so far there hasn't been much success -- which is not to suggest that the battles are unwarranted but merely that what sounds great as a vision gets ugly on the battlefield.

You say you want a revolution . . .
John Lennon

More than pedantic jibing though, I fail to see "transformational" value in the three examples you list toward the end of the post. With all due respect to Marc Canter's idea and the personal value digital lifestyle aggregation could bring to people, it sounds like a relatively trivial convenience (think: all-in-one remote control). Hardly lives up to the billing of being "potentially tremendous and tremendously valuable consequences all across society" [emphasis mine]. Your own Situational Software strikes me similarly. Quite likely of significance to the creation of an anyhow, anywhere capability for device, application, and service use, but probably won't shift society too much. As for PeopleWeb, I find the idea interesting but can't get a hold on the practicalities of it whether in the health record domain or the online buying-selling paradigm. Wasn't the premise of Priceline the same sort of inversion? Does anybody know how they're doing or if the business model has migrated anywhere else? Did Priceline require d-ID to work?

In any event, let me take a stab at the reasons why we collectively might be focused on the first four of your listed application areas and not the fifth. (Although I suspect you were being a little disingenuous and well understand why. You may be disappointed by and disagree with it, but I'm sure you understand.)

For better or worse, our world is not presently framed and certainly not rewarded with a bias toward improvement of society and the human experience. Particularly since the late 18th-century but especially through the last half of the 1900s, our dominant perspective has been increasingly the commercial. Since roughly the same time -- maybe a little earlier -- our frame for commerce has been corporate. Corporations have purely monetary (self-)interests. Three of your four areas reduce to corporate interest: efficiency, cost externalization, and security/risk elimination. John Shewchuk, as a recent and a propos example, very candidly stated to Scott Cantor (at a Digital Identity World session) that a socially beneficial act on Microsoft's part -- to open its code to standards bodies, et al -- had not happened because it's not in Microsoft's interest. Don't blame Microsoft or any other corporation; they act in their own "personal" interest.

Vision is hard to sell. Gates (I seem Microsoft-fixated) was laughed at when he'd say, "a computer on every desktop." McNealy likely got quizzical if not skeptical reactions to his claims that the network is the computer. Nobody ever got excited about processor chips or databases. Yet all of these have come to fruition and the breadth of society is no longer laughing. In the early days (which these are for d-ID) there is a challenge for most people to differentiate between vision and hallucination. Since we -- and here let's specifically refer to business people in general, professional investors, analysts, and so forth -- are generally more comfortable with what we can "prove" (again, a pervasive logos-based approach to the world that began in and has gained predominance since the mid-17th-century) visions are typically for the faithful (requiring mythos (myth-based) rather than logos (logical) thinking).

Although you avoided the government area to "keep politics out of [it]," this is as close as we might get to an actor willing to invest in and make forefront human social development. Rather than fix on the "terrible" side of government that wants to control and protect (its own state interests) and in doing so become an invasive "Big Brother," we might consider government as a function of ourselves and our society to drive development of d-ID (or whatever). Phil Becker was part of a program (or two) that would likely never have happened without government. The benefits that derive from those types of initiatives end up benefiting all. We all know about by-products of government development: aeronautics and other wide-ranging technologies, Teflon(!), and so forth. Most of these eventually become commercial activities and society-changing after the hard development work is done by "the people."

On the issue of development, would it surprise you know that hard R&D (i.e., for its own sake) used to be funded and supported by private interests such as IBM’s labs? Not any more. The vast majority is government funded: directly or via university institutes. The point here is the final and obvious summary for why corporate interests are coming first in d-ID at this time: there's no money in it except (maybe!) in serving the compliance, cost-efficiency, and security needs of businesses and governments.

It's not sexy, but it pays the bills.

Will a society-changing impact be felt? Maybe, but only after the various immediate corporate interests are served and there is an easy (and obvious) potential for profit. Don't expect too much either as it is a (non-existent) highly-enlightened corporation that would willingly cede power to the masses.

It is up to the believers to keep the faith and follow the vision while doing what's necessary between now and then. Viva la revolucion!

Posted by Grayson at June 9, 2005 12:05 PM