A few nights ago, I was graciously treated to the group dinner at the Identity North conference, in Toronto.  I had the opportunity to reacquaint with people I hadn’t seen since DigitalID World, in San Francisco, many years ago.  Returning readers might recall writings I’d done years ago on this subject (located here). Last night was the first chance in a long time to be in the presence of a cluster of identity-thinking folks.  It was a most enjoyable deja vu.  Many new faces but it was almost like I hadn’t been redirected in my own work activities for six or seven years.

My assessment, based on a mere few hours and a limited number of conversations that captured the observer-participant essence of the day’s proceedings–not the actual event itself, is that the entire space remains stubbornly in neutral.  The demand and opportunity has grown from a dull background buzz to a full-throated roar in many parts of the commercial/social world. The technology has become more reliable and entrenched. The discussion is more polished (like the difference between a cocktail napkin drawing and a PowerPoint slide, if you know what I mean). But beneath the polish the discussion still feels like a walk through a Middle Eastern bazaar.

That sounds negative, and I suppose it is.  Basically, what I saw was a lot of passionate people with passionate opinions (almost) violently agreeing with each other… but not.  The challenge that was most significant six years ago persists:  there seems to be an almost near absence of agreed definition for what constitute the objects, intents, and activities of this sector. It’s still way too loose, a condition that makes it possible to both agree and disagree at the same time on just about everything.

If one were to read the scribblings I pointed to above, one would notice a decided bent toward a philosophical argument. I think that is a critical first step in practically anything, which today comes out in popular trade paperbacks as Start with Why or The Power of Why. But, at the end of the day, that is the domain of academics and long-dead “thinkers.” By this point in the development of “digital identity,” a much more practical and pedestrian perspective has to be applied. The fulsome debates about angels, pins, and polkas that I love so much are a circular cotillion. To get pragmatic everything needs to be define, whether everyone likes it or not.

Let me provide an example.

One of the discussions I had was with Dick Hardt, a man of passionate opinions who I can appreciate and respect because of that.  This is not to say that I agree with Dick.  A discussion I had with him and a few others is indicative though.  We talked about what is or constitutes identity, provoked by a comment made to Dick that address (of residence) was not part of identity, which bled into an inquisition of the purpose of the identity.

If I have captured Mr. Hardt’s position even close to correctly, he believes that identity is the sum of all (transient) traits attributable to an individual over the course of that person’s life, all of which constitutes a prevailing identity.  That being, the “handle” by which an individual can be identified in any given circumstance.  Any subset–or perhaps any given related attribute–thereby constitutes part of an individual’s “identity.”

My own thoughts were rusty and stagnant from disuse.  Though I think my arguments got more on point as the discussion wore on, I didn’t do a counterpoint much justice.  It was later, in my hotel room, that pieces started falling back into place.  (For instance, Dick, you cannot change the colour of your eyes:  you can represent them as a different colour with contact lenses but that blue hue under your eyebrows tends to persist for you as an individual.)  What I was inelegantly trying to get across is that the issue being argued–whether an attribute is a feature of or a fundamental element of identity–is pointless and unproductive.

Let’s use an example devoid of people to put this into bold relief.

We were standing amid tables for 12 at the Rosewood Supper Club.  So let’s assume there is a salt shaker on the table.  It is relatively non-descript:  glass, silver top with holes in it, white substance inside.  Being alone, this salt shaker is relatively easily identified as (a) a class of thing, and (b) as an individual, unique thing.  Simple.  Now let’s assume that I have purloined that salt shaker as my own AND that it is now amidst the salt shakers from all the other tables (wait staff having collected table settings to clear away the other tables).  I want to have my salt shaker to take home for my collection, but I can’t be sure which one it is.  Because they all look essentially alike and the salt content is not of concern to me, I might review the full set and pick the one that is the best sample.  Again, relatively straight forward.  If I really wanted to get the one that had been on my table, I could try to remember that its lid was undented and it was less than half full of salt.

In these cases, the “identity” of the specific salt shaker was not especially material until the last instant.  Even then, I wouldn’t be heart-broken if I got the wrong one.  The attributes of the salt shakers:  material flaws and marring, salt content, where they had been and where they were now are all, arguably and if one could trace it all, part of the “identity” of that salt shaker if one pursues the line of thought that every attribute is intrinsically part of identity.  That said, while true its not really relevant in this case.

So let’s change the situation a bit.  These salt shakers have now been put into the storage area (and I did not grab “mine,” though I did manage to put my name on its bottom).  In the storage area, the seven essentially identical salt shakers are comingled with another 200 similar shakers.  Unfortunately, the previous owner of those shakers before the supper club had used them to hold and distribute arsenic.  The management of the supper club agreed that I could have “my” shaker and I’ve been told that I can ask a busboy to go to the stockroom and get “my” shaker for me.  Management told me I could have the shaker on the condition that I sprinkled its content into a bowl of soup and ate it.  This, now, poses a challenge and risk.  But I REALLY want the shaker.

So I have to place some faith in the busboy to establish the correct shaker when he goes to the stock room.  When he comes back, I will have a shaker.  In this case, though, I’m not interested in whether it qualifies as a member of the class “shaker,” or if it is a shaker that appears to be the one that I acquired.  It has to be THE shaker.  That’s what I need:  certainty that I’ve got the exact right thing.  The consequences could be fairly high otherwise.

What does this silly scenario tell us?  It’s silly only inasmuch as the thing is a shaker and not a person.  Otherwise, it is almost completely equivalent to our desires vis a vis “digital identity” and online activity–excepting, of course, that most salt shakers are not terribly concerned about their privacy.

What the scenario tells us, first and foremost, is that nobody is practically interested in identity.  Nobody cares if some small and special group of attributes about a thing constitute its “identity” or if a full historical listing of attributes from time to time is required.  What everyone cares about, at any given time, is the THING.  That’s right.  In the case of digital identity about people, it’s well to remember that what we care about is the unique individual (shaker) that we are engaged with online.  We don’t care that we are engaged with a cluster of attributes because arguably many could have the same set of attributes.  We’re interested in THAT ONE unique entity.  And, frankly, we don’t care how that is assured.

“Assurance” is the other matter.  We want to be “assured” that we have the right thing in our sights.  We seek some measure of certainty because that’s how the human mind (and business) works.  The gap between certainty and “what is” is known as risk.  That gap is covered by money in one way or another; ask an actuary or life insurance executive.

So, circling back around to my point, I think the entire sector and people working in it would be well served if there were some definitions made and agreed to, and some conventions accepted.

1.  The thing we’re interested in is the unique individual.  A unique individual has a certain set of unchanging features that constitute who (s)he is.  These are the core of the identity per se.

2.  “Identity” is a construct that represents a way to “identify” such a unique individual based on attributes that are attached to that unique individual.

3.  “Attributes” are those elements and identifiers attached to an individual that make it feasible to point to a desired target individual.  Note that here I get a little weasely because some attributes might point to a class rather than an individual.  Attributes can be permanent (e.g., eye colour and fingerprints) or transient (i.e., address); most are transient.  The triangulation toward certainty about the individual is based on a set of attributes that are or can be attached to a unique individual.

4.  Credential (digital or otherwise) is a verified artefact that allows a secondary entity to place some measure of faith in an assertion that a unique individual and an attribute are (presently) connected.  For any given purpose, this credential will afford greater or lesser certainty about the unique individual.  The point being that, like for the salt shaker, some times imperfect assurance is satisfactory.  (In the gym, I might be identified as the guy in the blue shorts–or sweating profusely.  At the bank this might be neither satisfactory nor sufficient–or true for that matter.)

The long and the short of it is that until the digital identity cognoscenti lay down reasonable definitions and stop allowing all discussions to float around haphazardly, the pragmatic development we all hope for will be delayed by agreed disagreement.

BTW:  I retain the right to amend the example based on feedback and on rethinking as it plays out.  There could be ongoing evolution to the details of the example I created (which, by the way, probably works better amid rounds of banquet tables…)

Recently, I listened to the audio version of John Kotter’s 1996 book, Leading Change.  It’s a good book–at least within the distractions of driving a daily commute and jogging on a treadmill.  But this isn’t a book review.  I only mention it because the book ends with an argument about how everyone’s a leader, etc., etc.  This meme has struck me as a faintly ridiculous babble for as long as I’ve been swimming in the overwhelming tide of  “business” rhetoric.  This morning, I think it became clear.

The bottom line (another bit of business language) “leader” is a more 21st-century word than “manager.”  It’s vogue.  Rhetorically, its use feeds off of and makes the notion of a leader more appropriate in a business setting…  After all, a “manager” cuts not a dashing swath through the unknown for the greater glory of the organization. A manager deals with the mundane quotidian activities that actually constitute business. But it’s not much to rally around. And, “follower” is pejorative–who wants to be that when you could be a “leader?”

The basic argument underneath the statements that use some form of the phrasing is that everyone in any part of the administrative (and, apparently, the operational) part of the organization can be and is, in fact, a leader.  Being a leader, they say is not preordained by genes or a benevolent god, with only some being intrinsically leaders and all others followers.  Everyone has the capacity to be a leader and should release that ability to be a leader within the organization. It would make the organization better, continues the argument. The essential syllogism is that (a) if everyone can be a leader, and (b) leadership moves organizations faster, then(c) there should be more leaders.  QED

Sadly, this feel-good pablum has no substance and is not filling.  By definition a social system (i.e., an organization) that is nothing but leaders (“hawks” rather than “doves,” if you prefer; “chiefs” not “indians” if you’re feeling more politically incorrect; “chefs in the kitchen,” etc.) is anarchy.  Anarchy is not especially known for its radically rapid, directed progress. On those occasions when a social system marked by anarchy moves, it is a pure crap shoot to guess where that will be.  Any board of directors or group of shareholders that endorses and encourages such a philosophy and practice ought to very serious re-evaluate how it marshals its resources and assets.

Then there is the whole feel-good, everyone-gets-a-participant-ribbon red herring that anyone can be a leader.  Usually this ridiculous notion is trotted out in the form of a “nurture not nature” or “learned ability” or “no divine gift” statement–or extended discussion.  The horse stands no chance of winning, but it looks really good for the audience.  It’s appearance is, ironically, for effect only.  And that effect is to convince people who are not leaders and are not in leadership positions that they are something that every shred of evidence would indicate they are not (at least within the structure of their work-day organization and social system).  How empowering is that?  Even if the notion were being promoted genuinely and with the objective of giving every non-leader the confidence to lead (which, usually, means “to act” without being told every single thing), you don’t need to be terribly cynical to see how the power structure is spinning the powerless.

I’ll concede for just one moment that everyone can be a leader.  It is abundantly possible, I suppose.  There is a time and a place for everyone to lead.  That time might not be during M-F, 9-5; but everyone can be a leader.  But just because everyone can be a leader does not mean everyone should be a leader at every given moment.  I could regress back to the earlier logic of the essential requirement for a leader to necessarily have followers except in an anarchic system.  But I see no reason for that.  Typically, all systems are subordinate to other greater systems.  So, let’s say that a middle manager in a functional department is responsible for a cluster of employees.  That would make this woman that group’s leader.  It’s true.  Were the system only that large, she is definitely “the” leader.  Alas, she is in turn one of a larger cluster of colleagues and their respective employees beholden to another leader.  Ergo, she is a follower too.  And she MUST follow; so her so-called leadership is actually managing the execution of her leader’s (and her leader’s leader’s) direction.  And it’s turtles all the way up…

There is nothing wrong with being a follower.  It is essential in any social system.  Besides, if we were all paying attention, we’d notice the essential duality of role for anyone not at the very bottom or the very top of any organizational structure.

Finally, let’s just put a quick end to the whole business of God granting leadership qualities to born leaders as a set up for the argument that it is wrong and anybody can be a leader.  First of all, in the Christian tradition, there is only one such character (and in Judiasm there is none).  That one character is the Messiah, also known as Christ.  And I think we all know how that worked out.  Second, all those leaders that one could point to as being divinely created (at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition) were not.  It makes no difference whether one picks Abraham, Noah, Moses, Saul/Paul, or any other such leader from the Old or New Testaments.  They were all CALLED by God, not created by God, as leaders.  There is a material difference.  (It actually lends support to the idea that anyone can be a leader… so long as they are called to it.  But that’s not my point here.  My point is only to squash this idea of divine creation of leaders.)  Third, at any given time when a called leader was leading, there was only one.  When there were others, if you remember your early childhood Bible stories, things were not smooth or clean.  Finally, even when just ONE such leader was deigned by God, the tribe tended to wander a long time without direction.  The Good Book tells us that adding more leaders to the mix rarely made things better.

Leaders lead.  Managers manage for the leader.  For a leader there must be followers.  It’s not wrong or bad.  It is.

Silly and abstruse headline, I know.  But some days are better than others.  What the title is supposed to lead toward is a comment about the pervasiveness of “the place is collapsing, but I’m OK”-ness going on everywhere.  The opportunities to find this run from gated communities in high crime areas to happy economic sectors (even in Greece) among what is not unduly described as utter ruin.  For my part, the next few paragraphs will be about levels of government.

As a citizen of Canada, living in the province of Ontario, subject to the municipal responsibility of the city of Ottawa, and as a non-entirely daft observer, I’ve become troubled by the pathological, ideology-driven finger-pointing among levels of government in these times.  What are “these times?”  Well, for the sake of simplicity, they are a fatigued economy marked by many years of excessive living beyond our societal means despite a negligent awareness and inactivity toward a coming glut of economically-draining seniors and an absence of supporting youth, never mind a wickedly hollowed out working class.  In short and in the words of Bob Dylan, “A hard rain’s a gonna fall,” and we’re without a viable umbrella.

Through all this, since 2009, the federal government (Conservative) did what was responsible and supported the economy with government (deficit) spending.  Today it is in the throws of breaking its arm patting itself on the back about how well it did and how much faster than even anticipated the federal government would be back on track, having corrected the financial hole of the past few years.  Here’s one example:  Ottawa narrows budget deficit faster than expected.

At the same time, the provincial government (Liberal) is at war with its teacher and Lord knows who else because, after spending a term in government trying to correct the terrible condition of education in the province (which it inherited), the corrective action turned itself into a progressive entitlement.  That there was no material systemic improvement to education in Ontario gained by the corrective action should make all of us wonder about its value, but I digress.  In any case, the province has the right to raise taxes but receives transfer payments for national demands made on it for programs that the federal government insists upon but does not manage.  Read, “health care.”  Bottom line:  the ballooning cost of health care is only one of the provincial obligations that is presently unsustainable without additional revenue.  (At another time we can explore the crack-addict mentality of the provincial gambling business strategy.)  That, excluding provincial gambling, usually means taxes of some form.  The provinces, except maybe Alberta, are under pressure.  So, to the fullest extent possible they do the reasonable thing and lay it off on…

The municipalities are where politics is knee to knee and toe to toe.  Federal and, to a lesser degree, provincial politicians get more money and have a higher profile, but at the end of the day, the ones that have to deal with constituents on things that matter most, most often and closest to home are the mayor and aldermen and reeves and councillors of the municipal governments.  And they get the shaft.  Mostly this is because they have their own obligations but also increasingly get downloaded on them less transfer from the provincial tax revenues but more spending (read:  infrastructure).  And, let’s face it, they wouldn’t be politicians if they didn’t promise and commit to no tax increases.  We are all taxed to death and property taxes are among the most obvious and, for some reason, hurtful.  But who’s going to fix the roads, keep the bridges safe, maintain the water works, get rid of the waste, and all the other (ideally) invisible costs of living in an urban society.  It’s not the feds or province.  So, slowly, the municipalities do less and less and ask for more and more from its ratepayers (higher parking costs, higher transfer and filing fees, fewer books in and shorter hours for the libraries, fewer firefighters and police on the beat…).

What prompted all this was that in the midst of the good news from the federal government about its financial acumen came this bit of news from Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page:  Ottawa doing well but provinces in trouble budget watchdog says.  And he didn’t even go so far (beyond his mandate) as the local government level of Canada’s major 100 municipalities.  It would be a worse tale.  What bothers me, and undoubtedly depresses too many to do anything about it, is why we aren’t more clear about the TOTALITY of our woes.  It’s not like each of these levels of government has entirely distinct constituents or draws on entirely separate tax bases. I, like everyone else, fork out the dough for the needs of each of these levels of government to satisfy my obligation to society.  It should bother all of us that it is so detached and incoherent that the state of vast swathes of my (and your) social well-being is not only hidden and opaque but unconnected and so inefficient that the costs of living in our society demands (for all but the so-called 1%, and even for them as I officially belong to that group but sure don’t feel like it) the lion’s share of our productivity, leaving only the bitter end for anything else.

Where am I going with all this?  I’m not sure and I’m not going to get to the end in this post.  I think it points toward a need for a massive overhaul in the administration of government.  And, by “government,” I mean ALL administration of this nation’s society from the national interest on a global scale right down to what imbecile thinks that leaving garbage outside for two weeks between pickups isn’t going to increase the incidence of urban rats (the little furry kind), causing an entirely new problem.  Technology and the nature of our society today are both dramatically different and have dramatically different demands than when Canada was effectively constituted nearly a century-and-a-half ago.  It’s time for a rethink and an overhaul; and I’m not talking about lipstick for this pig.  It’s time to cook a little bacon.

This story that’s been everywhere (Edmonton teacher who gave 0s for unsubmitted work fired) is, first of all, a distressing commentary on the degradation of our society.  There is, apparently no bar too low that somebody in a position of authority can’t find a way to lower it further.  Great.  That’s how you reach the stars–by digging in the dirt.

As it relates to my favorite subject matter of innovation/productivity, the story is pure bad news.  Not today.  The mewing and puking softies that object to offending poor little Johnny or Sally’s delicate self-esteem can carry on pointing out that no harm is coming of it today.  The real offense to our society, our nation, ourselves will show up in a decade or two.  That’s when we will be even more systemically incapable of collectively fighting our way to something better or greater.

Canadians, as an advertisement or documentary I recently saw suggests, get on with things and figure out how to get through challenges and overcome adversity.  It’s a trait that has generated productivity gains and innovations and discovery for years and year and years.  But, of course, that presumes some measure of challenge and adversity has been present for children to learn how to overcome.

What has this situation shown?  It shows that, at least for this school board, children are not responsible for themselves.  There is no consequence to a self-indulging neglect of obligations.  The demands to get on with it and get through it apparently don’t count even to the extent of merely trying.  What would a child in this division need to do to feel the (very modest, let’s face it) pain of consequence for wantonly ignoring the demands of their work?  Apparently, showing up is enough.  No adversity here.  What’s to happen when these children get their first jobs and decide they don’t want to do the box stacking or french fry cooking they are obliged to do?  Shall they not get a zero (paycheck)?

How can we, here, spend our time prattling on about the dearth and problems of innovation and productivity, of lost ground in comparison to the Scandinavians, the Eastern Europeans, the Indians, and the Chinese when we are witness to a tiny brush fire–perhaps only a spark–that has the potential to annihilate even the possibility of catching up?  I’m making too much of this, of course, because the kids at hand are unlikely to be the ones that align to our (those present and reading this) understanding of the world or to be the ones that our economy depends on.  (Although they could be the ones dependent on our economy…)  The point is not about these kids, but about what they represent for the culture in the future.  The point is not even about the kids but about support for what this teacher was railing against.

Today it is one teacher in Edmonton.  Now others will not take a stand.  In a generation it will be the way things are done and fewer teachers yet will care.  After all, why bother collecting the assignments from the marginal kids; why bother asking them to even do the work?  When teachers don’t care, students don’t learn.  When student’s don’t learn, the quality of our most basic resource for escaping the hewing of wood and drawing of water diminishes.  The national capacity to grow and do better declines.  We become a dependency.

A zero is nothing, which makes it all for nothing…

A few posts back (here), I made a suggestion that government could do better to support the economy, including innovation by investing for its own selfish needs rather than by tinkering around the edges with tax incentives, loans, and other assorted forms of public largess.  I have to admit, this is one of the examples I trot out to make my point about downstream, broader economic and social up- and down-drafts resulting from government doing what it needs to do for itself (i.e., for its citizens) rather than pretending to be venture capital.  I just didn’t expect the example so soon.

Whether the group, which includes, Maj-Gen. Lewis McKenzie will succeed in bringing back to life the Avro Arrow remains to be seen.  More significantly, I supposed, even if it does whether the value would be the same as in the 1960s is another question.  As noted in this article, Will legendary Avro make a Lazarus-like return, a group of people would like to address the DND’s need for fighter jets not with the foreign F-35 but with a Canadian Arrow (offspring).  If it’s just an assembly of foreign technologies and parts, that’s a good start.  If it’s reconstitution of still-valuable (hmmm…) Canadian technologies and a runway (pardon the pun) for the Canadian manufacturer–Avro?– to reinitiate advanced technology development and manufacture not only for the Canadian government but to compete around the world, that’s a whole other thing.  AND, not to put too fine a point on it, if that path leads other Canadian businesses to develop (consumer) products on the back of such infrastructure and capabilities that are created for this (and ongoing) contracts, that’s a virtuous circle.

What else can I say?

Of course, it could be a pipe dream that for good or bad reasons ends as it did in the 1960s… so that the American aviation and defense contractors remain unchallenged here.