This clip from Extras has spawned a new guiding principal for me: stick to obvious explanations.
Acting is a notoriously mysterious phenomenon - and there are volumes of critical theory explaining how to act. Yet here is Ian Mckellen providing a profoundly simple explanation - "I pretend to be the character" - and by stating the blatantly obvious he sheds more true light on professional acting than 100 hours of high brow Actors Studio interviews.
I've spent a fair portion of the last 7 years of my professional life briefing business and technical audiences on the ins and outs of Internet identity - another notoriously mysterious phenomenon - so I always keep my ears open for clear, compelling, operational explanations for the value of portable identity.
Earlier this week I heard a particularly well spoken customer describe their efforts with SAML this way:
"We're using federated identity to help make a market for data that has traditionally been locked away."
Describing the impact of portable identity as "making markets" gets right to the point. How many potential markets are out there that are shackled by silo'd identity data? One well documented example is airline loyalty schemes. There is no market for my future loyalty - even though based on my past travel history, my future loyalty is a valuable asset. Why is there no market? (Note to readers: to get the full effect, ask that question in an Ian McKellen voice) Because my identity as a frequent traveler is locked to specific vendors.
The VRM movement is aimed squarely at making markets out of such silos - and its already quite clear that secure, portable Internet identity is a key enabling technology for VRM.
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