Roger Sullivan Blog

I live in an old New England town. In fact, it can claim ancestry right back to the Mayflower Pilgrims. As a way to put this into context, allow me to describe how various townsfolk are categorized into five distinct social strata.

The most venerable townspeople are called "First Comers." These trace their ancestry directly back to the original founders of the town. In most cases, this is about ten generations. Yes, that's over three hundred years, back to 1639 when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered the original town. Our streets have familiar names of Thacher, Howes and Crowe that remember these brave founding fathers (and mothers) for future generations. Today, descendants with these surnames actively serve on various town committees thereby ensuring that the town's heritage is preserved. To be sure, it also carries an implicit, unquestioned authority on the topics of which they speak or rulings that they make.

The next on the ancestral hierarchy are the "New Comers." Now most of you would probably think that this would relate to the more recent history - say, the past fifty years or so. Nay, nay fair reader! New Comers simply mean those who came after the First Comers. However, not just anyone qualifies for this honor. It really refers to those who arrived in the time shortly after the town had begun to grow - namely about 1676. The exact demarcation date is unclear. But, rest assured that the living - or even recently departed - definitely do not qualify.

We, who live and work here year-round, are simply "residents." We are not natives, nor ever will be. I must say that this is typical of most any New England town. For those of us who live in and love New England, it's simply part of the charm. For people from other parts of the country, it is a very challenging concept. Indeed, for some it is so off-putting that they can't accept it and think New Englanders "cold" or "aloof" or "distant." Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that New Englanders tend to think in the long term. Fast friendships come slowly. Trust comes even slower. Even our children, born and raised in the town, would not ever be called a "native." I find that this term isn't used very much in New England. You're either of long lineage or it's simply not worth mentioning what situation you happened to have been born into.

Now come the more interesting categories - at least as the average person in the 21st Century might be concerned. After all, we "Late Comers" (my term) must accept the fact that we have no hope of achieving the first two distinctions - just as a commoner in the Middle Ages wouldn't dream of becoming royalty. It simply isn't possible. These latter two categories recognize that the town, because of its proximity to the ocean, has a significant influx of summer visitors. These visitors are described as either "Summer People" or simply "tourists." Summer People are really homeowners have purchased property, pay taxes (thank you very much!) and spend time at these (typically second) homes during the summer months.

The proper term (per the local Chamber of Commerce) for the last category is "visitor." But mostly that's when they're shopping or dining, enriching the economy with their dollars - US or Canadian, North American or EUROs - thank you very much! When they're driving their SUVs or Class A motor coaches and clogging up the roadways originally designed as cow paths, they're definitely just plain old "tourists." After all, how many folks from the central USA where the streets are all at right angles know how to properly execute a "Rotary?" This is the same as a Roudabout for our British readers - but simply done in the opposite direction. (Easy for me to say.) By the way, the term "paving the cow path" is a New England colloquialism that means to do something in the way it's always been done. It derived from the way that the streets in Boston started out as cow paths leading to Boston Common where the cattle were brought to graze. It was simply easier to pave the paths over rather than to move the buildings that had sprung up around them. The Boston "Big Dig" project is a great example of the cost of "revisionist development." Perhaps there will be more on this in a future posting.

So, you see even in a quaint old New England town whose year-round population is about 13,000, swelling to about twice that number in the summer, Identity is very meaningful - indeed "everything" - and underscores a great deal about one's standing in the community.

Identity is about personal relationships. It is about trust. And, as I said, trust comes slowly. Identity immediately categorizes one as a long-term town resident with deep roots versus a person who may be just passing through. Not that there's anything wrong with passing through. It simply means that we'll probably have a different trust relationship.

This carries over directly into a business context. After all, we cannot separate who we are into a private individual versus a business individual. We are all just individuals who seek to operate seamlessly in both a private and business context. One can easily ask a long time resident, "Who's a good plumber?" Or, "Do you know a good restaurant?" Or, "What insurance agent do you use?" The answer you'll get is undoubtedly just as truthful as the answer you'd get in any other part of the country. I'll take the assumptive position that no one seeks to deceive. The difference here is that the answer is going to have additional, subtle, value-based attributes that come along with it. The person answering is aware that at some level his or her own reputation has been put on the line by answering the question. It's simply the way many New Englanders think. "If I give a bad answer, my neighbor [who asked the question] perhaps is going to think twice about asking me about something more important."

And New Englanders have long memories. Trust once broken is very hard to regain.

The same is true in today's business world. As our world becomes ever more interconnected, we must rely on driving our relationships closer and closer. But, at the same time, we must have sufficient self-protection mechanisms in place so as to protect our assets, our secrets, and other information that doesn't need to be disclosed in this particular transaction.

Identity Management is about doing just that. Identity Management helps us unambiguously identify who a person is and what that person is entitled to do. By doing so, one can be sure of the "lineage" of the person with whom one is having the relationship - perhaps even though one has never met the person face-to-face and have no direct way to verify their authenticity.

We are assailed today by identity-related threats: spoofing, pfishing, and outright identity theft. Our instincts would tell us to build the (virtual) walls higher to prevent anyone outside from accessing our internal applications and data. But this is not realistic. We must develop more appropriately intimate electronic relationships with our customers, partners, and employees. Not to do so puts us at a disadvantage with our competitors who have already embarked on this path. If we do create these electronic identity-based relationships, we can synergistically grow ever-expanding dynamic interconnections based on strongly authenticated identities. These new relationships will allow us to create and support new business models not possible in a manual authentication model.

A number of solutions are available in this space. There is already significant market adoption and new innovative approaches to solving these business challenges. Oracle has acquired several first class identity management companies and is aggressively bringing a suite of solutions to market based on the synergistic combination of these best of breed products.

In the coming posts, I'll expand on these ideas.