My family has always had a close connection to Cape Cod. For all the years when our children were growing, we vacationed on "the Cape" as it's known to anyone in the five New England States. It was nearby, inexpensive, family-friendly, and familiar. It has great beaches, restaurants, and affordable rental houses close to the water. Also, we have always admired and felt closeness to the hearty sprit of the year-round residents.
Throughout the years, Cape Codders have always been "hard core" New Englanders. They were, after all, the descendents of the first pioneers off the Mayflower. There is not much at all to sustain a local economy on the Cape. Therefore, the locals have had to rely on their own ingenuity and hard work to secure a steady revenue source to provide for their families.
Three notable examples of such industries were whaling (discussed in an earlier post), manufacturing salt through a complicated evaporation process, and cranberry bogs. The salt works were used primarily for preserving meat. Finding cheaper salt sources by mining and the advent of refrigeration made the process obsolete. Cranberry bogs are still scattered here and there, however large-scale cranberry farming has moved to other states that have vast tracts of available land near the sea. Most of the Cape's seaside land has sprouted another indigenous phenomenon -- the "trophy house" with million-dollar views and price tags to match. These are far more appealing to developers than a few bushels of cranberries.
We had a small sailboat that we would trailer down and launch from the town ramp in Sesuit Harbor in East Dennis. "Harbor" is perhaps a bit misleading, considering the small size of the place. So, I was surprised to discover recently that previous occupants of that same harbor would have dwarfed my little boat. Moreover, I have since learned that the place is steeped in sailing history that I never would have imagined could have come from such an unassuming place.
As will happen, innovation was born of necessity.
In late 1848, a discovery on the other side of the U.S. continent would again provide an opportunity that innovative "Capers" would seize upon -- gold. When the California Gold Rush began, the supply of men looking to find instant wealth lying in western mountain streams far outstripped the supply chain to provide these men with sustaining provisions. Many arrived by jumping ship from whalers or by horseback, having nothing but the clothes on their backs.
The challenge was to provide flour, meat, shovels, picks, nails and other construction necessities to these thousands of men in a way that was both timely and profitable. Overland routes were useless. It would take six months or more to get material from the eastern U.S. to the West using wagon trains. Even then, many mountain routes were impassable in the winter months. The only realistic way in this pre-Panama Canal era was to sail around another Cape -- Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. This cape is the southern-most of all the Earth's continents and is wickedly treacherous to sail because of the extreme weather and sea conditions. This route was far longer, and, in many ways much more dangerous than going overland. However, a fast ship with an experienced captain and crew could make it in a matter of weeks.
Seizing on this opportunity, the three sons of the accomplished sea-captain Asa Shiverick, David, Paul and Asa Junior decided to make their contribution to Cape Cod's sea-faring tradition by building ships that other captains like their father would sail. Thus was born the Shiverick Shipyard. They would build not just any ships. Rather, they would build "clipper ships," the greyhound cargo vessels of the sea. These were large, heavy ships with sleek lines and many sails to drive them as fast as possible. Lots of sails made for complicated and expensive rigging. In some ways one could think of these builders as early venture capitalists. They had to find the money to build and outfit the ship. Find a competent crew. And most importantly, find a captain to whom they would trust this huge investment.
Eight ships were built and launched from the yards during the years that it operated: Revenue, Hippogriffe, Belle of the West, Kit Carson, Wild Hunter, Web foot, Christopher Hall, and Ellen Sears. These ships were world-renown as the fastest of their kind. So much so that the most important "competitors" in the world -- British ship-builders from England -- sent engineers to examine the lines of the ships and to try and discover what made these boats from a humble Cape Cod ship-yard, situated on tiny Quivet Creek in Cape Cod Bay so incredibly fast. One of the Shiverick Clipper ships fully paid for itself on its maiden voyage; so lucrative was the California trade.
At the dedication of the commemorative stone and plaque that marks the site of the Shiverick shipyard, Captain Thomas Franklin Hall, one of the last surviving clipper ship captains said:
To understand clearly the high standard reached in developing those ships, it should be remembered that they were built during the years when the American Mercantile Marine was in the very zenith of its fame and glory. . . .
When, therefore it is realized that ships from the Shiverick yard were not only equal, but in some technical respects, superior to any in the American fleet, it is more than gratifying to local pride;. . . It was a masterful undertaking. . . to establish such an enterprise in such a quiet spot, on the banks of such a small stream. Yet it is due entirely to the modesty and reticence of those giant intellects that this village is not renown for the masterpieces it sent out. . .
Those were great years; great events; great men.[1]
The gold rush was an inflection point for shipping technology. Prior to 1849, long-range shipping to the Orient was important to be sure. However, there was not the urgency required of cargoes of silk and spices that equaled that of flour and shovels for the "Forty-Niners," as the gold rush participants came to be known. Clipper ships were known to be fast, but now they needed to be even faster and built in greater quantities to meet the market demands. That market need drove shipping technology to the next level in order to meet the need. Ship builders started to "standardize" on similar building designs, techniques, and rigging in order to maximize efficiency across the entire development and operating process.
The Identity Management (IdM) market is at a similar inflection point.
I was privileged to host a "Concordia" workshop at the recent Catalyst Conference in San Francisco. Concordia was initiated by the Liberty Alliance as a neutral forum to discuss deployers' needs for interoperability among various identity management technologies. Concordia is named for the Roman goddess of marital harmony. We hope she will be an inspiration for similar harmony in the IdM space.
Participating in the workshop were five deployers: AOL, The Boeing Company, the Canadian Province of British Columbia, General Motors, and the U.S. General Services Administration. Each of these organizations described their experiences in deploying IdM, difficulties that they had to overcome because of lack of standardized interoperability, and some of their forward thinking plans for additional deployments.
On the technology panel listening to these deployers' needs were experts from the leading IdM standards space: WS-*, Liberty Alliance/SAML, and OpenID.
I think it is fair to say that these future roll-outs are somewhat impeded by the lack of existing clean interoperation among these technologies as well as a lack of clear direction for how these initiatives with work in harmony with each other in the future.
Permit me to use this venue to sincerely thank all of the participants -- both on the deployer panel as well as the technology representatives. I was impressed by the collegiality of the discussion. I was glad to see that all of the panel participants as well as the audience were thoroughly engaged and were genuinely interested in how to solve the issue going forward and willing to commit to work toward that goal.
Those of us who organized the workshop encourage everyone to review the deployer presentations that have been posted, common requirement themes that emerged from the sessions, as well as the key next steps that were captured as desirable outcomes of this effort.
We also encourage everyone interested in this dialogue to join the discussion on the Concordia wiki site. Suggest approaches to solve the issues along with concrete next steps that Concordia should take.
This is an exciting time for IdM standards development. The presence of these leading IdM deployers and implementers in one venue to discuss common requirements and expectations is also an inflection point for the IdM marketplace. Harmonization among standards is essential for implementers and deployers in order to grow the market and achieve the potential that we all seek.
