For the User-Centric Identity Track that I’ve been putting together for the European Identity Conference this Thursday, I decided we really needed a reasonably compehensive introduction into the topic first, before we go into the experience reports, and the big panel. But boy, did that "introduction to…" presentation turn out to be hard; it was much harder and more time-consuming to create than I had thought.

First, I looked around for presentations that others already have made on the subject. I found lots that explain how gory protocol XYZ works, and lots that say "wouldn’t be nice if we could simply do ABC instead of DEF?" or why empowerment is (perhaps morally?) important. That clearly includes some of my own… which wouldn’t have been bad if it hadn’t ended there.

But I came up totally empty when looking for presentations that make the case "this is why my business should do it" for reasons such as reasons that businesses do things for, such as making money. The kind of presentation you can take into a management meeting, and you will not only still have a job afterwards, but have your user-centric identity project funded instead.

So instead of attempting to recruit a speaker for that slot in the track, I decided to do it myself. After all, how hard can it be? Well, that’s where the "boy, was I wrong" above comes from. It took me at least 3 times longer than I thought, and all that my presentation now needs is about a year or two of refinements to turn it into a good presentation. And only part of me is joking.

Why? Because we all in user-centric identity land, and I’m including myself very much that group, have not made our case at all in a manner that makes any business sense. That was not clear to me before; the bits and pieces that we do have do not a winnable case make.

I know I’m going to offend some people by saying this out loud. Truth be told, I’m a bit offended myself (which is doubly offensive …) I’m not saying this to be critical (if so, I’d be criticizing myself first) but as a call to action: if we ever want this market to be a market — one where real value is created, some of which is measured in real dollars and euros that exchange hands for value delivered — we gotta fix that as quickly as possible.

Let me make a litany of things that we all keep repeating like a mantra, but that don’t work to make a case, and in fact likely do the opposite:

• "User-centric identity is so obviously the right approach that if you, dear audience (boss, budget manager, marketing strategist, customer) don’t immediately get it, you are very obviously a moron."
• "The age of silos is dead, get on with the program."
• "Users will spend huge amounts of resources (money, but in particular time and cumbersomeness) on privacy"
• "We don’t need to do market segmentation and follow a clear segment roadmap, and understand the exact needs profile of all of our stakeholders in one segment at a time, addressing them one segment at a time, because user-centric identity is a horizontal market that will magically flip overnight." I have this T-shirt with the complicated math formulas scribbled on a blackboard, where somewhere in the middle is says "and here a miracle occurs". Just like that.

There are more.

Having spent too many days back home on these slides, and too many hours on the flight to Munich on the that I probably should better have spent sleeping, I had to get this off my chest.

Now, what I have for Thursday, modestly called "The Technology and Business of User-Centric Identity", is what came out at the other end of this process. I’m the first to acknowledge that the presentation has many flaws, including that it is far too long-winded in making its core points effectively, and the core points themselves are not as memorable by a long shot that I would have liked to make them. But making a start, even a buggy one, is better than not to, and I hope you (and my audience on Thursday) will forgive me. And collaborate with me to make the case better, which should help all of us.

I will put the slides on-line as soon as the talk has been given, and I hope to receive some constructive feedback because we really do need to get our house in order in user-centric identity land. It’s time to stop the "and then a miracle occurs" strategy to adoption, because it ain’t one. If we drill down into the real facts behind adoption so far, instead of the inflated numbers and hype, I think that’s the best argument that I can make for needing to get our stuff together.