What is GREAT!

Reflections on IIW2006 May 1-3 Event

The event, an unconference, was one of the best conferences, prefix or no, that I’ve ever been to, much less been part of. Doc Searls

The Identity Woman Kaliya Hamlin facilitated the best un-conference I've attended, I'm already looking forward to next year's workshop. - Fred Stutzman

There will quite possibly be a "B" edition in the fall, probably on the East Coast if Windley, Searls and Hamlin can put it together. If they do, you should drop everything and plan to be there. Dave Kearns in Network World

IIW 2006 WAS A SUPEREVENT Everyone in attendance was awe-struck by the IIW 2006 that just took place in Mountainview. It was incredible. With Doc Searls and Phil Windely navigating at the macro-level, the amazing Identity Woman Kaliya orchestrated an ”unconference” that was one of the most effective events I’ve ever attended. It’s clear that creating synergy out of chaos is an art that these three have mastered, and participants floated in and out of sessions that self-organized around an ongoing three-day hallway conversation - the hallway actually being the main conference room and event! So we got to engage in all kinds of one-on-one (and few) conversations, meet new people, work out concerns and above all work on convergence. Many people told me they felt history was being made, and I did too. Kim Cameron Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect.

IIW as an unconference was excellent. Kaliya did a great job facilitating 150 techies through a couple of dozen workshops, the content was compelling and selfishly, about 10 people that I’ve been wanting to connect with were there. The capuccino bar was the icing on the cake (what a great idea). [Salim Ismail http://salimismail.com/?p=25]

This week I saw a significant “state change” occur in this year and a half “Identity Gang” evolution, and it tells me things are going to start to happen...These efforts were each begun with a very different mission and with a very different use/case and problem set driving them, and this has previously created division and competition. This time, however, it was clear that everyone was looking for where they should get on board, and how to avoid having their goals left out. - Phil Becker, DIDW Newsletter

Kaliya started the day with a call for anyone else who wanted to create new sessions and then did a “spectrogram.” She put a long piece of tape on the floor and asked questions where people arrayed themselves along the spectrum represented by the tape. She interviewed people at spots on the tape. A good way to get a feel for how the group is thinking about some things. Phil Windley

It struck me during the course of one particular meeting that the people around the table would probably be impossible to assemble in one place, and certainly one table, in any other way. In fact due to the nature of the workshop and the people attending, there was an excellent chance that any query you might have could be satisfied by the top banana on the subject, and who would be willing to talk. Pete Rowley

Days two and three were very different, as advertised. “Open space,” “unconference”–what have you. There was a large open space, where at one end larger presentations could take place; otherwise tables were spread out across the space, and there were meeting rooms on both sides of it. What this means, practically speaking, is that the rooms and tables could be used for smaller sessions, and that the remaining tables could be used for ongoing conversations. The sessions were actually seminars: topic-centered, with a more or less formal leader, a whiteboard, and a group of engaged participants. Tom Maddox

I just returned from the Internet Identity Workshop (love the logo!) held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. About 140 people attended, including most of the Open Source players in this field: a bunch of really bright people with heart. The conference was done in Open Space Technology style, with Identity Woman (Kaliya Hamlin) doing a great job of holding the space. We broke up into small groups for presentations and discussions, most of which were high quality, and then re-forming into the whole: systole/diastole. This may turn out to have been a landmark event in internet history. Why? Because it signals the need for, and ways to achieve, user-centric identity, which can both help solve a number of problems (I've got to manage dozens of userIDs and passwords; my blog comments get spammed; I've got to fill yet another form on this web site) and enable new capabilities (I can put together my personal mosaic (dare I use the mashup word?) of the web people and sites I care about, stitched together through my secure active identity). - Mark Szpakowski

Phil Wolfe says this about the forth coming IIWII (isn't that a palendrom) This workshop has an all-star cast; the best deep dive into ID this year.

The workshop is focused on “user-centric” identity and other identity-related issues and featured an unusual format called “open space.” That is to say, there was no formal conference agenda - everyone had the opportunity to propose topics and the agenda was created on the spot....very dynamic, very fresh – totally engaging. I wish I could have cloned myself and attended more presentations. Sarah Mees Product Marketing Manager at Novell

This was a tremendous event and excellent use of time. We sent four people from AOL and we could have used more. Identity and openness are key enablers for what we're trying to do right now and I anticipate more participation in the future. I'm attempting to evangelize this internally though I'm far from an expert in the technologies involved. John Panzer, System Architect, AOL

Thanks to everyone who was willing to talk to me at the workshop. I'm putting up the podcasts at Reputation Talk.

First up is Podcasting with Doc, a conversation with Doc Searls.

Then there's a recording of the workshop led by Doc Searls, on the Intention Economy

If anyone who participated in the session isn't listed and reads this, please email me: tom@opinity.com.

Next there's a conversation with Dick Hardt, Podcasting with Dick.

I hope you enjoy them all. More are coming as I (hastily) get them edited.

Thanks to everyone for a great workshop.

Tom Maddox

Collaborating with the YADIS/OpenID/LID guys to have them use the XRI resolution document schema was great - that sort of collaboration happened in mere minutes. It may never have happened if we hadn't happened to be wandering around between sessions.... serendipity promoting interoperability - who'd have thunk? (GabeWachob http://xri.net/=GabeW)

The session discussing Identity Commons packed so much good common sense community feedback into 45 minutes that it changed the future direction of the organization then and there. I look forward immensely to the sessions on Identity Commons at Spring IIW 2006 because that's when a lot more progress will be made, particularly on identity rights agreements. DrummondReed (http://xri.net/=drummond.reed)