The 30th Edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter

Wednesday 4/5/23 - Identity Jedi Newsletter - Subscribe

Hey Jedi welcome to the 30th edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter!

We are 3 weeks out from RSA, one week after Gartner IAM. Conference season is in full swing Jedi! It should be a fun couple of months of traveling and talking about identity.

Let’s Get to the Good Stuff!

• So how’s that passwordless journey going?

• You can’t fight what you can’t see

• Conference Season

How’s the passwordless journey going?

A good summary on our never-ending war against the password. Someone should write a book about this one day. We’ve made some good traction but still seem a long way off from solving this problem. Nice plug for Identiverse at the end too. 😀 

Invisible Threat

Imagine being in a completely sealed room with only one door and you have the key to unlock it. On the other side of that door is 10 million dollars. All you have to do is get past an adversary that you can’t see. That’s kinda what security and identity is like when you’re trying to solve problems with no visibility into the data behind it. Except there isn’t 10 million dollars behind a door if you solve it. At least, not that I know of, cuz if there is… I digress. The following article makes a great point about being able to fight what you can see. To make real progress towards your security goals ( and yes this INCLUDES identity) you need to be able to understand and see your data clearly. Or just fumble around and wildly swing and hope you get lucky..no judgment ( SARCASM)

Conference Season

The time has come friends. Conference Season. For customers, a nice getaway to be around industry experts and get free swag. For vendors a chance to scan every persons badge that comes withing a 30 foot radius of their booth, and for practitioners honestly a chance to drink and catch up with friends. Oh and talk to customers and attend sessions and stuff..but honestly mostly drink and catch up with friends. Whichever side of the coin you land on, it’s a fun and exciting time because you get a chance to really get a sense of what’s happening in the industry. What features are vendors leaning into? What conversations with practitioners can you have around REAL best practices? How many drinks can you safely have the night before your 9am presentation? Serioulsy, drop a comment with your answer.

Having been on all sides of this equation I wanted to drop some tips for you as we enter in this glorious time of year.

Vendors: Don't forget that you are there for the practitioners. Make sure to have conversations about how you can better serve their needs, and don't just pitch your services. Your goal is to help them, not sell them something. And please, PLEASE for the love of everything sacred please don’t put your salespeople on islands and send them to a conference without some technical backup. This is an opportunity to engage and get great feedback about your product, and help customers actually solve things. Do the right thing.

Practitioners: Take the time to really listen to what vendors are saying and don't underestimate the value of their services. They may be able to provide you with solutions that would otherwise cost you a lot of time and money. Yes, 70% of what will come out of their mouth will be bullshit, but that 30% is worth sticking around for.

Customers: Listen to what everyone has to say and make sure you're asking the right questions. You need to have a deep understanding of your needs before you can make an informed decision. It’s ok to say you don’t understand, or have more questions. This is the time to get them answered, AND get free meals, swag, and drinks in the meantime. Just saying.

At the end of the day, it's important to remember that everyone just wants to make sure they are making the best decisions for their business. So take that into consideration when having conversations with vendors and practitioners alike.

The Last Word

Let’s talk about assessments.

To some this may be a dirty word. You pay a gaggle of consultants to come into your business for weeks, and the end they tell you what you already knew.

Ouch.

What if there was a different way? A process in where you had the chance to ineract with industry experts, asses your complete program and get resources, tools, and strategies to actually implement change in your organization? Well friends, the last couple of months I’ve been in conversations to with a partner organization to do just that. Redfine what it means to have an assessment ,and help organization embrace change, and progress with their identity programs.

Not sure what’s next for your identity program? Having conversations around conolidation of products and not sure which direction to go? Just trying to figure out what your identity team should be doing? Then you are going to LOVE this program.

Details coming soon.

Be Good to each other, Be Kind to each other, Love each other

-Identity Jedi

The JEDI COUNCIL

A conversation about Identity

This week I’ve got an exclusive interview with Topher Marie and Gerry Gebel of Strata.IO

Subscribe to Identity Jedi Newsletter to read the rest.