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Hey {{first_name | Jedi}} , welcome to the 111th Identity Jedi Newsletter. The LIFE Edition.
DISCLAIMER: THIS WILL NOT BE YOUR NORMAL NEWSLETTER.
If you’re here for the usual nerd-out on identity, skip this one and catch me next week—we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program. This one’s about life. I’m going to share what I’ve been up to these last few weeks, a few ideas that hit me, and—mostly—why to be good at anything, you have to have something to fight for.
Life’s been heavy lately. Work’s stressful. Travel’s been rough. But the hardest thing has been saying goodbye to my best friend of 20+ years. Honestly, “friend” doesn’t even cover it—he was my brother. For two years I watched him give everything he had to stay here, fighting for every single day with his wife and four girls. He fought until he couldn’t fight anymore.
If you really know me, you know I put everything into what I do. So when my brother decided to stop fighting and spend his last weeks in hospice with his girls, I’ll be real: it got hard to give a shit about IAM. Doing the podcast, talking to customers, jumping on sales calls—that was already tough. I didn’t have it in me to write the newsletter too. For that… I’m sorry
But I didn’t want to give you something that wasn’t me. So with that intro, welcome to the LIFE EDITION.
Table of Contents
Let’s Talk WHY?
Do you want the real secret to running an effective identity program? You need a why, and you have to fucking care. That’s it. Those two things will carry your program farther than any shiny platform or three-letter framework.
The why is the foundation. It’s the heartbeat of the whole thing. And it has to be real. Not the superficial stuff.
“We failed an audit.”
“We want to be more compliant.”
That’s checkbox theater. Bullshit, honestly.
Go deeper:
Why does this program exist?
Who does it actually matter to—right now, this quarter?
What outcome will prove we’re better off because identity got better?
What are we willing to stop doing to make room for this?
When you can answer those with receipts—not vibes—you’ve got a compass. And once you have that compass, you have to want to see it through. Caring is the fuel. It’s what pushes you to build real relationships with your peers in security, IT, app teams, HR, finance. It’s what gets you to rewrite crusty policies, fix the data mess, and take on the hard tasks no one else wants because they’re not glamorous and they don’t demo well.
Here’s what everyone tiptoes around—this isn’t a technology problem. Tech helps. It can accelerate, simplify, and scale. But it will not save you from the conversations you’re avoiding or the decisions you keep punting. Only you can do that.
If you’re serious, start here—today:
Write a one-sentence why. “We are doing X so that Y results happen for Z people by Q4.” If you can’t do this, you don’t have a program—you have a shopping list.
Name the humans. Who is accountable for the outcome? Who is impacted if you win (or lose)? Put names next to roles.
Pick one outcome you can prove. Faster access for new hires. Fewer risky standing privileges. Passkey adoption on high-risk apps. Make it measurable and make it someone’s job.
Cut one thing. Free the time and attention to deliver the outcome you just named. If everything’s a priority, nothing is.
Identity done right is about outcomes and ownership, not just objects and APIs. When the why is clear and you truly care, you’ll do the hard work—aligning teams, cleaning data, changing processes—and then the tech will actually do what it’s supposed to do.
That’s the real secret. No magic. Just a reason worth fighting for—and the will to follow it.
The Most Haunted Place in America, Foundational Conversations, and is Entra the New Lotus Notes?
How’s that for an opener of headline!? Ok so last week, or the week before I don’t know it’s hard to keep track of time lately. I was in beautiful Charleston, SC for the Hybrid Identity Conference. Shoutout to the Sempris crew for hosting me it was a really good event!
It was my first time in Charleston and I must say if you haven’t been, definitely add it your list! If you’re fan of shrimp and bread pudding ( I know a weird combination but stay with me here) You have to check out Hyman’s! OMG, the shrimp was amazing. And the bread pudding…..FANTASTIC. The menu is huge, so be prepared to be overloaded with options. Anyway, that’s not the point, of this particular story. So the night of the Hybrid Identity Conference Party was an interesting night. They have the event at the Old City Jail. ( Red Flag Number 1) Now listen I’m all for a good time, and historical locations, but…old jails are nooooot my idea of a good time, but hey when in Rome right.
So the party kicked off at 6pm and they had shuttles from the hotel to the location. Now you guys know your boy isn’t going to show up on time. We have to be fashionably late, it’s the thing to do. So, I make my way down to the shutlle around 7:30ish or so.
When I get down to the shuttle most of the attendees have made there way to the event already, so I’m the only one getting on the shuttle. So it’s just me and the driver. Cool. I hop on, and the driver strikes up a conversation.
He asks if this is my first time in Charleston. I say yes. He asked if I know about location we’re going to. I say no. He then informs me that it’s one of the most haunted places in America..
………….
(Say what now….)
I’m like..”ahh Ok”
He continues to tell me the history of the jail. It was built in the 1700’s, and there were all kinds of murders, and since then weird things have happened at this location, etc, etc.
Now mind you, this entire time we are driving around downtown Charleston, it’s dark, and I’m in this shuttle by myself. As we pull up to this Haunted Jail, he then finishes his story with: “ Yeah and I’m really surprised you company chose to pick this location, given what happened here last year…”
Now I’ve seen way to many prank shows to fall for this trap. So at this point I’m like, nope not engaging in this conversation. I’ve made up my mind that when I step off this shuttle, if this event is IN the jail, I’m turning around and getting right back on the shuttle and going back to the hotel, and if anything jumps out at me, I’m punching it in the face.
We pull up to the event, he opens the door and luckily the event was outside. As I walk up one of the event folks asks if I would like to go for the tour of the jail. I’m going to give you one guess what my answer was.
Building an Identity Foundation
So we ( the proverbial industry we) suck at building the foundation of identity programs. That’s been my takeaway from this year being back in front of customers and talking with my fellow practitioners. Understanding business value, launching identity programs, setting up steering committee’s, establishing lines of communication with peer organizations, APP ONBOARDING, we are still struggling with all of these things. We need operations 101 DESPERATELY. I have thoughts, and I’ll put some things in action later this year, but I’m so very interesting to hear yours. THIS HAS TO BE A GROUP EFFORT. 1st thought is we bombard Identiverse with talk after talk on Identity Operations. It should be an entire track. But beyond that we need to find a way to enable our fellow practitioners. Food for thought.
Is Entra Just Lotus Notes?
Ok hear me out. I attended a very intersted session on Entra at the Hybrid Identity Conference, and while the speaker was going through all the things to be weary of in Entra, it hit me. Like..this is just Lotus Notes all over again. Email, Applications, Databases, proprietary scripting language, one ecoystem. We hated it then, why don’t we hate it now?
Asking for a friend….
The Last Word
This life we have is a gift and is the most precious gift we will ever receive. Cherish it. Thank you to everyone who checked in on me. Thank you for noticing that I wasn’t ok. I’ll get back to “normal” as soon as I can. The bond I have with my guys is definitely a unique one. ( For those of you that read my book, you kinda understand). They are each a part of me, and have shaped the man I am today. And I lost a part of me.
There is a reason I end every newsletter and every podcast the same way, I really fucking mean it. Now more than ever we have to take care of each other. I’ll see you next time.
For J
Be Good to each other, Be Kind to each other, Love each other