I will give a detailed tutorial on how (and why!) to implement OpenID next Friday at the European Identity Conference in Munich.

If you always wanted to know, here's your chance ;-) I'm particularly interested in your questions, as I personally hate speakers who only talk about things that nobody is interested in, and I figure you feel just the same. So let me know what your questions are and I'll make sure to take time to address them.

The nice folks at Kuppinger & Cole, organizers of the highly successful European Identity Conference, have graciously invited me to put together the track on user-centric identity at their second conference next week.

With now hundreds of millions of OpenIDs available in the market from major providers, CardSpace shipping with all copies of Windows Vista, and the first slate of non-Windows identity selectors appearing from name-brand vendors, user-centric identity is now clearly the red-hot topic for identity and security in 2008 and 2009.

I'm even more fortunate to have a first-rate cast of speakers join me for this track:

• George Fletcher, Chief Architect at AOL, will speak about AOL's OpenID implementation that has provided OpenID identities to all of AOL's users since last year.
• Helmer Wieringa, Technology Officer at Reed Business (the largest division in Reed-Elsevier, a major media and conference company), will make the case why publishers such as Reed only have to gain from migrating old username/password schemes to universal usernames and no passwords.
• Kim Cameron, Chief Architect for Identity at Microsoft (responsible for Windows CardSpace), Ariel Gordon, Director of Identity Management at France Telecom / Orange (responsible for Orange's offering of OpenIDs to all of their broadband subscribers), Dale Olds, Novell Distinguished Engineer (developing the Digital Me identity selector on Linux and the Mac through the Higgins and Bandit open-source projects), Thomas Huhn (OpenID entrepreneur in Germany) and Snorri Giorgetti (OpenID Foundation's representative in Europe) will join George, Helmer and me on an interactive panel to discuss the business case for user-centric identity and the unfolding competitive dynamics of adopters and their competitors.

I will start the track with an introduction into the technologies, projects and business cases for user-centric identity to give attendees a solid footing in what user-centric identity is all about, who is who, and why it matters to individuals and businesses alike.

My goal with the track is not only to educate identity and security professionals on the rapidly changing identity landscape by providing a representative set of views from leaders in the movement, but also to give you the ammunition with which you can make the case in your companies that user-centricity is here to stay, and that companies that get ahead of the curve have a number of unique business opportunities in front of them.

You can find more information about the conference here: www.id-conf.com/eic2008. Hope to see you there! If it is like last year's, it will very likely be worth your while.

This went out this morning. Seems like my little OSIS project is growing up.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 7, 2008

MEDIA ALERT

Showcasing How Users Can Control their Identity Online, Industry's Largest Identity Interoperability Demonstration Scheduled for RSA 2008

Fifty-seven member open source identity group to test and demonstrate interoperability between user-centric identity protocols and providers

SAN FRANCISCO (RSA Conference 2008) - April 7, 2008 - Open Source Identity Systems (OSIS) will conduct the largest user-centric identity interoperability test and demonstration at the 2008 RSA Conference, April 7-11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The 33 member organizations and 24 projects of OSIS will showcase network interoperability between identity providers, card selectors, browsers and Web sites, demonstrating practical uses for user-centric identity technology, including how users can "click-in" to Web sites via self-issued and managed Information Cards and OpenIDs. The user-centric identity model gives consumers greater control and security over their identity information, allowing them to determine how sensitive identity information should be shared at each visited Web site.

During the demonstration, OSIS members will illustrate interoperability between Information Card and OpenID software, the technologies behind user-centric identity.Features being demonstrated include:

• Enabling people to control what identity information is disclosed about them
• Portability of digital identities across software and platforms
• Management and use of Information Cards and OpenIDs
• Information Cards used with OpenIDs to enable phishing-resistant sign-in to Web sites

WHO:OSIS, a working group of Identity Commons (please see below for a list of companies and projects). Members of the group are committed to a goal of Internet identity interoperability across projects, protocols, companies and platforms.

WHAT:OSIS User-Centric Identity Interoperability Demonstration at RSA 2008

WHERE: RSA Conference, Moscone Center South, San Francisco, Mezzanine Level, Purple Room 220

WHEN:Tuesday, April 8 and Wednesday, April 9; public working sessions 11 am to 4 pm, demonstrations 4 pm to 6 pm

About OSIS

Open Source Identity Systems, a working group of Identity Commons, brings together many identity-related open-source and commercial projects, and synchronizes and harmonizes the construction of an interoperable identity layer for the Internet from open-source parts and software that interoperates with them. For more information on OSIS, visit http://wiki.idcommons.net/index.php/OsisCharter.

OSIS participating companies:

• AOL
• ATE Software
• CA
• Cordance
• Fraunhofer FOKUS
• FuGen Solutions
• Fun Communications
• Google
• IBM
• JanRain
• LinkSafe
• Microsoft
• NetMesh
• Novell
• Nulli Secundus
• ooTao
• Oracle
• Orange
• Parity
• Ping Identity
• Plaxo
• Siemens
• SixApart
• Sun Microsystems
• Sxip Identity
• Thinktecture
• ThoughtWorks
• TrustBearer Labs
• VeriSign
• Vidoop
• WSO2
• Yahoo!
• Zend

Projects and Organizations:

• Bandit Project
• Codeplex
• DiSO Project
• Dominck Baier
• Drupal
• Francis Shanahan
• Higgins Project
• I-names
• Identity Commons
• Information Cards
• LID
• OpenID
• OpenInfocard
• OpenSSO
• Open XRI
• Pamela Project
• Rob Richards
• Sharp STS
• SignOn.com
• SourceID
• Shibboleth
• Verisign Personal Identity Provider
• Xmldap
• Yadis

All company/project names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies/organizations.

OSIS Participants Contact Information:

http://osis.idcommons.net/wiki/Category:Participant

Media Contact:

Charlotte Betterley

Novell

(781) 464-8253

cbetterley@novell.com

As an advisory board member, I better post this. While all conference announcements are hyped, this one actually is truer than most ;-) and I'm very confident that it would we worth your time to come if you are interested in Health 2.0.

If you missed Health 2.0 San Diego last month or last year's sold-out Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare in San Francisco, here's your chance. Early bird passes for Health 2.0 San Francisco are now on sale. Buy your passes now and you'll save significantly over our regular conference rates. Only 150 will be made available at this rate, so if you're seriously considering coming you probably should act now to secure a spot.  We'll be at the Marriott San Francisco downtown. The event will kick off on the evening of October 21st and run through the evening of the 23rd. 

We're expecting an even larger crowd than last September - around a thousand - so Health 2.0 San Francisco 2008 promises to be the place to be if you're involved in this space, an investor or looking to connect with industry insiders. You'll get the low down on new Web 2.0 technologies like social networking, blogs, podcasts and specialized search as well as an overview of new healthcare and wellness tools and services. Speakers will include leaders from Google, Microsoft, WebMD, Sermo, Daily Strength, Patients Like Me, Organized Wisdom and many more.

UPDATE: If you're interested in participating at Health 2.0 as a speaker or panelist, you'll find the application here. Start-ups and starving academics can register to be considered for the limited block of discounted passes we are making available. Bloggers and members of the news media can email us to apply to be added to the media list. For details on sponsorships and exhibitor opportunities, email sponsor relations guru John Pluenneke at john@health2con.com.

Here's just a quick rundown of what you will see:

Plenary

• Keynote: The Future of Health 2.0
• Consumer Aggregators
• Specialized vertical search
• Consumer Tools
• Social Networks in Healthcare
• International Health 2.0
• Business Models in Health 2.0
• Investment trends in Health 2.0

Breakout Sessions

• Wellness 2.0
• Health 2.0 in Pharma and Pharmacy
• Health Plans 2.0
• Health 2.0 in Disease Management
• Virtual Visits and New Delivery Models
• Specialized vertical search: a deeper look
• Patient Social Networks
• Clinician Social Networks
• Provider Search and Rating
• Online Identity and Privacy
• Money & Administration in Health 2.0
• Consumer Genomics
• Open Source in Health 2.0
• Wikis & Collaborative Platforms
• Content, Navigation & Advocacy

Special Sessions

• In conversation with 3 Health 2.0 CEOs
• The Great American Health 2.0 Motorcycle Tour with David Kibbe
• The Health 2.0 Unconference
• Health 2.0 Accelerator

FOR MORE INFO http://www.health2con.com/

Have you ever wondered how serious "the big guys" are about supporting OpenID in practice, instead of just talking about it as a good thing? While nothing is as convincing as shipping interoperable code, the OpenID Foundation announced this morning that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM and VeriSign all have not only joined the OpenID Foundation, but will serve on the foundation's board of directors.

This is incredibly good news for OpenID, the foundation, and for OpenID, the movement. Probably the biggest news it could create, ever ...

So the OpenID Foundation board of directors will look like this going forward:

• Martin Atkins, community member (independent)
• Artur Bergman, community member (Wikia)
• Johannes Ernst, community member (NetMesh) and yours truly
• Dick Hardt, community member (Sxip)
• Mike Jones, corporate member (Microsoft)
• Gary Krall, corporate member (VeriSign)
• Scott Kveton, community member (now with Vidoop)
• Tony Nadalin, corporate member (IBM)
• David Recordon, community member (Six Apart)
• Drummond Reed, community member (Cordance, Parity)
• Bill Washburn, executive director, OpenID Foundation
• N.N., corporate member (Google)
• N.N., corporate member (Yahoo!)

Note that there are more community members than there are corporate members, which should help keep the board firmly in tune with the community.

As you might suspect, this announcement was in the works for a long time; I'm afraid it was the better part of a year. (Whenever has anybody managed to get 5 giants do anything at the same time?). I'd like to particularly thank Scott, David and Bill, who worked at this for a long time.

Admittedly it is still a bit hard for me to believe that what is arguably many of the technology's leading companies are getting behind OpenID. What a little URL can do ...