Last week was the annual Burton Group Catalyst Conference and, like last year, the announcements came fast and furious. There were new products, new companies and even a new organization. It's going to take a few newsletters to cover them all, so I better get started. First, though, I want to capture the overall theme and tone of the conference.

Jamie Lewis, Burton Group CEO, always keynotes the identity management track at Catalyst, and he has the ability to encapsulate both where we’ve come from as well as where we’re going without losing track of the needs – and the abilities – of the implementers and their suppliers. He made a number of points, three of which I want to look at today.

Lewis talked about how, over the past few years, we’ve been trying to transform IT systems and services to better align with the business and to take advantage of the improvements in the identity management area. At the same time, the business has been re-aligning and transforming to better adapt to a changing marketplace. Jamie allowed as how the IT transformations and the Business transformations are colliding just like two tectonic plates – and producing enterprise earthquakes along with the occasional spectacular, and stable, mountain chain. It’s something to keep sight of as you move forward with your identity management projects.

He also reminded the audience that some things don’t change and that the advice he gives today is very similar to that from years ago:
• Make every project an installment on an architecture.
• Start with what makes sense for your organization.
• Focus on basics.

No project takes place in a vacuum. It needs to have a sound business purpose that meshes with what your organization is doing, or wants to do. It needs to be built on a firm, well-understood (by your organization) foundation. And, finally, its best to break it down into manageable components which can be deployed serially in order to avoid catastrophic failures. It’s advice that works not only for identity management projects but for just about anything you want to undertake. We all like to make a big splash, but if there’s no water in the pool, then it might turn into a big crash.

Finally, Jamie set the tone for what would become the major theme of the conference when he said, in reference to that ubiquitous concept, Trust: “We Need to Think Differently - It’s the relationships, stupid.” As he told us, in the real world the very big ticket transactions, those between multi-national organizations or even between governments, are often concluded with a handshake. Only once that is done are the documents, contracts and treaties drawn up. And they’re drawn up to support the agreement. It’s only in IT, it seems, that we feel the need to have all the legal agreements in place before we can even begin the transaction. Lewis feels we need to change that, and he brought out an excellent supporting cast to show us how. We’ll talk about that next time.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.