A couple weeks ago I shared a prediction with James Governor, during a visit in his London office, that I thought a large bank or wireless telco would soon buy the other. It only makes sense. When you're using your cell phone to purchase a diet coke from a vending machine like they are in Japan, it isn't exactly visionary. Anyway, it hasn't happened yet, but James did just send me a link describing NTT DoCoMo's inquiry into buying a third of Mitsui Sumitomo Card, Japan's #2 credit card. This could get really interesting, though thanks to the vending lobby we still have to fight vending machines to take paper money here in the US, so maybe talks between Citigroup and Verizon are a bit off in the distance.

Ever hear of the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? The goal is to connect Bacon and any actor/actress through the movies or TV that both have worked in. An actor/actress has a Bacon Number of 1 if they were in the same film. Finding anyone with a Bacon Number higher than 4 is tough. Try it and see for yourself.

Anyway, my thought is that anything interesting in the area of internet/online technology today is very directly related to identity. I think technology applications have an Identity Number, much like actors/actresses have a Bacon Number. I also think finding an application of technology with an Identity Number greater than 2 is hard. What do you think?

I've wanted to do blogging since I first heard about it. Had I known how easy the Sun Roller development team had made it, I would have started sooner. Fortunately for me, people like Pat Patterson, aka SuperPat, and James Governor at Redmonk acted as catalysts and I finally jumped in. So why the name Wizard of IdM? Definitely not because I'm a wizard of anything. I have the privilege of working in one of the hottest areas at Sun, Identity Management, and it is just my attempt at trying to be clever. I am, after all, in marketing ;-) Most of what I'll post will be work related, but I'll mention other interests like sports, computer/tech gadgets and family/friends/acquaintences. Let the blogging begin!