Part 3: Deployment, Leading Practices, Vision and Strategy
Author: Andi Hindle
Welcome to Identiverse® 2021 – new hybrid format, same breadth and depth of high-quality content! To help you navigate this year’s agenda with ease, we’ll be running a blog series over the next few weeks leading up to the start of the event. The series will focus on particular topics and themes that will be covered during the conference and will showcase presentations that are especially relevant to those themes. Keep in mind, these blogs aren’t intended to be exhaustive lists, so remember to check out the full agenda as you build your schedule for the coming weeks!
Learning from peers is one of the most effective ways to discover how to apply particular standards, technologies and products to solve identity challenges in your own projects. It can also be inspiring to hear how others have addressed issues in novel ways, and to bring your own knowledge to bear in conversations with your fellow identity professionals. Our Deployments and Leading Practices topic focuses on these practical experiences. But it’s important to set current work in the context of longer-term trends. Our main-stage keynotes and general session topics provide some of that broader picture; you’ll get additional insight in our Vision, Strategy and Futures talks. Take a close look at those in the topic breakdown of the agenda on the website. Here are a few highlights, plus a couple of talks that are relevant, but categorised in different areas of the agenda.
The 2020 IDPro® annual skills and programs survey identified strong and multi-factor authentication, user provisioning, identity-as-a-service, and customer identity deployments as significant trends amongst practitioners and their employers. You’ll find these themes well-represented throughout the agenda. John Fontana leads a panel discussing the learnings from 2 years of MFA deployments across a range of enterprises and technologies, whilst Krishnan Chellakarai and Umesh Jagannatha explore their journey to passwordless at Gilead Sciences. Learning about successful programs is always helpful; but it’s also worth exploring some of the challenges. Arynn Crow, Ian Glazer and Nishant Kaushik will jointly explore some of the outstanding issues around multi-factor authentication deployments, whilst Lorrayne Auld examines the challenges of authentication at scale with her panellists.
Identity deployments don’t exist in isolation—it’s worth remembering that there will be impacts and implications beyond the identity team. Arynn Crow digs into the customer services needs that modern identity programs introduce, including issues like token revocation/replacement and account recovery; and Lance Peterman will take a look at how to enlist other individuals and groups within your organisation to help make your program a success.
Security generally continues to be a major influencing factor for Identity deployments. The IDSA will discuss their 2021 security trends report, which will provide useful insight into issues likely to influence projects in the coming years. (Look out for updates from other industry bodies too, including Kantara, OIDF and OIX!)
Customer identity, and in the longer-term personal identity, has had a lot of attention in the last twelve months; driven especially by accelerated digital transformation projects and other (often COVID-related) needs. Jing Gu will provide an overview of the key trends and direction for CIAM over the coming years; and Austin Arensberg will look at how and why personal identity and privacy are getting attention from the investment community. Andrew Cameron provides insight into how customer identity deployments can be both secure and easy to use. Judy Burt and Melissa Glynn will explain how MassMutual were able to improve the identity proofing experience for their customers. Matt Swayze looks at how mobile wallets are helping American Airlines rebuild confidence in international travel, whilst Steve Wilson examines how modern identity technologies can help provide a digital ‘yellow card’ to provide secure and privacy-preserving proof of vaccination. Meanwhile, Nat Sakimura and his panelists will explore the technical underpinnings of the future of personal identity. Last but not least, don’t miss Emily Houlihan’s walk-through of user experience testing at mass-consumer scale!
There’s lots more on the agenda to tempt you, and registration is still open. There’s still availability to attend in person in Denver—but spaces are filling up fast, so sign up soon! And don’t worry: if you can’t attend onsite, our hybrid event this year means you can also participate remotely. Whichever you choose, though, make sure you’re there. It’s going to be a great event!
