This is identity at the center. Welcome to the Identity at the
Center podcast. I'm Jeff, and that's Jim.
Hey, Jim. Hey, Jeff, how are you?
Oh, not so bad yourself. Doing great, man.
We're doing a Jim and Jeff episode today, so that makes me
happy. We have to hang out in person.
It's been a while. We got a couple conferences
coming up, so we'll get through a lot between now and the end of
the year. And one other thing I wanted to
mention. So I while I was away for a
couple days this week, I kind of fell behind on LinkedIn.
But I finally caught up with things on the flight home last
night and got some quick responses from people.
So they're a few shout outs for people who let me know they
listen and they really appreciate what we do.
So Adam, oh, Siobhan, I'm going to mess names of, I'm sorry,
Shubham Gharia and Alejandro Lowe Fresetti, if you guys are
listening. Thank you for the notes.
I mean, Jeff, I don't know about you, but when I get notes that
people listen and that they thank us for what we're doing in
the, you know, for the identity space or they let me know, hey,
I really enjoy the content or I'm learning a lot.
I mean, it means so much to me. Yeah, it's very, it's very cool.
I get those messages as well. What I find interesting is we
don't get the same messages. So none of those people messaged
me, but I have other ones. So I look at my list here like
people have emailed or sent me LinkedIn messages recently.
Jonathan, Judy, Isabella, Jesse Sadaf, Andy Kojo.
So yeah, it but it is very cool. Glad that people get something
out of this, whether it's, you know, they enjoy it or they hate
it and they hate listen or watch it, either way is fine.
I never get to hate ones. I'm I'm glad about that.
I mean, you know, LinkedIn people keep things pretty
cordial. For the most part, yeah.
No, we've been pretty lucky. We've got to have a great
community, which you've always said, right?
The I am community is, is top notch as as I'll say so yeah.
And that's pretty much what this episode's all about is we get
questions a lot through our LinkedIn.
So we get stuff, kind of queue them up and kind of save them up
for a mailbag episode. And we'll kind of get through a
bunch of these that listeners have sent out over the last
probably at this point a couple months.
Because I think we had a couple earlier in this year and then we
had a run of conferences and episodes associated with that
and then guests and things like that.
So this is another way for us to catch up on, you know, those
kind of questions. Yeah, and you and I have been in
this identity space for 20 years each.
We've been consulting for over a decade and one thing I know
about myself and I think you say this for you, Jeff, is we don't
know everything, right? That's.
What you're going to be. I know everything man.
Yeah, OK. That's why I said that in.
Google really quickly I gave you.
An I gave you an opportunity to be humble.
But no, obviously you know that we don't know everything while
we have guests come on most episodes, but we do our best.
We're like the identity practitioners out there.
We're, you know, in the battle together and we're going to go
through our answers today doesn't mean they're they're
right answers to these mailbag questions.
If anybody disagrees or really likes to answer, that's another
reason to reach out or you know, we put all these episodes on
YouTube. We thought about as as audio
podcast, right. We started as an audio podcast
over six years ago, and most of our listener, most of our people
who consume this podcast, our listeners, but we also produce a
YouTube video for each one of these episodes that gives folks
an opportunity to go out and comment on an episode, a
particular episode, and ask question or say they like or
disagree with a point. I'd finally encourage that.
I mean, I don't have a problem with somebody disagreeing with
me. That's what it's all about.
Yeah, just be respectful, that's all.
Stop putting a Bitcoin seed phrases that are obviously
scams. I'm constantly policing those
off of our off of our YouTube comments and stuff like that.
So but yeah, you know, gives us an opportunity.
So, you know, while you're listening and thinking about
that, hit it, you know, hit that like and subscribe button too.
That obviously helps. You know, Jim and I grow the
channel and the podcast and get great guests, which, you know,
we've done an amazing job over the years.
And you know, Jim, that's all you getting, getting really cool
people to, you know, spend some of their time and, and their
thoughts with us on the air. It's been a pretty easy job
actually, because most of the folks I reach out to I it's
become an easier and easier job over time because the podcast
has grown. In the early days, it was people
like Darren Rolls, those people like Eve Mailer who agreed to
come on this podcast that nobody knew about.
So but it's still a big coordination effort, obviously.
So I appreciate that, but we got some conferences coming up, we
got some discount codes. We should probably at least
acknowledge that and then jump into things.
Yes, several conferences. See by the time people listen to
this on, will it be Monday, the 22nd, I believe maybe it's 21st,
22nd. I think the Philadelphia Cyber
Security Summit will be on later in the week.
So that's Thursday and I will be there.
So I'm I think I'm moderating a panel.
I'm not quite sure yet, but I believe I will be and so I hope
to see some folks out there. I know a couple people who will
be there, but feel free to use this discount codes free get you
in. It's a pretty cool conference.
So this will be my third one third city that I've done this
year did Raleigh did Chicago a couple weeks ago, Raleigh a
couple weeks before that and then kind of closing out that
series for me, at least in Philly, but it's a pretty well
run conference. It's a few 100 people.
So it's kind of like the right size to actually meet people,
have conversations and because it's local in a specific, you
know, city, you meet people in your space that are in, you
know, your kind of region and makes a little bit easier to
form connections and things like that.
So OK, forward to that and let's see after that.
I'm actually going to be at sale point navigate conference, not
this coming week, but I guess the following week, so you can
look for me there. I'll be there as part of the RSM
contingent, which everybody, well, not everybody knows,
everybody thinks we do the podcast is our full time jobs.
That's absolutely not the truth. That is our night and weekend
job. By day we work for RSM as I am
consultants, so helping people solve their digital identity
security problems. But I'll be there for the sale
point conference, probably somewhere around a booth.
I think I'm also running a, a newer game show that we have not
tried before. So it'll be kind of a test bed
for that. So if you're a listener, you
know, come stop by the RSM session at Cell Point Navigates.
Let's see. Authenticate with Fido Alliance
is coming up. So we're going to do Fido Feud
rematch. So you're going to take on Megan
again, I'm not sure if you guys have figured out teammates yet,
but I know that there was a lot of people who expressed interest
when it was time to register for Authenticate.
So the Fight Alliance is a time to keep track of that.
And we've been working with Megan and Adrian and obviously
yourself to figure out OK, of the pool of people who express
interest. Who do you want to get on stage
and be part of that? I'm going to be the neutral
party. I am the host.
I'm the Steve Hardy without the long jacket or the mustache, but
I'll be coordinating it. Adrian and I are working on the
questions. So if you have not yet seen the
survey that went out from the Fight Alliance, I also put it
into the IT Pro conferences or maybe it was a general channel.
There is either way that people can submit answers.
So the questions are out there, but the only people who can see
the answers are myself and Adrian for the Fight Alliance.
So she and I are coordinating to make sure that, you know, this
is a a fair game, Jim, so that there's no cheating, no
allegations, nothing like that. Well, unlike, unlike last year,
right, So. There wasn't cheating last year.
There was interpretation of answers that were maybe suspect,
but I'm. Going to give you my, my view of
things, right? I didn't feel like last year was
fair, but that was fun because last year really didn't count.
Last year was more of like a trial run.
This year, this is the first official year.
So we'll see who wins this year. I think it's going to be team
IDAC because this year is going to be completely fair.
It's going to be heads up Team IDAC versus team Fido.
And I mean, we know it's going to happen, right?
I mean, I hope I know what happened.
You're representing IDSC, so definitely need a better showing
than than last year. Look, in Megan's defense, she
walked away with the tiniest trophies we've ever seen.
So her team has those. So we'll see.
I I love the snack talk, though. So Megan, if you're watching
under listening, you know, feel free to respond comments below
or maybe something I'll link to him.
Maybe we can, you know, draw up some healthy competition was put
that way. You know, I, I think the biggest
thing that I wanted to throw out, so I knew you were going to
talk about one more conference coming up with Zimfosec World.
We really appreciate all of the partnership that all these
groups putting on these conferences have shown us,
especially, you know, the CRA with the, all the conferences
you mentioned, plus all the ones that are coming up.
I mean, it's another thing that's going on with the
conference or I'm sorry with the podcast that, you know, it's the
listeners, it's the guests, it's the partnership with different
conference organizers. Like we've pulled all this
together and it's it's all four of the listeners really.
That's why we do it. But it wouldn't be able to
happen without this partnership. So definitely grateful for all
of that. Yeah, shout out to especially
Shirley at the CRA and Adrian at Final Alliance.
Those two have been really fun to work with.
And you know, the other reasons why we do fun things at
conferences, I'll be honest, I don't really want to give a talk
an identity. I feel like there's a lot of
that already. I would much rather have a good
time and sort of, you know, be a little bit more on the
entertainment side and, you know, try to relax and make the
conference something fun. And, you know, both Adrian and
Shirley have been awesome work with, they've both been really
open to new ideas, right, game shows and things like that.
So plus they're just fun people and, you know, great to work
with. So shout out to Shirley and
shout out to Adrian. You know, we've all been all
about the edutainment. There can be plenty of education
that you know, the, the folks are showing at the these
conferences and giving the presentations, whether it's
success stories or new ideas around architectures or trending
topics, they, they know them better than we do.
And so you're getting plenty of education.
So our sessions are more the entertainment variety.
More of a pulse of of the people type thing, you know, what are
people thinking with the different, you know, game shows
that we've done and surveys and things like that.
So they're fun. I like to do them.
We'll do them when we until we get told we can't do them
anymore and then we'll figure something else out from there.
But you know, next thing you know, we'll have a Netflix
special, you know, IDAC, you know, after dark and it'll be
kind of like that midnight game show where it's just, you know,
people pontificating and making jokes.
But yes, Speaking of CRA, Infosec World 2025, that's
coming up at the I believe it's the end of October that is in
Orlando. So we'll be there and recording
some episodes very similar to like Ideniverse.
I have not been to that conference.
I'm looking forward to it. I think it's more broader,
obviously information security, but guess what I am as part of
that world. So we're going to be there.
So I hope people come and check it out.
We got identifiers after that in DC, so be there for that as
well. That is in November.
And then I think closing off our conference Circuit of the year
with Gartner and the IM Summit in Grapevine, TX.
So we met with our friend Rebecca a little earlier today
to kind of game plan through, you know, the game that we're
going to run there and that's going to be a fun one.
So lots of conferences, lots of different things are going on.
I didn't mention discount codes because they're hard to remember
what spot. But if you just remember one
thing I DAC podcast.com, just Scroll down.
Everything that I have that's available is going to be down
there at the Gartner 1 is not up yet.
I think that one becomes available in October.
So once October rolls around, there'll be a Gartner one edit
as well. But check it out.
Great way to show support the show and show that we can, you
know, have a good time and bring people to conferences and and
meet all the friendly faces that we, you know, see us still
images on LinkedIn and teams and other different things that
happen. Yeah, I was at a meeting this
week and kind of saw saw some people that I've been meeting
with in Teams. And then there's one person I
met who, you know, I've been on punny teams calls with and he
was like 6-7. And I was like, whoa, I didn't
realize you were that tall. You're talking about our friend
Dan. Yes.
Everybody has the same height on on a team's window.
And then you get into real life, like, OK, wow, I didn't realize
Jeff was that short or, you know, Jim was that tall.
I'm not. I'm not really that tall.
Yeah, you're what, 6/2? Yeah, yeah, look, everyone is
tall when you're 5-6 like me so well, Dan.
Dan's like 6-7. Yeah, no, Dan was great.
Very tall guy. Yeah, he's an awesome guy too.
Yeah, so we did an episode with him not too long ago, Dan
Lauritsen, part of our series with RSM and so go back and
check that out. But that's very cool to see
people like that in in, in real life and and get their
autographs for being on the podcast, which is fun.
All right, let's get into a mailbag.
We got a bunch of questions from people literally around the
world. So again, if people have
questions or they just want our thoughts on something, send them
to us on LinkedIn, drop us an e-mail, drop us a contact form
thing on our website. We try to queue these up from
time to time. The more we get and as we get
gaps in our schedule where we can address them, you know,
that's kind of where this is at. So now with no more further ado,
let's get Jim's $0.02 on a couple of these questions.
I'll read off the questions, Jim, and then you give me your
thoughts on it and then if I have anything to add, I will and
we'll just kind of go through it that way.
Is that cool sounds? Good.
Yeah, I'll do it. OK.
So first up, this is Matt in Maine.
He knows who he is. I know who.
He is right. How does a successful IM program
engage the broader IT department regarding key concepts?
So, additional context here. I recently volunteered to do a
short presentation in an architect forum on what SSO is
and how it works. This is the result of having a
conversation with a software architect who recommended to a
software owner that she worked with me to set up SSO on work
day. We've had SSO set up on work day
since we acquired it seven years ago, and this architect logs
into it weekly like everyone else.
Wow, a lot of context right there.
That is a lot of context. Matt and I went back and forth
and noticed. I'm not going to cut a keynote,
get into all the nitty gritty details.
But I guess before I even answer my first question is I'm not
sure if the person is an architect if they're not clear
on what SSO is. And the fact that they were
logging into it already and had been for seven years apparently
leads me to kind of wonder if there is some more education
that needs to be done around identity and access management
and maybe just general IT architecture networking.
I'm not sure what it is, but what are your thoughts on how
does the successful IM program engage the broader IT department
regarding key concepts when it comes to identity?
So hey, Matt, glad to get your question.
And I think the first thing it kind of goes to the point you
were making, Jeff, which is that, you know, Matt said I'm
doing a presentation through the IT department.
So we shouldn't start off with the assumption that because
you're in the IT department, you know how everything works.
Like you could be a software person, you could be a network
person, you could be a mainframe person, you could be, make this
a mainframe architect and he could run us in circles when it
comes to mainframe architecture. And he really doesn't care who
about he or she doesn't care who about, you know, single sign on.
Having said that, you know, I, I think you need to start with
some of the basics, you know, kind of like educating people on
what is the business value of single sign on.
I remember we used to run into questions early on in the single
sign on days like, OK, isn't it worse to give people one
username password to 100 systems than 100 username and passwords?
Because if they lose 1, the blaster is is limited to that
one system. I think the it's kind of like a
psychology thing. If you have to manage 100
usernames and passwords, you're probably using, you know, the
same username password across multiple systems and your
ability to kind of provide all of the features that you need in
a holistic IM program like monitoring, like use your life
cycle management, like having the right authentication
policies and the ability to enforce them.
Those things probably go out the window for most of those 100
users and passwords. So it's kind of like here's why
single sign on is good. Let me think, there are multiple
forms of single sign on. There's Samuel single sign on
and there is Oauth 2 or open ID single sign on.
So there's a browser based set of redirections.
So if you're starting to get into like application
architecture and kind of how these things manifest, whether
it's like browser based or there's some back end token
sharing happening, I think that's a a big part of that
explanation. I just, you know, it depends on
who you're speaking to and as you start to whittle down that
field to a smaller group, that's where you start getting into the
specific details. If you're talking to a big large
audience, you have to kind of keep it.
I think even like a big large audience who is quote UN quote
IT, you need to keep it at A at a business level to start your
thoughts. I think this is an excellent
example of sometimes we take people in knowledge for granted
in the IM space, especially when you get surrounded into IT at
large. Look, not everybody knows
identity and that's fine, right? I think that's something that we
all need to think about is how do we educate and inform other
people in the organization as to what they're working on, stuff
like that. So for sure, you know, I maybe I
was a little bit rough, like how does this person become anarchy
step without knowing SSO is I guess there's a possibility
there, but it's also a good reminder to say, OK, what has
the IAM program done to inform IT, whatever that looks like as
to what the IAM program has been doing, what its capabilities
are, what it's, you know, different features and
functionalities that have been rolled out so that they can, you
know, be part of that messaging as well.
I think we focus a lot on end user training and making sure
the end user understands it. There's probably a really
significant Gray area when it comes to IT training for
identity and access management concepts, features and
functionalities and things like that.
So I think it's a good opportunity to say, OK, we
noticed the gap here. How do we address it?
Is it, you know, something where we need to have more
conversations with, you know, I'll call it IT in parentheses
or quotation Marks and making sure they understand what are
the different capabilities that the OEM program has and, and
things like that. So I try to look at from the
aspect of, yeah, OK, what, what did we miss here and how do we
make sure that we account for that next time?
Yeah. I mean, there's all kinds of
goals that could come out of why you're doing that presentation
in the 1st place. One of the goals might be you
need to stop doing this shadow IT thing.
Setting up applications that are completely outside of the the
realm of our single sign on are completely outside the realm of
how we do identity access management, logging in,
monitoring. You know, people understand like
why we use centralized single sign on multi factor
authentication. It may start to add up that hey,
if I go out and set up a sales force account with my credit
card, that is not a good thing for the following reasons.
I mean, that's just smacking with policy.
Don't, don't go sign up for stuff that you're not prepared
to support, because we all know that they're going to continue
to do that. They're they're never going to
sign up for a service and then you ask for IT to help them out
down the road. That would never happen in the
real world, would it? Yeah, right.
All right, So hopefully, I know that was actually several months
back that Matt had sent that. So he and I conversed and
hopefully that helps Matt, you know, going forward.
Let's get to the next one here. Amara in India asks what are the
key factors that influence an individual's trust in a new
digital identity system? And what can governments or
organizations do to encourage wider adoption without being
overly intrusive? You.
Know you could go. First, good luck SO.
No, I, I know Amara too. And so I don't really know her
personally, but I know her from LinkedIn.
I think a big part of building trust, it's just like any other
part of human interaction. It's, you know, trust is earned.
So it does build over time. But I think they're kind of like
some fundamental concepts within identity or within technology in
general that help you earn trust.
And one of the first things is privacy, like knowing where your
personal data is going to end up.
Does the organization have a privacy statement?
Is it clear? Or is it one of those 20 page
documents like we can sell your information to third parties And
so it's the privacy, but it's also how you communicate it.
And then I think one thing that maybe takes that to the next
level because that's like a big area in the, a big topic in the
area of customer identity and access management is privacy and
consent. So it's also the consent of
saying, here's the data that I'm OK that you share, but I also
have the ability to say forget me.
So a lot of the things that we saw driven in GDPR are still
very important and very relevant.
Whether you need to be in compliance with GDPR or not,
you'll be thinking about what were the drivers that that
influence the design of GDPR. And it's like what people expect
and why do people expect those things and how do those
influence whether or not you're going to have trust for the
organization? Now I also think, now let me
bolt on something to that, which is if you do suffer A breach and
many organizations do suffer a breach, how do those things get
handled afterwards? Do you try to cover it up or do
you, are you very transparent with your users and with the
public in terms of what happened and what you're doing to rectify
the situation? And for me, when I see that
there's a cover up or it's a couple days, so there's any kind
of communication, if people are left in the dark, I think that I
start losing trust for that organization.
Well, you have to be careful about the word cover up because
that implies that there is some sort of, you know, conspiracy
that might be taking place. I think this is an area that a
lot of organizations struggle with is how do you report on a
breach? Frankly, most suck at it.
They're just not good. They either wait too long or
they share incomplete information or they share
information so quickly that the information is made incorrect.
When they shared it, they might have thought it was correct at
the time, but things change. And so I think breach response
and breach communications are one part of it.
But it comes down to the trust. I don't know if we'll ever fully
solve it. Just to be honest with you.
Like, I don't think we will ever fully solve it because they're
the concept of privacy does not exist in every society, in every
country around the world. I don't know what it's like in
India, if that's specifically, you know, what she's asking for.
I don't know, you know specifically what they're
working on. But at any I can point to the US
as a reference at any given .50% of the population is for the
government and 50% is against it.
So and it doesn't matter who's in charge.
So that idea of trusts becomes OK, well, who do you trust and
why? And I just don't know if we will
ever get to the point where, you know, maybe trust is too loaded
of a word. You know, maybe it's more like
tolerate because I need it for, you know, a passport or a
driver's license or some other piece of information.
But I don't know if I don't know if there is really a spot where
we get to the point where like all of our identity data is in
the hands of 1 area. I think we're more headed to
more of a Federated model where some bits of information are
spread out a bunch of different, you know, networks, whether
they're decentralized or not, that's a whole other bottle wax.
But I, I, I don't know other than, you know, if you're, if
you're talking about internally an organization, how do you
build trust? If you make promises or make
commitments, do them, right? If you're going to miss dates or
whatever, communicate it, right? Don't, don't say I'm going to go
build something and then forget about it.
Or don't ask for feedback. Or if you get feedback, you
don't consider it after you ask for it, right?
I think this is just being what I would call just a decent human
being and say if you're going to do something, do they do I trust
that Jim is going to go off and do the thing that he's in charge
of? I mean, yes, I hope so, right?
But the same time now, Jim, it's on you as the person that's
being trusted to do that. You've got to deliver if it's
something you can handle by yourself, awesome, great.
You have less dependencies the vast majority of the time.
Now you're going to depend on other people.
So now you've got other people that you're trusting to get
their part done so you can get your part done to make part of a
bigger thing, right? That's going to go out.
So, you know, I think there's, it's a little bit bloated
question, but that's kind of what I was thinking about when
we said the word trust was like, oh, that's, that's a tough one.
It's a. Tough one.
I think, you know, your mind went directly to the government
situation. I think primarily the federal
government. It's just there's a history of
like, you know, distrust of the federal government that goes
back long before our time. But I think when you think
about, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying that in any way to
damn people who work for the federal government.
So let me make that clear. It's just, I think it's a fact
of life in the USI think when you think about that same
mindset to your local governments or your healthcare
provider or big tech or other companies that you trust with
your information, the context changes.
And I think transparency is a big thing.
I think what's happening with your private data is a big
thing. And I think how you handle an
incident, if one does occur, it'd be a very big thing as
well. Oh, for sure.
I think it's a hard question to answer, yeah.
It's hard question the. Idealist in me is, yes, at some
point we'll figure out and get past all this because the
benefits will be there that outweigh all the negatives.
And I think that's also part of the wider adoption.
Part of the question is why should I use this thing,
whatever this thing is, right? Whether it's a product, whether
it's something an identity rolling out, whether it's an
identity program is standing up. Why?
Why do I need this? Because that's the first
question anyone's going to have is OK, cool.
Like what does this do for me? And so I think you need to have
your messaging and understand, are you delivering something
that the organization both needs and wants?
Because if they don't want it, they're going to find ways
around whatever policies, whatever capabilities should put
in place. So I think you really need to
think about, you know, the, what is your target market look like?
And are you delivering a product, in this case most
likely an IM product that people actually want to consume and
use? Yeah.
You know, I'm also wondering, you know, if part of what Amara
was getting at was decentralized identity, because I think in a
lot of people's mind, that's the solution of owning your own
identity and just allowing the attributes that you want to
share with any given organization to be shared.
My worry is that it starts getting to the point where it's
like, just like it is today with all these cookie policies.
Like you go to pay your electric bill and it's like you accept
the cookies or you don't and eat it all.
Day long. So that's the option that's.
Your cookie policy, right, Right.
Yeah. Yes, you're right.
I, and some of this too, again, goes back to trusts.
I picked on the government because I think that's the the
easiest target, at least for me to think about.
But the same applies to any social network.
It applies to education, applies to healthcare, applies to
finance. That's why I don't think it's
going to end up being like 1. And I hate to use the word, the
B word, but one blockchain, 1 decentralized identity, one
decentralized Ledger, let's call it, right, that stores with us.
I think we're going to end up with several and you're going to
trust certain ledgers with certain pieces of data, but I
find it highly unlikely that there will be 1 Ledger to sort
of rule them all if you want to take a, a token reference to
that one. And so no, go ahead.
I was. Going to say, I think you used a
great example there with social media slash big tech and I think
that certain companies have over time damaged their reputation in
terms of your privacy so much that rebuilding trust they
happen to rebuilt trust it's and there's others that I think have
done a better job over time. And I'm not going to name names,
but because I suppose the one with the e-mail that's going to
come from it. But I think that look, once you
damage trust, it takes a long time to rebuild it.
And if you really damage it, the words like you're selling
people's private information out the back door, that's really
hard to make up from it. So I think being very clear
about what you're doing with people's data and giving them
the ability to opt out of that, it is just fundamentally key.
Yeah. And then?
Do you trust that when you click that box that says don't sell my
data, they're actually honoring it?
Well then. Yeah, yeah.
But if there's. One way to be overly intrusive,
it's to do things with people's data that they that they didn't
sign up for that they're not aware of.
So good luck tomorrow. I, I don't know if that helped
or not. I feel like we both got a little
bit of soapbox there. But, you know, the, the idea of
trust and getting things rolled out is, is challenging.
And I'm going to focus my answer back more on like, if you're in
an enterprise Oregon organization, you're trying to
roll something out, then, you know, deliver on your
commitments. Yeah.
OK, so let's get to the next question.
This one is from Sophie in France.
For a country or a large organization looking to launch a
new digital identity program, what are the most common
practical challenges they will face in the first year?
How can they plan for and address issues like technical
integration with legacy systems, managing data migration, and
ensuring the system can scale to millions of users?
OK, so millions of users. That's a very large
organization. Or maybe this is a customer
solution, but where do you want to start with that one?
You know, again, I'm not sure if this is going to be the specific
answer that Sophie's looking for, but when I think about
launching a new IM program or initiative, I think of a couple
things. One is being the picture of
where you're wanting to go, like what is the vision?
What is it that you're trying to accomplish?
So kind of making sure all that is architected out at whatever
level you can and making sure that you're communicating that
effectively to your stakeholders.
They test number one, I think #2 is kind of what goes along with
that, which is getting stakeholder alignment because
you're going to have to, you know, rank an IM program.
This isn't 4050 years ago where things slowed from the top down.
Organizations are much more organized and kind of a matrix
type organization. So you really can't get anything
done of significance on your own.
You need to have buy in, you need to work with others.
So getting that buy in kind of building that, in other words,
the politics of it all. And then the the last thing is
like when you start to shift into execution, I don't think
having like a Big Bang phase one approach is the right approach
anymore. I think it's kind of like you
have to design around getting into production with something.
I think it's that you have to get these, what do you call it,
like small wins or low hanging fruit people like to call it,
it's not always the easiest thing and you just go after the
easiest low hanging fruit thing. You know, that sometimes is the
right move because you have to start earning some St. tread.
So kind of what I did was when I was, you know, prior to my
consulting days, my first IM program, I had to, I had some
very skeptical application owners that said, all right,
well, you know, we might turn over authentication to you, but
we're not willing to turn over authorization.
We still consider that to be part of the application.
And as you know, like authentication, authorization,
IM tools are designed to handle that as kind of core sweet spot
and kind of delegating that out to every application to be a
snowflake is not really the best approach.
But if you say, all right, well, I'm going to accept this
skepticism and I'm going to be really successful at launching
authentication, you start to build, you know, the word from
the last question, trust with those stakeholders.
And now you can kind of leverage that trust to say, all right,
let's keep going. Let's kind of go for that big
vision that we've been talking about and kind of targeting from
the very beginning. So those are my initial
thoughts. Yeah, I think there's a lot that
can go wrong and it will go wrong.
And so be ready for that, especially in your first years,
you're getting something rolled out is be flexible and build in
time or capabilities or ideally both to address all the things
that you didn't think of when I say you, meaning the
organization, the program, whatever that looks like.
When it comes to rolling this out, there will be things that
will come up, they will come up early, they will come up in the
middle and they will come up right before you launch.
So be ready for it. And then I think, you know, the
politics of getting things rolled out is also challenge.
You need to get buying and support from a lot of different
people in the organization to get things done, whether it's
scope, whether it's getting applications integrated into
your into your platform, you know, whether it is, you know,
different data pieces that you want to pull in, right?
All that stuff requires partnership with other parts of
the organization to get that. And so, yeah, you've got to
build trust. It can't just be, you show up
and say here, I need this data and they're going to give it to
you. They wouldn't be doing their
jobs if they didn't question, well, what do you need this for?
Why are you using it? What are you doing with it?
And how are you going to protect my user experience and my users
to make sure that my system doesn't break all valid
questions, right? So you've got to be able to
address, you know, all of that. Yeah.
And if your response is those aren't your users, those are the
organization users, you're missing the point.
The point is like you don't want to be fighting with everybody.
You need to kind of as much as possible build alliances with
the folks that, hey, maybe they're giving you a hard time.
This is really, I think we say, you know, anybody, you can come
from any background, then be an IM program manager.
But I think the people who make good IAM program managers
realize that, you know, just because they don't get along
with somebody doesn't mean I've got to fight them to, you know,
get them to do what they should be doing or do what's right.
Put the organization goals in mind and what you have to
accomplish. And if sometimes you have to
bite your tongue, then that's just the way it is.
Yeah, I mean, you can go and fight everybody if you want, but
real hard time, first of all, making any friends and getting
anything done. So find, you know, areas that
you can align on and honestly address the questions that come
up. I think it's the other thing
too, before you're not going to have all the answers.
That'll be part of the things that you miss as you go through
this. It happens to everybody.
It's a lesson learned for next time.
And you add that to your checklist for the next time.
And then they'll be new things. You add those to the checklist,
Jim and I have like a 15 step checklist just for recording
this podcast because each thing on that on that checklist,
something has happened to cause it to be on there.
I joke with our guests. It's like the the the warning on
the shampoo bottle that says don't drink shampoo, right?
Jim's holding up his Airpods case are very early episodes.
He was constantly flicking his, his Airpods, you know, the case
and it was driving me crazy. And so there was a line at him.
Jim, throw your iPods case across the room so it doesn't
tempt you, right Though it's OK to get smarter.
It's OK to get better. And I think recognize that you
don't have all the answers. There will be things that are
not able to be answered and that's OK.
Just make sure that you understand that and you can you
have viable alternatives or plans you can work around with
it. OK, next question.
We got two more here, Jonas. In Germany, in many parts of the
world, a significant portion of the population doesn't have a
smartphone or reliable Internet access.
How can digital identity systems be designed to serve these
offline populations, ensuring that digital inclusion doesn't
become a barrier to accessing essential services like
healthcare or banking? Another good one.
Thanks, Jonas. Jim, where do you want to start
with that one? People don't have access.
By the way, these questions have been fantastic.
I think it's a very real issue, and I think it's even a more
real issue for governments. You know, Jeff, I think a lot of
times when we're working with science, like, oh, there's some
small percentage of the population that doesn't have
smartphones and we usually come up with like a small workaround.
I read an article recently about I think it was, well I'm not
sure what nation it was in, but it was somewhere in Africa and
it was actually mentioned that a lot of the citizenry.
Chooses to have flip phones rather than smartphones because
of the power consumption and they can keep a, a flip phone
active for like a week on one charge.
So it's a, it's a big thing. There's also scenarios I think
that we've learned about where they're like clean rooms or
things like prisons where folks can't bring in soft tokens.
So I think one thing is that, so it's like sizing up what is your
issue? Is it that one 2% of your user
population is a much larger, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to
sit here and make a case for multi factor authentication
using SMS. But I do think multi factor
authentication using SMS for say medium risk type access, medium
assurance use cases is something that could be considered.
So for example, if the data that you are securing is only your
data, right? So in other words, there's no
privilege access going on. I think an SMS might in some
cases. It obviously depends on what
that data is, but the overall risk of that access, the overall
requirement for assurance of who's logging in.
You could go for a lower assurance use case and a lower
assurance form of authentication.
If you have a very small user population with higher risk
access, consider using heart tokens, UV keys, or some other
form of heart token like an RSA token, something like that.
But I, you know, I think those are probably some of the, the
key scenarios. Like are you looking at a large
user population that doesn't have smartphones where you can
do soft tokens and authenticator apps?
Or are you looking at a very large, a very large group or a
very small group? And what is the requirement for
the level of assurance? Are these privileged
administrators? Are these people who have access
to a lot of data, such as data, or are they just accessing their
own data? Maybe it's a rewards program,
something like that. Hey, SMS is probably going to
work. And by the way, SMS works on
flip phones as well. So those are some of the
thoughts that come to my mind. I don't have a good answer for
this because the last I checked and I did some research on this
actually from a stats perspective to see about let's
see, 1/3 of the world's population does not have
Internet access. So roughly 2.6 to 2.7 billion.
And these are stats from bank myself and Statista or Statista,
I'm not sure how you pronounce the website.
So I kind of looked at this, but basically a third of people do
not have Internet access. So if I don't have Internet
access, how do I do anything in today's world and not get left
behind? That is the billion dollar
question because I think this is something we also discussed in
Germany when we're at EIC earlier this year.
One of our podcast, and I don't remember exactly where it came
up in those conversations, but was how do you connect the
unconnected and cell phone? Sure.
I think the stat I saw was like 88% of the people have a cell
phone doesn't really differentiate between a
smartphone and a dumb phone as we'll call it.
So there is a lot of work to go there.
I don't think it's viable to say, well, I'm just going to
ship on Ubikey like that doesn't make sense to do what they don't
have a computer going to deal with that Ubikey right.
So I think I think it's a real problem The the answer I I don't
know what it is. I, I don't know if I have a good
answer for Jonas here because it's, it's a question that I see
answered and I'd love to hear from anybody who has ideas on
this. I think there was a project
called Worldcoin or something like that where Sam Altman had
some sort of like retinal eye scanner thing that he was
sending to all different cities around the world to do some sort
of like in person identity verification.
I don't know enough about it, but it seemed to me like that
wasn't a good solution. So I don't know what the answer
is If you, if I don't have Internet and I and I don't have
a phone, you know, you know, I'm going to get, they're going to
get. I just jumped to scenarios.
Here, which is that you do have Internet, but I mean it's a good
question like where, what is your Internet access?
Is it your flip phone? Is it like kind of a browser?
And do you remember going into the browser on your flip phone
when flip phones were evolving? It was pretty rough.
You had to hit the five key like 3 times to get to the third
letter on that button. Yeah, A.
Little T9 predictive text. I mean, you're talking to wrong
person with that because, you know, I rocked Windows Mobile
way, way back in the day. So, you know, before that we had
Palm and stuff like that. But you're totally right.
And I would argue probably the vast majority of people don't
have computers. They probably only access the
Internet on their phone and. And if.
They don't have a a relatively modern smartphone and I'd I'd
say you know something that's running either iOS or most
likely Android because iOS is mostly AUS thing.
Most people are running an Android phone of some sort.
They may be several years out of date then they may not have all
the security patches. They may be prone to all sorts
of backdoors and things that get left behind even from the OS
makers where they just say, yeah, it's been 7 years of
updates, It's been five years of updates.
We just, we're not going to patch those anymore.
And so that leaves not only a, a, a large percentage of the
population with extremely limited functionality from an
access standpoint, they don't have the latest security
patches. And so they are ripe for, you
know, a lot of problems and, and people take advantage of them.
Yeah, One thing that came to mind is we're talking about
people don't have the Internet access was maybe kiosk is part
of the answer, but it's it's all part of the answer, right.
It's the identity practitioners on the ground of, or technology
practitioners really even more broadly, solving these problems.
Shout out to them because you have to take all these parts and
pieces and wire together what your solution is going to be.
And it may not be perfect. I will say that, you know, when
you're a government trying to address the population, you,
you're always striving for as perfect as it can be, as
inclusive as it can be, leaving out large segments of your
population is not, not fair, right?
And so, and I don't say that to not the people who are coming up
with these solutions. Obviously they're doing their
best, but that is the challenge. Yeah, I think it's, you know,
this is the word inclusion comes in.
It's like how do you design systems that are inclusive of as
many people as possible for the people who can't be included?
What are the organization's governments, whatever that looks
like, doing to bring those people with them?
Because I'm sure it doesn't make sense.
Like if I was building on a system and say, OK, well, we're
always going to have 1/3 of our population never able to use
this product like that is that sounds stupid to me.
Like from a from like even just on making money, capitalistic
kind of approach. But even from a coverage of the
government, supposed to be government of all the people.
What are you doing to bring that third up to at least some level
of parity to be able to access a service?
Because if I don't do that, the other 2/3 of my audience are
never going to reap the full benefit of a 100% solution or a
solution as more people take advantage of it.
You know, we look at mobile driver's license, for example,
here in the US we're what a decade it feels like into this.
And I, I think it's only what 1415 states that have it only 35
or whatever more to go. So it means we're still decades
away from that because not everybody has gotten on board of
supporting that, you know, that concept.
So I think it's AI think it's multi pronged approach.
I think we need a ton of solutions, but I also need to
think we look at the problems say, OK, why don't these
populations have Internet access?
What are we doing to give them some level of access so they can
access resources for people who don't have cell phones or have
older cell phones? What are we doing to either
replace or update those phones, whatever.
And hey, this all comes down to money and taxes and that makes
everyone really happy all the time.
So I'll just leave it at that point.
But there are so many factors here that it's it's it's almost
impossible for me to even have a coherent thought about it.
Do you have a digital driver's license right now?
Nope. Not available in North Carolina.
When I was at the airport yesterday, I saw a lot of people
using them and I had technology envy big time.
Yeah, I mean, and look, I'm a nerd.
I want as much things, you know, as I can digitize as much as
possible. I don't write anything down.
Everything is notes that I type. I can type that so that I can
write. So I'm with that.
You know, we, we had the REAL ID here in the US you know, that
theoretically was supposed to launch in May when we were at
EIC. And, you know, that's been
postponed several times because we've only had 20 years to get
that right. And we still haven't figured out
how to do that. And at least here in North
Carolina, you know, trying to get an appointment with the DMV
takes literally months. And of course, if you're the
kind of person to waste the last second to get anything done,
yeah, Now you can't board a plane because you have a
reality. So they've actually like relaxed
restrictions because we don't have our, you know what together
to support that. OK, I'm going to get off my
soapbox in that one because I'm starting to get angry.
Rachel, in Canada, this is the last one.
Oh, this won't be controversial at all.
Biometric data like fingerprints or facial scans is often used in
digital identity systems because it's so unique.
What are the fundamental pros and cons of using biometrics for
identity verification? And what are the main security
considerations organizations must address when storing this
kind of sensitive data? OK, biometrics, not
controversial at all. How do you want to respond to
Rachel? Well, if she asks about the pros
and cons, I think the pros are increased security, increased
convenience. I love using fingerprint on, you
know, rather than having to type in the password.
And I think it's more more secure than relying just on
passwords. I think the risks are, you know,
if that data were to fall into the wrong hands risk that, you
know, you're being surveilled. I think those are some of the
key risks. You know, I think that the best
practices for managing it well, one thing is it could keep the
the biometrics on the device rather than uploading it to use
some kind of central server. So you see a lot of solutions
keeping the biometric on the device and then communicating to
the back end with some secure channel.
I think that if you do have to put it on the security channel
now you're very dependent on that organization doing a good
job of securing your biometric data.
So you're hoping that they're doing something like tokenizing
it and things like that. So high level response to that
question is a good question. I mean, it's, you know, you see
it propping up more and more every day.
And I think that it's got, it's getting to the point it's like,
well, you know, it's definitely a train that is too far out of
the gate to stop. I think that's a good thing.
But I think these questions on, you know, how secure is my data,
They're just completely legitimate questions.
Yeah. It seems kind of like a running
theme here with some of these questions is trust.
Do you trust wherever the state is being stored?
Look, I like biometrics. I think it's a great technology,
a great solution. It's easy.
It's, you know, you, you can't forget your face as much as
maybe I might want to. Your face is with you all the
time. Or your fingerprint, right?
Or your voice or whatever that may be.
Is it perfect? No, of course not.
Nothing is. But is it better than, you know,
a password? Heck yeah.
I mean, how many people want to keep remembering passwords or
have to change them or have to use upper or lower and then you,
you know, have all the different problems with that.
So there is an obvious Bennett to biometrics with the
assumption that the biometric data is being processed and
stored securely and that there is some transparency how it's
being used. Again, it's your data.
So what happens if your face gets stolen?
I can't really go change my face as much as I want to, you know,
this is this is it. So if that biometric data
becomes compromised somehow and someone's able to duplicate it,
whether it's, you know, figure out how to unencrypt the
information or whatever it may be, that's a real problem.
And we need to have some ideas around how do we make sure that,
you know, there's some, some indicator somewhere that says,
you know, Jeff's face is compromised in more ways than
one, right? So how do we, you know, how do
you address those sorts of things?
Same thing with fingerprints. You know, voices can be altered,
right? All that stuff.
So it's a very sticky situation. I think in the end, benefits are
good and it gun comes down to trust.
Yeah, If you put everything to a centralized database and then
that centralized database gets breached, what are you going to
do? Add?
To it, this whole new concern, which is that of deep fakes, I
can, you know, create an AI avatar of your face, of your
voice, maybe not your thumbprint, but you can see this
is a big time concern. Then quantum computing.
How's that going to affect it? One thing I would say is like,
you know, you and I are very good about talking about these
topics and more or less the abstract.
We have the sponsors spotlight episodes where our partners,
our, you know, technology vendors come in to talk about
their specific solution, how they solve these problems.
And we try to keep those episodes educational on, Hey,
here's the the topic in the industry, as well as giving the
opportunity for our sponsors to talk about how they solve that
specific problem with their technology.
We also try to keep some entertaining as well.
So I'd say if you've kind of heard any of the topics today,
if you're coming from a technology vendor and you're
like, guys, you need to talk about you fill in the blank,
reach out to us. You know, we we should talk
about the sponsor spotlight episodes, but none of what we
talked about so far has been sponsored.
Yeah, I almost sound like a like that was a shameless plug there
for more sponsors. But there are a lot of options
in this space and you just, there's no silver bullet, you
know, as of at least September and recording September 19th of
2025, there's a lot of really good options.
And I think layering those options is the approach here to
make sure that you try to get as many people involved as possible
served in one way or another with whatever capability makes
the most sense. And just understand and know
that you're not going to be able to get everybody.
And then, you know, some of it is going to be under control.
Like, I can't solve every single problem in the world as much as
I want to. There are other things that need
to happen to make that, you know, to make that problem
become something that is solvable.
And it may take days, months, years, decades, lifetimes, you
know, but we see that. But progress marches on.
Sometimes it doesn't move as quickly as we want it to, but it
does move on. And you know, hopefully people
can can take some sort of solace in that.
I feel like it's a little of a downer these last couple
questions, but hopefully that helps.
Yeah, One thing I just, you just reminded me I'll I'll be quick
is and maybe I won't be so quick, but is that a lot of
times talking about the happy path.
So whether it's like the biometric authentication, things
like that, it's the unhappy path.
It's how do I call the help desk and say I need my password to
reset things like that. That's how the breaches are
primarily taking place today. It's social engineering.
If you can take out the social, if you can take out like the
fishing, then all they have left is the social engineering.
If you're, if your main process is too hard to hack, make sure
that your help desk isn't getting hacked.
Make sure that you've got enough controls at the place where you
can get socially engineered to let somebody in your
organization is basically open the front door.
Do what you can to solve that problem.
And a lot of times that's process and there's a lot of
technology out there that can support that as well.
Yeah, you've seen a number of those things come through.
And chances are the way you're going to get breached is through
a human social engineering gives up a password, uses a bad
password, you know, clicks the MFA prompt that we said we'll
solve all of our problems. And yet somebody goes and says,
yeah, sure, go ahead, right. There's just you can't, you
can't ignore the human factor. And so people will unfortunately
always be the weak link, at least until the all the AIS take
over and then we don't have to worry about it.
They'll just tell us what we can and can't do.
So I'm surprised we didn't have an AI question really in this
bunch, but that might be refreshing for people.
Yeah, right. For sure.
All right. Let's wrap things up ending on a
lighter note. We were kind of pontificating
before we hit record here what we want to go with, and I think
we started down the air travel route of problems that you and I
have experienced. And maybe some of these are
recent, maybe not, but let's start there and let's maybe
treat this a little bit like we're ahead of time.
But Festivus, you know, we've got the airing of the
grievances. Let's just start with generally
speaking, what are some air travel etiquette things that
people should be aware of when they're on a plane or maybe in
an airport or something on those lines?
Let's get some education out there.
OK, I think First off, you learn etiquette probably over time or
but some of it's just the basic human decency.
You know, don't take off your shoes and stink up the plane.
Don't eat sauerkraut on the plane.
Don't do things that are going to gross other people out or are
inconsiderate of the people around you.
And now I want to talk about one specific thing that I've seen
happen more and more recently, and it really irks me, which is
here's how planes unload people by row.
People in the front of a plane, usually if the X is on the front
of the plane, get off first, right?
And then it's row by row. And if somebody like said, go
ahead, go get off in front of me, fine.
However, if you think that you're going to just push your
way to the front of the line or but that is tremendously rude
and we can't be friends, well. Hard stance.
There can't be friends. I agree.
I think it's just a thing. I I don't see that very often.
I think what I typically see more and I, and I will defend
this practice is if you've got a tight connection, usually the
airline is aware of that and they ask people to stay seated
to say, hey, let the people with the tight connections deplane
first so they can get out there. And I've been part of that group
before. And I can tell you as someone
who was on a tight connection, as in me literally running
through the Atlanta airport to make my flight to Amsterdam, I
greatly appreciate it. You know, being able to skip
even the four or five rows that I had to get to the front
because I was already kind of, you know, near the front anyway.
The problem I have with it is all of a sudden everybody's got
a tight connection. And so people who are obviously
not, you know, underneath, under that sort of duress tend to take
advantage of the situation. So have a heart, you know, think
of it as if you were in that position.
If you've got plenty of time, you know, let those people pass.
If you're one of those people, make sure they understand like,
hey, I've got to take connection.
Do you mind if I, you know, get in front of you?
You can do that all as you're taxing to the gate right?
Doesn't have to be like right that second.
Say hey, talk to the people around and say hey.
Just FYI got a tight connection is OK.
If I get in front of you, 99% of the time people are cool.
Yeah. And so that should be a
relatively straightforward thing I.
Totally agree with you. I've been on both sides of it as
well and I've stayed put in my seat.
If I didn't have a tight connection, I've gotten up and
taken advantage of it wherever you need to.
Yeah, but I think it's the me first mentality that bothers me.
And you see it on the roads a lot of times where it's like,
are you got a queue of cars and someone's like, oh, well this
lane is free. I'm going to go all the way up
until they go down those two lanes.
Me first. Or someone sees that you're
backing out of your spot and they're just like, no, I'm
going. Or you turn on your turn signal
and the person speeds up so you can't switch lanes.
Me first. I don't like that.
Be considerate of your of your fellow humans, that's all.
OK, I'm, I'm OK with that. That's, that's a stance I can
get behind. Where do you feel about people
standing up when the when they get to the gate, immediately get
to the gate and people stand up automatically even there's
really nowhere to go? That drives.
People crazy for some reason I don't quite get it, but it seems
to be a common thing that people complain about is why is
everybody saying even if they're like row 30 all the way in the
back, you know back of the bus people stand up immediately when
they land I. Don't know everybody's reason
for doing what they do. That doesn't seem to bother me.
I had a flight yesterday from Orlando to Denver.
Is 4 hours as in the middle seat?
My legs were cramped up by the end.
I couldn't wait to stand up, but I had a middle seat wasn't able
to stand up until like I literally walked off.
But yeah, that doesn't that one doesn't bother me too much.
I don't see how that really infringes on other people.
Unless your your goal is to get your bag and to move up two
rows. Then I think it's me first
mentality and I don't like that. Yeah, I think it's I, I get, you
know, the older I get, it's like, I've been sitting for X
number of hours. I need to, like, stand up and
stretch my leg, especially when you're crammed into these tiny
little airplane seats that nobody fits into.
So I get it. I don't have a position on it,
but I thought I'd throw it out there because I see it commonly
on, you know, like the Delta subreddit, which I see from time
to time is like, why are these people staying home?
And like, cares, you know, they're not going anywhere
faster typically than anyone else.
Usually they're stuck behind everyone else.
You have to see those videos. Sometimes people post and it's
like someone takes off their shoe and puts it on the arm
like. Gross.
I haven't run into anybody that's that inconcerate yet, but
that is nasty. Yeah, it's.
Pretty gross I had. One issue where somebody behind
me had their barefoot on my like armrest on the window.
And so the person's gross big toe and it was not a, it was not
a a nice big toe. It was a pretty gnarly looking
one. And you know, I put my elbow
there and then, you know, I'm end up moving and it kept
showing up there. And so, you know, I just started
like, you know, elbowing it and you know, stuff like that.
And I eventually I eventually got the hip, but just gross.
Keep your shoes on, people. You got your little space and
just think about like the people around you is that.
I think that is the two things that I've learned in my decades
of travelling. 1 is be considerable of other people and
then the other is like manage and maintain your temper because
things happen during travel. You're sitting on the the runway
for two hours and it's the plane track that's being filled with
exhaust fumes and you're just like angry.
I mean I would be. Pretty angry about that too.
Like like let's come on, let's let's figure this out.
But. Yes, it happens all the time
though a slow burn. Is.
Is preferable and you just have to somehow find a way to keep
your cool and realized that this is going to happen sometimes.
How about the times where you're like, you're sitting in the
airport, they delay. This happened to you and I.
We were both in the Atlanta airport.
They delayed, delayed, delay. It's 11:45.
They finally cancel. You're rebooked to the 6:00 AM
flight and we can't pay for your hotel tonight because weather.
And you know, it wasn't weather. It wasn't weather where you're
going. It wasn't weather where you are.
You could fly off the handle and be angry.
It's really not going to get you anywhere.
Yeah, these things are going to happen in your career of travel.
Yeah, I think people who travel a lot probably understand it
about the people who don't. It's just these are things that
happen. You know, it's an odds game.
You might go 100 trips that are totally fine and another person
might go 100 trips and every single one was a disaster.
So you just never know. I have the Flighty app on my
phone, which is a great iOS app for anybody who is interested in
like their air travel and kind of keep things track.
And so I have all my flights in there that goes back back to
2010 and all time. I have lost 125 hours from
delays since this has been tracking 11 this year 2024, I
lost 33 hours of time because of delays with flights.
Now some of that was hurricane related where I was like gone
for three, you know, essentially 3 days, which didn't really
count on that part of it. But yeah, it, it's, it's going
to happen and it's just, you know, Goose Frappa deal with it.
Go into a moment of Zen or whatever it might be.
You have to. You have to or it's going to
ruin your life. So quick story, I was flying
back from Orlando yesterday. We were both in Orlando for
company conference and I, I boarded the flight and I'm good
and I'm on a window seat on my flight from Atlanta to Asheville
and plane is boarded. You know, everybody's on
essentially at this point. And I get the, the flight
attendant comes back and says, hey, you've been upgraded.
Like, OK, I'm like, I'm already in the window seat.
There's two people sitting next to me like the point is
literally ready to go and they couldn't have figured that out
like before. So shockingly I declined the
upgrade because I was like, I'm not going to make these people
stand up to move up like 5 rows into 2D or whatever it was in.
So I was like just next time tell me sooner.
Don't wait till like the boarding door is closed to.
Somebody else and they took 10 minutes to move up there.
No, the, the, the seat was empty, but I just, I felt bad
because it was like these two people sitting next to me.
I'd already gotten comfortable and got my stuff kind of set up
and was like I. Don't want to if it was a.
Longer flight, Absolutely, but for a 38 minutes or a 45 minute
flight? You didn't do that.
Yeah, I don't. Know oh I'm not.
I'd be ashamed. Of the old, yeah, if it was, if
it was a flight more than an hour, I would have done it.
But at Atlanta, Nashville is, you know, 45 minutes, maybe 50
if everything you know, goes wrong.
But, and I was like, just. And at that point it was also
like, I don't know, 9:00 at night.
I just want to get home. Yeah.
All right, let's wrap it. I'll be.
Interested to see what YouTube shorts you make out of if
anything from the leg node comes up.
I don't know. I typically don't.
I try to keep it on point. So I'll probably try to focus on
that. But I know you'll be getting
into the YouTube Shorts thing, so you might carve something out
of this. Yeah, I.
Love it. Some sort of public messaging
and then that's when I really get to hate because people would
be like, I'm going to stand up and get past you anytime, you
know, screw you, Jim. I'd like sour drought.
Right. That's the one that that
definitely bugs me. And as much as I like
McDonald's, I do not want to smell it on a plane as it goes
past me because now I'm thinking about French fries.
Well, especially if you're. Starving and you don't have
anything? Yeah, yeah.
All right, let's call it for this week.
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