You're listening to the Identity at the Center podcast.
This is the show that talks about identity and access
management and making sure you know who has access to what.
Let's get started. Welcome to the Identity at the
Center podcast. I'm Jeff and that's Jim.
Hey, Jim. Hey, Jeff.
How's it going? Not so bad yourself.
Good. I was listening to our show the
other day for the first time in a while.
I I mean, I don't listen to every episode, right?
I'm on every episode. But I don't like to listen to my
own voice. I think a lot of people have
that aversion, and I've got to say Jeff.
And so for everyone who's listening on a regular basis,
they should know that you are the man behind the scenes who.
Does all the editing work and everything and all the funky
music in the beginning. And that's what really got me.
I was like, whoa, we're like, totally pro here.
I was wondering if I could notice that I kind of slipped
that change in earlier this year.
I figured, yeah, New Year, let's maybe try something look
different. But yeah, I don't listen to our
shows, even even when I'm editing them.
You know, I'm listening to them, but I'm not really listening to
them. You know, I'm looking for like
background noise and like clicks and you know, trying to, you
know make sure that it that it sounds as good as I can in my,
you know, totally amateur and I'm sure totally unprofessional
way. I headed the show.
So it is totally, you know, you know, I've learned a lot over 80
plus episodes at this point. But yeah, I appreciate that.
So it's, you know, it's cool. It's it's a it's a passion
project. I think between the two of us,
it's kind of started and you know, here we are several months
and dozens and dozens of episodes later.
Well, the other day I said to somebody we were on a call
together and I said, yeah, this is my favorite part of the job.
And remind me, it's not really part of the job.
Yeah, it would be cool. Yeah, it's it's definitely, you
know, we we do have day jobs. We don't really talk about it
too much, you know, but but yeah, we do.
You know, I am strategy assessments and things like
that. But yeah, you know, we don't do
sponsors either, so it's going to be kind of hard to turn this
into, you know, a paying gig without sponsorship I guess.
And and I don't know if that's where we want to go with it.
So waiting for that call from Spotify, you know that
$1,000,000 check right? Well I guess if you're
interested in sponsoring, right you know feel free to get in
touch if it makes sense as long as we can keep it, you know
relatively vendor neutral. I'm I'm pretty open to to
anything at this point. I agree.
You know what's really been
great though has been the feedback from our listeners and
somebody that. We're having on today is a
listener of the show and we've been in contact with and he's
somebody who puts out a lot of content himself.
So Jeff, I'll pass it back to you to do the introduction.
But I think it's really cool that, you know, our listeners
are reaching out and there are people who are active by and
practitioners as well. Yeah, it is super cool and you
know, super pumped. Actually have Carlos on the
show. We'll get to him in a second
here. He wrote an article that touched
around, you know, how to build a successful I M program and it
was on enterprisesecuritymag.com.
I'll wait to the article in our show so you can kind of check
that out. And part of that article touched
on managing organizational change, which I thought was
interesting and it's something that sometimes gets overlooked
right when we're developing programs and kind of getting
things out, out and then the into the real world.
So without further ado, why don't we bring on the author of
that article? His name is Carlos Rodriguez.
He's the director of IT security and Risk at Citizens Property
Insurance. Welcome, Carlos.
Thank you, Jim and Jeff, happy to be here and I and I will
start with not only thanking you for my the opportunity but for
the content that you put out every day or every week.
Been listening for about a year. So I.
I appreciate it on behalf of the of our community.
Oh, well, well, thank you so much.
Hey, I feel like this deserves like a, you know, longtime
listener, first time caller radio tropes.
But yeah, no, that's really cool and excited to have you here
because I really want to get into that, that whole topic of
the change management. But if you've been listening
right, you probably know the first question, which is, you
know, how did you get into the I Am space of the Infosec area?
Is it something that shows you it or did you choose it?
I think we chose each other. Honestly.
I grew up on the help desk rank like many and you know part of
that usually involve provisioning and deprovisioning
user you know from a execution point of view and building a few
processes. But from there I got engaged
with third party access or remote access from a security
point of view, from firewalls and what have you.
Concentrators then kept growing into more of leadership roles,
driving strategies for access as a whole in different
organizations, My passions always being insecurity, and I
discovered a few years ago that access was key to have sound
security for any organization. So Carlos, we we've referenced
this blog already. And the the focus on it was
organizational or managing organizational change, right.
It's such a big part of anytime you roll out I M technology
projects, new processes, you know the the amount of impact
they have on people and managing that impact is really key to the
success of your of your initiative.
So tell us about the blog. Tell us about what your
perspective is on change management.
Sure. So, yeah, so identity and access
management is a broad topic. It's a program, it's not a one
off. We're gonna put MFA here and be
done or single sign on it. It's it's a big business
initiative and that's how I approach it.
And because of who we are, we needed to have a stakeholder
support. All the way to the Board of
Governors of citizens and we all you also have to realize and and
I'm sure you all understand this, but you are changing the
way people work and interact with data and systems.
So usually it's very disruptive, right.
And that's where organizational change management can help you
to to navigate the long journey. Because that's the other point,
this is, this is a long journey. You're probably working on this
piece this year, but next year you're gonna jump, going to jump
on a different project and so on, and they all tie it into
each other. So there are different
techniques for organizational change management that can help
you navigate the journey and get the support from the
stakeholders. You know, I I've always kind of
felt that I am. It may be only second to an ERP
initiative in terms of. How much it impacts and how much
it touches the business, but in a way, in a way I I prioritize I
M because it's usually the 1st place that people have an impact
with the organization. So if you are a customer, it's
obvious, right, there's that whole registration and getting
logged in and things like that. But even on the enterprise side,
your first activity usually onboarding to the organization.
Can you access? All these systems and even more
so with everybody working remotely now.
But it's just that level of touch, right?
It's such an impact on everybody and it's that first impact that
they feel. That is correct.
And then you have you you talk about on board and then you have
to take those accounts down at some point in time or change you
know their access as people move through their through their
organization. So it's it is an ongoing
process. From, you know, the first day,
your first day to your last day, we got to manage these
identities when you're managing change for the organization,
right? No matter what it is, I would
imagine that this is not a one and done type of situation,
right? It's something that's going to
evolve and you're going to identify areas that you want to
improve on just like anything else, right?
Things that maybe got missed the first pass.
OK, let's remember that for next time.
How do you approach that type of situation where you know,
getting it stood up and then getting it ready to go?
Sure. So what we did was we we brought
in stakeholders from the entire organization, from all business
units and and basically interview them what are your
strong points, where are your pain points and based on that we
built a holistic strategy that then we presented to them and.
For feedback, you know part of the idea outside of the house,
but you know there are different techniques for getting started.
I was blessed to have an internal organizational change
management team and one of the as soon as they started and
found that out, I went to them said OK, this is a multiyear,
very impactful initiative. And you helped me and they
brought in some techniques and presented to to me and what they
they usually lead with. And the preferred technique here
for us is is known as at CAR. That's a DKIKAR and it stands
for the awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and
reinforcement. What does that mean?
Well, first you have to be aware that a change is needed.
That's your awareness, right? And that's where communication
starts to drive that desire for that change.
And and that's the most difficult part, right?
You're changing someone's way of working and that that has an
impact. Then you focus on that
knowledge, you know, training, how is the change gonna gonna
impact me and what have you? Again, the training list to
acquire and the abilities that you had that you need to have to
support and sustain the change and then the reinforcement is
ongoing. You probably have heard a lot
that we seen a lot of technology projects everywhere that but we
never capitalize on the promised land, right, because there is
another priority or or whatever reason.
Sometimes we don't finish our projects and that's a
reinforcement piece and also measurement of it of of the.
Change, so it sounds like your organization takes change
management very seriously. You talked a little bit about
you had these internal stakeholders that you worked
with. Talk to us a little bit more
about that. Was that like a, I mean I'm not
sure if it your organization that's kind of formally
established or? You kind of reached into the
organization to find people. I would think that it's kind of
more common that you're really gonna need to identify who are
the people that can assist you in this area.
But maybe talk a little bit about what your approach was in
terms of identifying the people that could help you.
This sounds I I would imagine as a new person in your
organization where you need some kind of mentoring of houses done
successfully in the past, but then also you have to have
people who have. Influence within the
organization and the groups that you're trying to reach out to.
Correct. So you touch on a few items that
I did go by. One I look for look up to my
sponsors, right? Who were the sponsors of the
project, in this case, the two Vps in it.
One is my boss who handles a strategy, architectural
resiliency and security. The other one was the technology
VP. And within those groups and the
first thing was understand, OK, what is the business process
here? Let me follow the money if you
would, right. That's what this is always go by
what are the key processes in the organization.
I partnered closely with our our enterprise architecture team who
is a a sister organization and the resiliency team also a
sister organization. We're all on the same
leadership. On the resiliency side, that was
key because they had conducted business impact analysis
already. So I just went there, look at
it, OK. And then from there I went to
the process owners of those critical processes.
We just as a little bit of background because I didn't
mention this earlier, Citizens is the insurance provider of
last resort in the state of Florida.
That means we provide. Coverage for those who cannot
get it in a commercial from a commercial carrier, well, that
means that a big part of our mission as a company and one of
our bodies is that of service. We have to be there for the
policyholders when a storm hits. We actually have to be on Ground
Zero 48 hours after that of the events, so.
One of the key processes for us is boarding the independent
adjusters that go assess the damage of the storms, right.
And and that's one team I went to.
We also have, we don't have a sales force internally pretty
much we, we work a lot of with brokers and agents, right.
That's another key stakeholders, then we have policyholders and
then our internal users. So though, through all of these
business impact analysis and my partnership with Enterprise
Architecture, identify those key stakeholders and then brought
them in for the conversations. What happens if you're talking
with the stakeholders and you get a real stick in the mud,
someone who might be difficult, Have you encountered that And if
so, you know is that something you know?
What are some of the the tips or tricks you might have for the
folks who are listening? When, when that will happen, not
if when. Right.
So, well, first, understand that change is a long process, right?
Studies have shown that organizational change really
sticks after three years, leave or take.
So there is a concept known as a change change curve, which
visualize how this process goes, right.
So you are a status quo for a while, right?
Everything is going. It's going well, and then
there's change. Reintroduce the change.
Right at that point in time, what happens is exactly what you
described, yet is denial. Why are you doing this to me?
In fact, why is I also usually people also take a self denial
type of the. Why am I?
Not taking on this and that type of deal.
So then you that that sort of was start going down right on
the curve. Then there is a little bit of a
valley at the bottom and that is when there's doubt and confusion
and you know uncertainty and that's where I'm looking for
what's in it. For me, that's a big piece of
the change. Processes.
We're all looking on what's in it for me, and that's me as a
leader. That's what I need to
communicate because what you want to do is on that valley,
you want to get out of that valley as soon as possible.
You don't want to stay there alone.
And one of the books of my favorite books is called Pixon
Valley. Actually, there's a key question
that they ask there in this situation, which is what's the
truth in this situation? And so I help people understand
that if as much as you can, I partner with at that point with
my sponsors and other people that had more time in the
organization to understand the other side because you know, I
was dealing with people I didn't know for the most part.
So before each conversation I would prepare to with with
longer tenure people in the team.
To understand, OK, I'm going to have the conversation with this
stakeholder, Tammy, who is what's what's going on with this
person? What is he looking for?
She's looking for. So then once you start coming
out of the valley, you go start going up to rationalize to
actually accept the change, and then you get to the
reinforcement part of it. So in short, I think.
I wanted to explain that that process, but really you have to
communicate what's in it for, for the person or for the
business unit. Help them understand that and
and part of what I do also is help them understand, uncover
and manage risk so they can make better decisions.
Usually that works well. You mentioned the, you know,
establish you know, using established relationships.
And I'm and I'm curious your thought on this is you know I've
been involved in organizations where I've you know been there
for a while and okay, let's start an I M program And I've
also worked with organizations where it didn't exist and I was
brought in to create that I M program and didn't have the
luxury of knowing anybody really, right.
I'm this this new person coming into the Oregon you don't have
to stand up and I an effective I M program without the benefit of
any relationships. I see good and bad in that
because you're also not carrying baggage potentially from you
know previous previous projects or previous you know
expectations those sorts of things.
What are is your thought around you know you would you think one
is easier than the other. Are they about the same?
You know, what would you do if you were kind of dropped into
and you had a choice? Would you go into a new org or
would you try to start it up, you know, with the current org?
Well the the way I would approach that is you you are
working with someone internally. Right.
I mean, you are a consultant coming in, in your case and
you're working with someone in the team, in the internal
organization. That will be me.
My role, my responsibility is to present those people to you so
you can have those conversations.
And that's what we did, that we work with a with a third party.
Consultant here. And that was my role.
I was the coach at quarterback. You know, let's bring claims,
let's bring vendor management, let's bring legal and I will
brief the team, the consulting team.
We're bringing these folks. We will give them a little bit
of background and then we really let the business guide the
conversation. Tell me about your process.
What matters to you? Let because at the end of the
day as I mentioned earlier, this is a business initiative, this
is not a technology project and that's how we gain support from
the board and everyone. And so you make them feel like
we're listening to them, right. And you know all the techniques
around listening and reinforcement.
And then when you present the results back, make sure they get
feedback again. Go through another iteration and
usually, you know, they felt they were part of it.
This is not it or Security working on Asylum telling us
what to do. They actually are considering my
input, and there's there's a lot of value to that.
That's right. So Jeff, I've got a new analogy
the Carlos just gave me, which is that what makes a good IM
program manager? Is he or she is a quarterback?
Right. They just, they make everybody
else look like bizarre. But Carlos says you're kind of
going through the peaks and valleys of change management.
It couldn't help but draw the analogy to the seven steps of
grief. Yeah, very, very common.
Very. Nile, you know, and now this
can't. Be happening to me, but you know
what it was coming to mind as you're talking about that is,
you know. You're helping people accept
this change. Talk a little bit earlier about
the the trainings that you're you're that you wind up doing
and things like that. And I think that you know what
came to mind or what I was wondering was, you know, what
are like the forms of communication?
How are you getting this out there?
Are you, you know, leveraging corporate e-mail newsletters?
Are you sending? Letter from the desk of the CEO.
What were some of the the techniques that you used to kind
of communicate change to the organization?
Yes, all of them. I mean, so we have different
ways to communicate because people are busy.
So you know, we we gotta put the information out as much as we
can. Obviously there are certain very
formal channels to communicate with the board and the executive
team. We use those forms for that
Ioffer and it was accepted to the executive team to come talk
to their leadership teams and and remember boards executive,
these are 10 minutes conversation, right, 15 minutes,
very shorter to the point and what's in it for me.
So when I went to talk to claims, I modify my message to
talk about the claims process and that how this impacts that.
When I went to talk to HRI talk about you know I GA and how the,
you know HR system plays into provision and the provisioning
potentially right, because I knew that was a change that will
impact them and so on and so forth.
That's at the business and high stakeholders level.
Then we also wrote internal articles that came from our CEO,
who is my line of my line of leadership.
She is our my boss's boss. So she put articles out there.
My boss put articles, my other part of my team put articles.
We also did. And then you, you continue to
adjust based on the project you're working on, right?
So MFA we, when we roll MFA out, we put a lot of a series that we
we call tech talks. It's an open mic conference call
and with the technology people in there to answer questions
really brief 10 minutes overview and then it's a Q&A.
And those were a hit with the organization.
We had somewhere between 5:00 and 10:00 with maybe 60 people
average attending, that's that. We also have another venue which
is our agile. All of our agile ceremonies, one
of them for example is inspect and adapt.
Well, that's when we go and show people what we're doing and they
give us feedback because it's all about feedback.
That's what we try to to do. We collaborate a lot, we provide
information, get feedback, make adjustments.
So a lot of different ways to communicate, but it's about
reinforcing the the message. Well, I'm glad that you gave me
that transition, right? We have enough time to kind of
pick on another topic. And so in another one of your
blog articles, you talked about Agile methodologies in IM
deployments. My question bluntly is do you
find that Agile works better than traditional waterfall
approaches when it comes to IM? I think it's really.
I don't know. I know this is not the the
answer that we all like, but it depends on who you are.
It depends on your organization. For us, we are still growing
into the agile transformation. We've been on the journey for
about 3 to 4 years, which sounds like a long time, but for a
transformation of that magnitude is actually early.
So for us we approach it with an agile mentality, but sometimes
we may apply waterfall techniques depending on the
magnitude of the of the project. For example privilege access.
We did a lot of waterfall there early on as we transition to the
being deployed and and then I gel after that.
But for most, for the most part, we work in the sprints. 2 weeks
of sprints where we try to release some sort of value for
the organization, but you know, while you get the the
infrastructure in place, it's more of a waterfall.
But so it's kind of a scrum fall for us, in some cases a scrum.
Fall I like that, but it sounds like there really is a place
for, you know, a hybrid approach where you're not strictly agile,
you're not strictly waterfall, but you take the right approach
for whatever project or maybe even team right that, that
you're engaging with. Have you found any particular,
you know, mix that works really well or is it truly, you know,
figuring it out as you're kind of going through it with with
different personalities? You know, it could be a project
personality or it could be, you know, a team personality.
That sort of sort of approach. There's a misconception or
misunderstanding about agile and that I found that with my team,
just it's deploy fast. Well, it's not that really.
It really has nothing to do or little to do with the speed.
It has more to do really with delivering value.
So with that said, our approach is in our security team and and
many of the IT organizations here, it's about releasing and
getting feedback, right. Was this what you were looking
for? Is this what you're looking for?
So it's a constant engagement with the stakeholders, with the
product owners to make sure that we're delivering the value they
are looking for and because because the other thing is
there's a lot of competing priorities in any organization
as you know. And so you gotta make sure that
you are delivering value. If not, you know they're either
going to not care much about what you're doing or shut down
the project. So feedback is the key for that.
We we do we lean more towards agile to two weeks of Sprint in
our case. How do you defend the quality
when it comes to moving with speed?
Because they think that's typically one of the areas that
a lot of organizations and, you know, project team struggle with
is when you get into these heads down sprints and you're kind of
running full speed. How do you make sure you don't
you know run through a wall instead of maybe you know making
sure that you ran through the door that was already there and
you're not causing more havoc than than you're creating you
know solutions to We from a script point of view what we do
is we we try to provide the requirements as early on the
Canban portfolio, Canban as possible.
There are different stages. So once what project is about to
take off, we have a pretty solid SDLC checklist and that's where
we inject our our IT security assessment tools that lists.
So it does a a lean risk analysis with what we know at
that time, right. And it gives you an inherent
risk that drives your controls and we look at OK, well based on
what you're telling me we need these controls and that give you
a a residual risk. So that was very well accepted
was another change that was like why are you doing this to me?
Why do I have to now go through these things.
But once people saw the value that we basically are not even
in the conversations sometimes because now what we're doing is
the enterprise architecture team is running with that tool and in
the future we envision we're kicking off our security
champions program here very soon.
We we we did last year but the world changed last year.
So we had to talk about, yeah, we have to people then focus on
other things. So we're about to resume that
and hopefully our security champions can take ownership of
that. And the advantage is that they
are part of the business units and you know we'll be more of
security coaches and they love that we basically provide the
guidance, vision, requirements and get out of the way.
That's actually what the followup question I was thinking
of is, you know, does this kind of.
Change the role of the Seeso in project delivery, especially
when it comes to security projects.
I hear you're saying yes. I don't know if you're saying
that because that's kind of the Changing minds mindset that you
have in terms of what that role ought to be or if it has
anything to do with the agile versus the waterfall.
What do what do you think of that?
I think the main role of the SEESO in any organization is to
build and manage relationships and then provide a vision,
provide guidance on risk management and so.
So our mission statement, I'm going to paraphrase it because
we just redid it, but it's basically we're here to provide
data and educate the business on risk so.
So they make decisions where security doesn't matter on risk.
We manage it for the organization.
We tell them here's the risk here alternative to handling.
And then usually from an IT point of view, especially in
other business units, they come to us say, OK, how can we
remediate this? Is it possible to remediate and
sometimes it isn't. That's one thing.
The other thing that I tried to do is promote experimentation
because that's part of a, yeah, that's part of who we are.
And you know, I had a conversation this morning, hey,
where why are we changing this, the initial guidance that we
provided to the team. This was a conversation amongst
the product owners for I am or project owners.
I'm like, well, we're not saying we're changing direction.
Let me ask you this, should we listen to what they have to say
to see if there is any value and we should pursue that route?
And the answer was yes, we should listen to them like,
well, let's do that, run a small experiment if it makes sense, we
keep going. If not, we just say no And some
people would say, well, you're wasting time.
But really what we're doing is we're learning.
So that's the role of the system to me is to manage relationship
and courage, innovation and and and experimentation.
Obviously managed help the team manage risk.
Reminds me a lot of a piece of relationship advice that I once
heard, and I wish I knew who it was so I could probably give
them credit. But.
You know, it's it's, it's not me versus you, it's us against the
problem, right. And if you can bring in, you
know, other parts of the organization and and have them
have a seat at the table and say okay, well, here's here's what
we're trying to solve for, right?
Here's what we think. What do you think?
Usually, you know, multiple heads are better than one when
it comes to that sort of situation and and empowering the
organization to make those decisions and those changes and
to own things I think is a very important part of that too.
So I I totally agree with that. What are some of the, you know,
we're starting to come towards the the end of our time here,
but I wanted to understand, you know, from your perspective,
what are some of the things that that you use to stay sharp,
right? I mean, we've been in the space
for a while and sometimes there are multiple outlets of
information, especially, you know, in the age that we live in
with, you know, the Internet, it's no longer the, you know,
the security magazine that gets delivered to the office so much,
you know, every week, it seems. What are some of the things that
that you use to try to not only stay sharp, but to really kind
of understand the perspectives of some of the stakeholders
maybe that you're talking with? Yeah.
Well, listening to podcasts like this is one, this one in
particular for anything. Identity, I stay up, stay up
with, keep up with. Then you know I have a number of
podcasts that I listen to from not only on security but
leadership. I recently started listening to
couple on entrepreneurship because that is that helps me a
lot to you know jump into these endeavors.
But you know, books I, I really enjoyed the books from Marion
Hofner on identity attack vectors, privilege attack
vectors, Those are really great books on this area.
Books on leadership also besides conference, I am a big fan of
those. It's very relaxed practitioners.
I favor those now more than the big, big, big ones where you
don't really get to talk to peers.
And that's the last one. It's it's peers, people like you
that I can have a conversation with about anything.
Because at the end of the day we someone has seen the issues that
I have seen and the last thing I do and the hell has helped me
develop a lot is I actually stay up with what my boss and his
boss are reading. And I've been doing this even
before I go to citizens for a while when I went into meetings
in their offices. You know, president, CEO, CEO,
CIO, any chief, oh, look at their shelves and just speak on
it and see what they have been reading.
And I went and got that book and because that helps me understand
where they're coming from, what they're thinking about, it's
been very helpful to me. I think that's a really great
tip for folks that are out there is to be able to understand the
perspective that you know, the folks who are in positions you
know above from a leadership perspective is to understand
what is their point of view because I think it's an
opportunity to. You know, reinforce what they're
hearing or counter what they might be hearing from an
information standpoint, especially, you know, if there's
something that maybe is counter to what you're trying to get
done. So, you know, I, I picture this
back in the old days, right? Is is, you know, sneaking to an
office and like peering through books and magazines on the desk
and things like that to try and get, you know, intelligence on
on what people are looking at so you can kind of better
understand the psychology of of why they, why they are the way
they are. Right.
Well, that's very cool. We're going to have links to the
different articles that you've published out there on our show
notes before we get things wrapped up for this show.
Any final words of wisdom Carlos, that you can kind of
throw up there into I am land for the people who are
listening? Well, from an extra point of
view, when you if you are building the strategy or
reshaping it or what have you, remember it's a business
initiative, it's a business problem and in order to solve it
you need the business stakeholders to help you.
Let them guide that strategy and you will get support.
I've been since I've been here because I took that approach.
I have yet to find push back from the business.
Like that. How about Jim yourself?
Anything you want to close out with before we let these fine
folks go? I'm just so appreciative of
Carlos being on the show and sharing his wisdom and his
experience. It kind of reinforces to me that
we do have a listener base out there and that the folks who are
listening are like us, right? Constantly thinking about how
to. You know, make the business more
secure, how to make the user experience better.
And you know, per the topic we discussed today, how to make it
so that you know the change that we're inflicting on the
organization is accepted as well as possible right there.
These are hard things. Change is hard.
Change is hard to implement, Change is hard to be on the
receiving end of. But it's just, you know, having
Carlos on today reminds me that, you know, our listener based out
there is so strong. And really love interacting with
all of you who listen on a regular basis and please reach
out and connect to Jeff and I on LinkedIn.
And I'm sure Carlos is open to us as well as very prolific in
terms of publishing articles and and sharing information on his
feed. So please feel completely
welcome to reach out and connect to all three of.
Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I do, I do think the
the I M field is very welcoming, is is not a very competitive
field, at least I feel in if you're in the trenches, right.
We're all trying to solve similar problems, maybe not
exactly the same, but there are, you know, communities of people
out there that are struggling with the same problems that you
might be facing on a daily basis.
And you know, if it's been solved elsewhere, there is no
shame in taking what's been learned and applying that to the
problems that that you've already seen.
You may have to tweak it, massage it, whatever it may be
but I think that's a great thing and and one of the things I like
most about the I AM, you know industry itself is, is everyone
is very welcoming and yeah totally echo what Jim said about
connecting with with any of us. I we're always happy to have a
conversation and and this podcast is proof, right.
So you know let's let's you know keep the conversation going.
You know, if there is, you know things that you want to talk
about, reach out. Let's get it on the table and
and have that discussion so. Totally appreciate, Carlos.
Thank you so much. Not only for listening, but for
being part of the show as well and bringing your, your
experience, your knowledge to the table for for folks to drive
benefit from. With that, we're going to go
ahead and call it for this week. You can hit us on the web at
identity@thecenter.com. We're on Twitter at IDAC
Podcast. There's going to be show notes
that have the links to both of Carlos's writings.
And links also should connect to any any three of us from
LinkedIn as well. So with that, we'll go ahead and
close it out for this week. And thanks everyone for
listening and we'll talk with you all in the next one.
Thanks for listening to the Identity at the Center podcast.
If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and
visit us on the web at identity@thecenter.com.