While Evan was "napping", I took a few minutes to check in on my blog. Took a look at recent referrers and Technorati links, and found a reference to Tarina - a Finnish blog. Cool. So, I checked out the blog, and found a link to a very compelling presentation on "Identity 2.0"
Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxip Identity, gave a keynote at OSCON 2005. Initially I was more interested in the description of his presentation style - described as "Lessigian". I'd never heard this term before, so was curious. Turns out Lawrence Lessig uses a pretty kick-ass presentation style, with very simple slides in sync with his talk. No bullet points, just words (and occasional images) reinforcing what he's saying.
Dick's presentation was extremely interesting, partially because of the Lessigian style, partially because of the sense of humour, partially because of the content, and partially because the streaming technique used made me feel like I was right there with him in the audience.
I'll be reviewing the presentation several times. Some of the concepts he touches on would apply just as easily to "learning objects" as to "identity" - silos vs. walled gardens vs. federation vs. open etc... I've also subscribed to Dick's blog. I should have done that right after Northern Voice 2004, since Sxip was a sponsor and was/is doing some interesting stuff.
Oh, and I must be a little less mature than people give me credit for. I can't stop giggling about someone named "Dick Hardt". Grow up, D'Arcy... :-) So, kids, it really does pay to check referrers to your blog. There's no telling what little gems you'll turn up!
Update: Looks like Sxip is about to roll out a new product/service/standard(?) for sharing identity across weblogs in an attempt to combat comment spam. The new tool is called "Sxore" - they have it running in beta on a handful of blogs, and it is scheduled to be available for WordPress and MovableType in the fall of 2005 - hey! that's pretty soon!
Update 2: More info about the Lessig Style of Presenting.