Reflections in my rear view mirror

Today marks a significant milestone in my career. The roadway I have followed through all types of terrain (technologies, customers, business initiatives) and storms (changes in culture, values, corporate strategies) has come to an end.?

I have been loyal to this road for many years and adjusted course when appropriate. As one would expect, there have been many opportunities to change course on this journey. On three specific occasions, I actually put pressure on the trigger but decided not to act. The bond between me and the road was still in place and on those occasions the road showed its loyalty and bent just enough to keep the relationship going. As the 2nd of three generations to drive this road, I choose to place value in that relationship.?

Any bond (relationship) worthy of loyalty is built on trust, without trust you have nothing.?

But I have reached another fork and this time I have decided to change my course and shift my loyalty to another road.?

This time the decision to take action was without hesitation: aim - breath - hold - squeeze - follow-through!?

This time the decision and the answers to when/why/how were all made by me and handled My Way on my timetable with my integrity intact.

My Way

This article is not intended to summarize more than 3.5 decades of a professional career -- it is not possible -- instead my intent here is to provide those in my circles with some insight behind my decision to change direction.

Over the last 5 years my friends in the WhatsaMattaU Crew have kept me grounded with laughter and a constant reminder of what is truly important.

"Life is ours, we live it our way",

Nothing Else Matters, Metallica

For those that really know me, you will be able to image the intensity I would bring to this song ... potentially giving Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra a run for their money.

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a "career" that's full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way
        

I traveled the world. I have LISTENed, LEARNed and ACTed to serve customers across all industries. Along the way I stayed true to my values and built rapport through honesty, respect, credibility and trust.

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption
        

A career is but one element in that journey of life where the ups and downs are what helps to shape us and those around us.?

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way
        

Each and every move up and down I95 was my decision for my reasons and all part of the adventure.?

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all, and I stood tall
And did it my way
        

Uprooting a young family to leave a dead-end HQ based financial reporting / expert system (AI) coding position to help build a new operating system, be part of history and get rewarded with unforgettable memories. Pivoting to Cryptography when Team OS/2 was herded like sheep to Texas. Stepping out of product development to tackle shortcomings in the field. Finding enjoyment in the incubation and evangelism of emerging technologies.?Facing each and every Resource Action ("RA" is another way of saying "layoff") for my team and myself. Staying true to a mission/strategy despite the companies inability to embrace industry trends and adjust in a proactive manner. Rejoicing in external coopetition success while fending off constant internal derailments within an inside-out driven culture that prefers to waste time attempting to fit square pegs into round holes. Making architecture and partnership decisions, despite corporate technology preferences, to help position the company as a market thought leader. Positioning my team for success as we built solutions for an emerging marketplace.?

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
        

The camaraderie I found and will always treasure from my OS/2, SET, jStart, Emerging Tech and Mobile Identity teams. Sadly we have already lost some of our friends way too early. And never forgetting the hypocritical and insensitive corporate handling of 9/11/2001.

I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
        

My colleagues and I incubated a long list of innovations along the way but unfortunately they were all plagued by a common theme -- too early for the market and often not backed by the company.?A once renowned R&D firm has reduced its emphasis on investing in innovation and has migrated towards the adoption of a follow-fast strategy. Yet they insist on maintaining the patent revenue! In other words, THINK but don't expect implementation.?

To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me
I did it my way
        

How many can say they were involved in projects such as but not limited to OS/2, Secure Electronic Transactions, Mashups, BlueSpruce Telemedicine, KnowledgeAnywhere Data Science Workbench, zSpark and Mobile Identity? Even fewer would admit they could find enough pleasure in saying "we told you so" once a market opportunity was already lost?

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
        

A colleague recently told me, "you are barking up the wrong tree" as we debated on technology decisions. He was reflecting a business culture where decisions are repetitively made for technology sack. That single proclamation brought a smile to my face as it captured the essence of the virus eating away at the corporation. When architecture decisions are made void of design principles, market dynamics, resource allocations and economic considerations then logic has no place in the conversation. When you are in an environment where you are told what to use, what to do and how to think then you must either decide to yield to the collective or rejoice as an individual.?

For the last 8yrs a small team has stood alone on an island but we made a market impact albeit not enough and not as fast as we desired due to limited resources. The island was continuously ignored. Then along came COVID-19 and all of a sudden the domain of digital credentials became top priority. Ignore interoperability! We'll focus on standards later! Don't worry about digital wallets and the consumer experience, our clients are enterprises. Let's use this opportunity to establish a control point on "data". Let's leverage attention on digital privacy and secure contactless interactions to open a new channel for the selling of AI and our version of a blockchain platform.?

Intense. Perseverance. Passion. These attributes help to shape my authenticity and individualism.

The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way
Yes, it was my way
        

Taking the highroad, the hard road (design principles, open standards, industry collaboration) and working with what you have does not always yield success. However, it does yield a sense of self respect when you know you can take each and every punch thrown your way. That no matter how many times the naysayers challenge you -- there is no backing down -- and they know it!?

Reflecting

It is ironic that my last role on that roadway was the topic of Zero Trust because it is a phrase that sums up my team's morale. The last five (5) years down that road have been horrific.?

“If you?trust, you will be disappointed occasionally, but if you mistrust, you will be miserable all the time.”,

Abraham Lincoln

Many years ago, I choose this roadway despite more lucrative offers. I was drawn to the notion of having access to and collaborating with a world renowned research THINK-tank. Over the years, I grew to truly respect the immense value that a corporation could bring to market when it operates under a single brand that offered complimentary products and services as a unified business. Lou Gerstner understood how to harness this value. Unfortunately, his successors did not.?

While finance is not my forte, I do understand how and why the revenue per employee and free-cash per employee ratios are used as analytical tools to measure how efficiently a particular firm utilizes its employees. For large and Fortune 500 companies a good ratio would yield at least $200,000 and $300,000 per employee, respectively. The art of managing a good ratio is essentially a balancing act between the number of employees and the range of things they can produce well. You can turn several dials to improve your ratio. Reduce size. Increase Size. Reduce offerings. Increase Offerings. Over the last decade, the approach has been to simply reduce the size of the company and when that was not enough, compliment that action with a consolidation in the breath of offerings. Or stated in another way, let's get focused! Let's focus 345K employees on a single concept "hybrid cloud". As the charts above suggest, the dial tuning has not been working. The free-cash per employee ratio comparisons are even worse. For some this may represent good business. For me, it erases all of the characteristics that attracted me to this road in the first place and energized me to follow it for so long.?

I am realizing that everybody's lost their simple ways.

And now that it's here I see it all so clearly...

Simple decision took me too much time to fly!",

The Enemy, Godsmack.

Business climates change and everyone needs to have the ability to adapt but there also needs to be a degree of stability that is fundamental to trust between employer and employee. As one of my colleagues put it -- "we are schizophrenic, our actions and our messaging are never really inline". The reality is that when traveling down that road you must be cognizant of two facts: employee trust has totally diminished; Resource Actions are lurking around every bend in the road. For example, a recent article about the 2021 Blockchain Job Cuts required a rebuttal and a LinkedIn posting to try and change the narrative.?

"Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.",

Arthur Ashe

Everyone has their limits. My team has existed under a cloud of instability for far too long. It finally became intolerable in January of this year as team members were RA'd yet again. The article proclaimed "this time it was every team ... that isn’t directly related to our ‘hybrid cloud’ strategy was told to cut 30-50% of their staff". In other words, our strategy is now to focus 345K employees on a single technology domain. Is that the new management school approach to optimizing resource allocations? The fact remains, RAs are an annual (and sometimes more frequent) band-aid to the bottom line and while the reasons will vary each year the results are pretty consistent -- 10 consecutive quarters with no year-over-year increase in revenue.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.", Arthur Schopenhauer

You can not blame employees for a lack of trust. Those that truly know me respect my transparency and candor. Many of my colleagues and mentees have actually commented on how they appreciated my "tell it like it is attitude". I think it is because it is a rarity in the current business climate where every word is under a microscope.?I am honored that these folks expect that from me and that they can come to me for open, honest, and direct conversations. I am honored that they recognize me as an outside-the-box thinker that is willing try new things and live on the edge. In some businesses, such individuals are referred to as wild ducks. Instead of conforming to the status quo these individuals challenge it.?

"We are convinced that any business needs its wild ducks. And in IBM we try not to tame them.”

Thomas Watson, Jr

But now the culture has changed and instead of taming the new approach is to shoot?(layoff) the duck.?

Regret

All decisions come with compromise and ramifications. In this case, my regret is that I will have to exit (hopefully only for a short time) the open source communities that are so dear to my heart. It is my hope that my work outside these communities will actually help strengthen our industry efforts.

Those of you that have battled with me know all too well the pot-holes we have navigated. It will always trouble me that we could not realize the original mobile identity concepts of Richard Redpath together "as a team with a vision on a mission".?

As human beings we all have flaws and one of mine is that I never know when to quit. We have seen our ideas refined and improved over an 8yr period backed by numerous patents, sponsor users, and even paid customers. But our endeavor was ahead of its time despite never being backed by the company even when the marketplace was beginning to grow. Instead our mission was riddled with internal derailment factors.?

Drummond Reed, John Jordan, Darrell O'Donnell:?We co-founded an amazing and vibrant community in the Trust over IP Foundation. Exiting now with so much work to be done is not a decision I have taken lightly. But I find comfort in the strength and commitment of our members to deliver on our charter.?My hope is that the community will soon realize it needs to step back from the COVID-19 derailment factors and refocus on basic design principles and stack dependencies.?Remember, citizens must be able to seamlessly accept, hold and present a wide range of disparate interoperable digital credentials regardless of issuer or verifier industry. Too much emphasis on a single ecosystem will yield market complacency and the acceptance of very narrow wallet solutions experiences (i.e.: health pass, 1SO18013 mDL).

To my Bedrock Consortium colleagues: as the founder/convener of the Bedrock Project I must now hand over the baton. Bedrock is positioned to be an important public identity utility for the maturation of a digital trust marketplace. I will always be here to help when/where I can. Hint: Maybe my new road ahead will help bring additional members to the table.

To the Saturn-V TIP Task Force and Testers: You have yet to realize the importance of your work. Richard Esplin, we are like minded and understand that vendor interoperability is the key to a successful digital trust marketplace. I have always placed high value on the work of this international crew. Please KBO!

To the Hyperledger Indy DID Method WG: The complexity of issues and your dedication to the network of public identity utilities -- truly inspires me and I will miss learning from you all. Stephan Curran?- Thank you for charging ahead and stewarding such important work. My regret is that I was never able to offer the help (time, resources) you really required.?

To my friends and colleagues at the Linux Foundation, specifically Mike Dolan, Scott Nicholas and Todd Benzies -- your camaraderie has made the turmoil of the last few years bearable. Thank You!?

Moving Forward

To all my fellow colleagues who were instrumental in the creation of the Mobile Identity, Trusted Identity and Verify Credentials assets -- I will remain true to our vision!?As I begin my journey down a new road, I do so with a renewed degree of intensity and passion. I eagerly seek to embrace what has been sorely missing in recent years -- the camaraderie of a dedicated, focused and corporate backed team marching towards success while having fun solving business challenges.