Collaboration infrastructure can be a great thing. But it has one major stumbling block; a really big block. And it's preventing the next generation of applications from really taking off. The big stumbling block is you. More precisely, who you are. Or really more precisely, who you are to the collaboration system.

Don't you realize you can be anybody?

Not in the sense of John turning into Bob, though that's possible too, but maybe johnm@hotmail.com turning into johnm@teamdirection.com. Or worse, multiplying johnm's at hotmail, gmail and yahoo in addition to your company.

The problem is one of synergy, in this case the lack of it. Most well-architected systems are built upon smaller well architected building blocks. Do I need to mention how everything in the universe is made up of varying combinations of 100+ elements? Operating systems, office applications and modern conveniences, however, don't quite embody the same elegance.

What we lose is the ability for our poor application designers and developers to tie different collaboration pieces together. Why is MS Office successful? Because they are very well integrated. But these are pieces one company produces, maintains and upgrades. What about your identities? Your identity spans everything from Active Directory to Social Security to your Family agreeing who you are.

Sure, integrated instant messaging will work IFF you use matching SIP or EMAIL ids. Calendaring will work IFF everyone agrees this is your name. My cell phone will be useful IFF I can keep the same number. My drivers license works until I change my address. And so on. If I change anything, I'm screwed. It used to be newlyweds either didn't take a man's last name or hyphenated it as a means to demonstrate empowerment. But now, changing your last name as a result of marriage necessitates a wrenching digital re-identification.

Can we come up with a means to absolutely identify yourself? Social Security number? Phone number? Email? CPU Chip ID? Bio metrics?

Bio metrics is interesting in theory, but you know, I used to not like cantaloupe. Really. I liked watermelon alot, but even though cantaloupes always looked pretty tasty, I had to spit it out every time. Until my thirties. Then I found cantaloupe started tasting really good. Something about my chemistry seems to have changed. So just like changing email, cell phone numbers or home addressses, I have this funny feeling that being able to eat cantaloupe means my bio-metric id has changed too.

At this point, you're expecting me to write something like "But I have the solution. Use the JohnM identification system and everything is solved." And while I think it could work, the rest of the world will likely remain unconvinced.

Unfortunately, I think the answer lies in being able to manage the chaos. The only parallel I'm able to draw is the world wide web and URLs. URLs don't dictate the type of things we can address, rather they give *something* an address in canonical form. Maybe everyone just needs to be canonically addressable.

http://johnmilan.id/

Could house all the forms of identification for John Milan. Yes we still need to agree on what the acceptable forms are, but at this point we still need a way to find them.

Or we can all be GUIDs.