Latest / Identity at the Center / #355 - IdentiBeer Oslo & Berlin 2025

Transcript

#355 - IdentiBeer Oslo & Berlin 2025 · Identity at the Center

• 0:05
  This is identity at the center. OK?
• 0:09
  We're here at the identity here in Oslo, Norway.
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  Are you laughing at me already? I'm just starting.
• 0:15
  I'm just starting and Denise is already laughing at.
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  Me. Hi, My name's Yanni.
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  I'm here at Identity here Oslo. And, well, there's one reason I
• 0:25
  came here. I'll leave it to you to figure
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  out what it is. So hi, my name is Stig Severson.
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  I've been in the identity space for 16 years, subject lead for
• 0:39
  in the Central Bank of Norway, attending the identity Bureau
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  for the X amount of time, having a beer, having a good times with
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  all my identity friends. So thank you.
• 0:51
  Hi, I'm Sir Alba. I work as a security engineer
• 0:55
  for Space Norway. I have a little bit of
• 0:58
  experience in identity and this is my first identity beer.
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  Hi, I'm Lars Rawlinson. I'm an independent contractor
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  and I am I've been there in the business for 25 years.
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  I come to the entity Beer here to see if I can find an
• 1:10
  interesting people to talk to, have some good ideas about I am
• 1:14
  and sometimes I find them. Hi, I'm Espen Bago, and I'm here
• 1:18
  because, well, what I do is identity beer and I am, of
• 1:22
  course. You've been doing it for a
• 1:23
  while. I've been doing that for a
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  while. It's been my fifth year and he's
• 1:29
  the man. Everybody knows this guy.
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  That's the benefit of starting something, right.
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  And you know, if you look around here and you see that in the
• 1:38
  background, it's, it's a nice place to be, very friendly place
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  to be. And that's, that's really the
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  nice thing with it. But everyone is so appreciative
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  of being involved and being part of this.
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  All right. So I'm here with my friend, new
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  friend Sarah from Zurich. And we're here at the first
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  identity here that I've ever been to.
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  I think it's the first identity here you've been to.
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  Also my first one. Yeah, definitely.
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  So, well, I always like to discover the faces behind the
• 2:03
  identity space, right? Who are these people?
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  So go who is Sarah? How did you get into identity?
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  What's your background? Your origin story?
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  So background actually is, yeah, like many things.
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  So how I get an identity, maybe I'll start with that one.
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  Actually it was like, like very spontane.
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  So I, I really like to work with people.
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  So I mean, The thing is always you, you're asking yourself what
• 2:30
  do you want to do in life, which job you want to do, right?
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  You said I want to be an identity and access management
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  person when you were born. To be honest, not no, to be
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  honest not actually. It was like very spontane.
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  So I at first did an apprenticeship, then I studied
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  like economics and then I work for also in a part of the IT and
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  Dutch. And then I said, OK, I really
• 2:54
  like that job, but it was not that much with the people.
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  And I'd really like to interact with people, to talk to people,
• 3:01
  to make people's life better. And so then I applied for a head
• 3:08
  hunting position and one customer of, of myself was one
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  smaller consulting company in Germany, an identity.
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  And that was actually my customer.
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  So I had, I called him and he just did an appointment and he
• 3:28
  said, yeah, OK, so so come on, maybe we need some people we can
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  talk. And I said, OK, sure.
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  And I, yeah, was on side with the appointment.
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  And yeah, actually. So I had the appointment with
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  the with the CEO, really nice person.
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  I also still in contact with him.
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  Wait, so you were So you joined a head hunting firm?
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  Basically a placement. Firm.
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  Looking for. For.
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  Firm people for jobs and you found this company, you're like,
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  oh, that sounds like a way I want.
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  No, actually not. So it was a customer and I want
• 3:58
  actually, I wanted really to to sell people for them.
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  OK. And we had an appointment and
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  get to know each other and it was really like a very good
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  conversation and like the the chemical part really fierce and
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  we liked each other and so on. And so he said, oh, when you're
• 4:15
  looking in a job in sales, let me know.
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  And actually, I was at that part.
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  I didn't, I didn't drive that company that long.
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  I was not so happy. So I think after a few weeks, I
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  yeah, I told you I went to identity that way.
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  Yeah. So it was like very spontane.
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  And then I said, OK, hey, is your offer still still available
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  and are you interested in. He said, hey, yeah, sure, why
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  not. And then we talked and met again
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  and I think I started then after 2-3 weeks.
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  So how long have you been in this role, this identity role?
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  And the identity role, so in Germany nearly four years.
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  And right now I'm in Switzerland.
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  So I joined another company in Switzerland.
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  Like the, yeah, basic stimuli like the one in Germany, also
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  smaller one. Very cool.
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  Also like, yeah, same partners and so on.
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  So like the same role. And now I'm there like nearly
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  two years. So in July, it's two years.
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  And you focus on the sales and the business development side?
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  Of things focus on the sales and business development, but I
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  really like it in a small company that I can also do like
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  some things around like part of project management and also like
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  proving contracts and so on. It's it's really cool.
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  So you're like the the first contact person for everyone and
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  I really like that. And I also really recognize that
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  it's really my that I really love it so much to talk to
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  people, to have a look what they need and just to care about that
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  them and, and just be to make their their life better or to
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  make the life of the people in the company better to make it
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  easier from FM. And I think that's what identity
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  and access management does, because it makes them easier and
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  makes them secure and yeah, ready to ensure that they save
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  time. I mean, sure, at the beginning
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  it's like more time invest, sure, but it's normal.
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  But at the end it's like more automation and more processes
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  and more, more safe And you're really sure that every person
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  have the same rights. And that's really, yeah, I'd
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  really love that. So a lot of people, we have a
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  lot of former Ditropians listening and watching in this.
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  And so Jim and I came from a very small consulting firm too.
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  So totally get it and understand that we have a lot of what I
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  would call like sales. This is development folks who
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  listen and watch as well. What's a tip that you would give
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  them to say, hey, here is a tip that I use to make a
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  relationship with somebody or to make it easy to find clients or
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  customers or things like that? Like what's a tip that you would
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  give somebody? I think so for me, it's really
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  important to have like an honest relationship at the beginning
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  because there are so many like sales and I think I don't know
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  in the US, but in Germany or else in the dark region.
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  It's also like a negative touch or someone want to send me
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  something. It's it's saying and it's like
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  pressure. Yeah.
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  And I think it's really important that you have like a
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  really honest interest on that person that you really can.
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  Yeah, make sure that you you like that person because then
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  it's much easier. I'm also like that know, like
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  trust worker. So I know you.
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  And I think that I have a feeling as a customer that you
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  really want to send me something I need, that you know who I am,
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  you know what I want, you know what our company needs and so
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  on. And for example, we also do it
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  like when we have a new customer or a new potential customer that
• 7:58
  we don't say in the first meeting.
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  Oh, so I can I send you an offer like that, that that I say, OK,
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  it's really important that we need personal.
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  And so I have like an invest from us like 3-4 hours to really
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  meet to understand what are your requirements?
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  What do you really need? Because actually there what I
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  don't like when you have a company who yeah, you, you just
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  make an offer and say, OK, we have that, that, that and you
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  don't know if that fits for that customer.
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  It's so curious. I don't really like to to have
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  like a very personal offer and to have like a really connected
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  relationship and to really make sure that you really understand
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  the customer and what the customer needs and don't just
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  only to sell because you need to sell.
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  Be the person that you'd want to do business with, right This
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  kind of. Yeah, totally.
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  Be the person. Yeah.
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  I mean, that's also that one question.
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  I find that really I, I really like that question.
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  Just ask yourself if you want to work with yourself.
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  Yeah. I want to work with Sarah.
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  Yes, yes, yes, I would. And I would also like to work
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  with you. Jeff.
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  OK, well, all right. I appreciate this conversation
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  and yeah, look forward to seeing you.
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  So we're identity beer again, First EIC, first Berlin, first
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  identity beer for both of us. And yeah, we'll see.
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  Hopefully this turns out. Absolutely.
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  All right, goodbye. Hey, I'm Steele.
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  This is my first identity beer. I'm actually just starting out
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  in identity as a feel, as in is of itself.
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  So just like trying to network, get to know people, know what
• 9:34
  identity is all about. Yeah, I'm Sigma.
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  I'm Astian here. I'm a newcomer to identity beer.
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  I work in Commando, which is identity security company in the
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  Nordics. Mostly.
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  I work with sale points. I've also have a quite big
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  footprint with cyber art. So Pam, I am stuff and I was
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  surprised that we are actually outside.
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  I thought it was going to be some indoor event where some
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  somebody was going to present, present something.
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  But here we are drinking beers. Oslo is a fantastic city.
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  I, I have been here, I have lived here for 40 years and I
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  think the best thing about it is that, you know, you can be a
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  pedestrian. There is no cars in downtown.
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  It's like we are taking the people are taking the city back.
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  Of course we have the ski jump, the Viking ship and everything
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  and the sculpture park and everything like that.
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  But downtime all slow, where the cars are removed and if the
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  weather is like today, fantastic.
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  Also, even though it's the capital of Norway, it's a really
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  small city. You can basically walk from one
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  end to the other. Like most people can like cross
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  the entire city and like just everything technically being a
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  couple streets away is great. How much are your days in
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  English first? It it depends which customer we
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  are working with. Since I'm working in a
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  consulting company, we have different customers.
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  It is for mostly it's the oral thing is in Scandinavian
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  language, since we understand Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, but
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  but when it's come to the written stuff, most of it is in
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  English, Yeah, because that's universal language which
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  everybody understands. But, but, but for the most part,
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  the oral stuff is, is Scandinavian language.
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  How did? You get into.
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  IAM I think the I am found me yeah.
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  So it was with a project for a client, so they needed more
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  people on on the I am. So I kind of OK, let's try it.
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  So I work with a privilege access management as well.
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  So it's you know, it's the so it's kind of it's its neighbor.
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  So it's kind of it was quite easy to pick up.
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  I haven't started the I Am yet, but I'm moving from the service
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  that's covered to our I Am team. Like I was lucky enough to got
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  to spend a couple of days a week with them some time back,
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  enjoyed what they were doing, thought it was interesting and
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  like, it seemed like a good next step from a service desk
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  standpoint. Yeah.
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  Like because service desk is in a sense pretty much connected to
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  the I am partner, right, They are for sure.
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  Yeah. So like try to get some of that
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  like customer experience and like try to you get kind of good
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  at speaking the language of the customers, right when you work
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  in service desk. So like try to get the I am
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  perspective over that way definitely I think could be
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  good. Yeah.
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  Show them that we are. Then we, me, we're actually
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  they're friends. We can help them automate
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  things. We can make their lives easier.
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  Yeah. So, yeah, I think it will be
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  cool. I like beer and I like to speak
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  to people. So.
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  So then I thought it was a good opportunity to get to know other
• 13:12
  people within the field. All right, so another identity
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  or conversation here, this time with our friend Usman, who we
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  met a couple years ago, Jim and I at karaoke in Ideniverse, I
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  think like 2 years ago, three years ago, whatever it was.
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  Three years ago, I think, yeah. Did you sing that night?
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  I think you and I were in the back.
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  We did not. Sing.
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  We did not sing. I was thinking about it the
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  whole time. What's what song would that be,
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  Right. I was thinking, OK, it has to be
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  something from Queens Clearwater Revival.
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  But then we left. So I yeah, OK, I lucked out.
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  Well, so you went to Gartner and now you've recently left
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  Gartner. Now you're doing kind of your
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  own thing. So now that you're not with
• 13:47
  Gartner, you can actually be on podcasts.
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  Sorry, a little shadow dig right there.
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  Tell us something about your origin story.
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  How did you get into identity and access management?
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  Give us your background. So my background in IT is
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  irrelevant to this, I think because I got into IT as a side
• 14:02
  job at university. I mean, I'm, I've been studying
• 14:05
  chemistry and then I went to this.
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  Very typical chemistry and going into yeah.
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  Right. So and I'm using that every day.
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  I mean not every day, but chemistry.
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  And the point is, I used, I went to support IT support and I
• 14:19
  recommend everyone start with IC support, but you get a feel for
• 14:22
  people's problems. Yes, everybody should have to
• 14:24
  work help desk or in a restaurant.
• 14:26
  One of those two things. Yeah, maybe even both if you
• 14:28
  really need to learn a lesson. So I worked in a machine room
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  and I, you know, switched tapes for mainframes.
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  And then I went into, I was going to say Linux
• 14:40
  administration, but I was before Linux.
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  I was a Solaris administrator and then the DBA.
• 14:45
  And then at one point I came into contact with middleware and
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  I think that's something that other guests have been saying
• 14:52
  for in middleware. A.
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  Lot of I am happens in middleware.
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  So The thing is I was responsible for e-business for a
• 15:00
  large Norwegian company and I realized we had this thing
• 15:04
  called the Oracle Internet Directory which governed
• 15:08
  something called single sign on. And it was kind of in my
• 15:12
  responsibility. So I looked into what was in
• 15:15
  there and it was just so much junk.
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  No one was, you know, controlling what went into that
• 15:22
  thing. So I was troubleshooting why
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  isn't single sign of working. And it was kind of obvious,
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  right? So you started on the really the
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  authentication side, I guess the directory side, right, if you're
• 15:31
  looking at Oracle directory for that or was it a different part
• 15:34
  of Oracle? So long before that, I was
• 15:36
  working with the middleware parts of authentication for the
• 15:39
  Oracle Ebusiness Suite, and that was just something that needed
• 15:43
  to be done. But I was still AVBA at that
• 15:45
  point, mainly in my own mind. And then I realized if if we can
• 15:50
  get so much trouble and chaos and junk into central parts of
• 15:55
  the organization of the architecture in general, because
• 15:57
  no one really cares about this and someone needs to care about
• 16:00
  that. So I started caring more and
• 16:02
  more, and this was around 2002 I think.
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  And then I just realized there's so much more and it's so
• 16:10
  essential. There's always something new to
• 16:12
  learn, right? What has kept you in identity
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  all these years? Like why stay in identity,
• 16:17
  really? It's a good question one.
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  Maybe I don't want to be an identity.
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  One reason is that there's so few of us, right?
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  So it's a good place to be because it's a good career to
• 16:29
  have. Identity is so central, right?
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  Would you say it's? How?
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  Central is it's at the center depending, depending on how you
• 16:37
  define identity, right. So access might be at the
• 16:40
  center, but you need identity to enable access.
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  So if we do digital transformation, we we need both
• 16:47
  of those, right? So I stated it because it's,
• 16:51
  it's really core to everything that happens in society.
• 16:54
  And also, and you can see this in the background here because
• 16:58
  of the community, it's a very cool community.
• 17:00
  It's a very cool community. And so let's talk about that
• 17:03
  because this is my first identity here, but you're like
• 17:06
  the originator, I think of this. And so we've kind of talked
• 17:09
  about some past episodes of, you know, trying to get this be more
• 17:13
  worldwide. And so let's let's get the
• 17:15
  message out there. Like, how do we turn identity
• 17:17
  here into like a global phenomenon?
• 17:19
  Because this is a great group. We have like, what, 100 people
• 17:22
  here, I think. I mean, obviously, you know,
• 17:24
  champions are shaken and there's a lot of background noise, stuff
• 17:26
  like that. But it's a very lively and fun
• 17:28
  environment. This is the biggest identity
• 17:31
  here so far. All right.
• 17:33
  So it's a new record. We had almost as many people one
• 17:36
  year ago in Oslo because we placed the our identity here
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  right after our conference, because we started doing
• 17:41
  conferences as well, right? This is what you can do.
• 17:43
  If you have this platform, then you collect the people and then
• 17:46
  you can do amazing stuff. Make it convenient.
• 17:49
  It's good your people are going to be here anyway.
• 17:50
  Like, let's get together, you know, talk.
• 17:53
  Yeah. And not in a salesy way, right?
• 17:55
  No, that stuff. So until the pandemic in 2019
• 17:59
  and 2020-2021, we were just a Scandinavian phenomenon.
• 18:04
  And then we got in touch with Amsterdam, Martin Sandron and
• 18:08
  when we enrolled them in under the identity or umbrella and
• 18:12
  then we had Sam moving up in London.
• 18:16
  So I think it from that point on, the ball really started
• 18:18
  moving. So we had people contacting us.
• 18:21
  I mean, mainly they contact me or Sam or the others about how
• 18:25
  do we start a chapter because people like the idea of identity
• 18:28
  or being vendor neutral. You're not beholden to any
• 18:31
  vendor. You're not.
• 18:33
  Your name doesn't go on an e-mail list.
• 18:34
  It's a safe place. It's a safe place, I mean, and
• 18:38
  there's been so many meetups around the world with identity
• 18:40
  already. There's many places that have
• 18:41
  these meetups, but it turns out people really like the idea of
• 18:46
  something that's independent and it's the same space.
• 18:49
  So I don't have the count right now, but I think we are.
• 18:53
  We are at least in 10 to 12 different countries and in
• 18:58
  Canada, in the US, not that many in the US yet, but me, we have
• 19:02
  San Francisco is pretty regular. We're trying to start up in in
• 19:06
  New York in like. Seattle might have one too.
• 19:08
  Like there's a nice concentration there.
• 19:10
  They have the ID pro meet up OK but I think they might be
• 19:13
  willing to rebrand. And then add some beer to it,
• 19:17
  and then it becomes identity beer.
• 19:18
  Yeah. So why beer?
• 19:20
  Why not identity wine? Or what if you're someone like
• 19:23
  me who really doesn't drink identity coke or cola?
• 19:26
  We don't want to. It's already.
• 19:29
  A relevant question. So for me it had had to be beer
• 19:33
  because beer and running kind of my main hobbies except for I am.
• 19:38
  But not at the same time. Or do you drink and brine at the
• 19:40
  same time? No, sometimes I run to get a
• 19:43
  drink at the drink at the end and then I run back again.
• 19:45
  It's not that often. Those calories off.
• 19:47
  Yeah, it's a good combination, but we've been discussing this
• 19:53
  now and then we could have done the identity tea, which has been
• 19:57
  a thing in Gartner, the UK guys, right?
• 20:02
  Yeah. And it's a good idea.
• 20:04
  It's just the bandwidth of stuff, right?
• 20:07
  I want to because I'm very, you know, aware that there are
• 20:10
  people that for different reasons, many different reasons,
• 20:13
  won't go to an event for the beer and identity.
• 20:18
  Beer is about being inclusive to everyone.
• 20:22
  But mainly it's about it's a different kind of logistics
• 20:26
  around doing those kind of events.
• 20:28
  And if we are stable enough and have been running, you know, we
• 20:31
  do every month in Oslo identity beers.
• 20:35
  If we have enough organizer, I think we should try to do some
• 20:38
  identity coffees or identity brews.
• 20:41
  Identity Brews. Identity Bev like identity
• 20:45
  beverage or. Something beverage I have,
• 20:47
  something that, you know, people can recognize is still identity
• 20:50
  beer. But so beer is mainly.
• 20:53
  Yeah, it's easy to collect a lot of people around beer though,
• 20:56
  right? I mean, evidence shows.
• 20:58
  That obviously exactly. Everybody showed up for this
• 21:01
  one. So OK, I'm sold.
• 21:03
  I want to start up an identity beer.
• 21:04
  What do I, I do? I mean, this is not like it's a
• 21:07
  mass like group effort, right? It's usually local.
• 21:10
  It's like, hey, it's just what people say, hey, we're going to
• 21:12
  get together for a beer somewhere.
• 21:13
  And it could be an app or I think there's somebody has
• 21:17
  something. I mean, like, but you've got a
• 21:19
  website that's actually for this that people can submit sort of
• 21:24
  where their chapter is going to be or whatever that's going to
• 21:26
  look like. You want to talk about that?
• 21:29
  Yeah, so it's in progress of being good enough, but the main
• 21:32
  purpose of the website's supposed to be the calendar that
• 21:35
  you can just at one glance just click and see what's the closest
• 21:39
  identity of chapter near me and when do they have a meet up next
• 21:43
  time. And then the other important
• 21:45
  part about it is to to have a, you know, frequently asked
• 21:48
  questions that would answer how do I set up a chapter if I so if
• 21:52
  I'm so inclined. But mainly and we're getting a
• 21:55
  charter out there working at that moment.
• 21:57
  It's just we try to keep up with the group growth there.
• 22:00
  Just get people to show up. That's the hardest part, right?
• 22:02
  And I had a couple of conversations this evening about
• 22:05
  people saying that they want to start up in their home cities.
• 22:07
  So that's cool. What we typically do is just say
• 22:10
  reach out to me just on LinkedIn, for example, and say,
• 22:14
  well, how do we go about? And what I typically tell them,
• 22:18
  I mean, people reach out meetings with is just tips about
• 22:21
  getting started, what what to do and what not to do.
• 22:23
  But there are some principles because we need to keep it
• 22:26
  vendor neutral in general because they cannot call it an
• 22:30
  identifier if if it's not like that, right?
• 22:33
  So I've had, I've had representatives from companies
• 22:37
  that shall not be named right now that said, hey, we really
• 22:40
  want to do this in this city. And it turns out that the four
• 22:42
  people in the call with me were all from that same company and.
• 22:46
  To try like a sponsored event type thing.
• 22:48
  And that's just a. Different.
• 22:49
  Yeah. And it's just for them.
• 22:50
  Yeah, Yeah. So when I say, well, you have to
• 22:53
  invite at least one other company over time to be in your
• 22:56
  group with you, and then you said, oh, that's not quite what
• 22:59
  we want. To right.
• 22:59
  OK, well, do your own thing then, right?
• 23:03
  Yeah, exciting. I mean, just did not call it
• 23:05
  identity beer, but we can collaborate.
• 23:07
  Yeah, Yeah, right. OK.
• 23:09
  Well, this is fantastic. My first, hopefully not my last.
• 23:12
  Now I'm in a small market in the US, Asheville, So I don't even
• 23:15
  know if there's anybody else in identity in Asheville.
• 23:17
  I got to think that's at least one or two.
• 23:18
  We'll have to see. If you're in Asheville, NC and
• 23:22
  you want to stop an identity beer with me, let me know.
• 23:24
  Hit me up on LinkedIn. I don't know if there's any
• 23:26
  other other. Otherwise, be very lonely.
• 23:27
  I would just be me drinking alone in my house.
• 23:30
  Sometimes it takes a few months to grow it from two to three
• 23:33
  people to to 10. Well, what I can say about it,
• 23:36
  it's it's really not much work. It's really easy, basically just
• 23:40
  setting up like a date and time and say, hey, we're going to be
• 23:42
  here and everybody kind of pays their own way.
• 23:44
  This is not like it's a membership fee or anything like
• 23:47
  that. It's just that we're getting
• 23:48
  together and talk like individuals and I don't know if
• 23:51
  there's actually any identity talk happening.
• 23:52
  It seems like most people just talk about anything except
• 23:54
  identity, which is fine, right? That's kind of the whole point
• 23:56
  is so you have conversation about anything and everything,
• 23:59
  but get people in the community together.
• 24:00
  I've definitely had a lot of interesting conversations about
• 24:03
  identity at these events, right? Because I'm, I get to talk to
• 24:06
  people that use identity in different ways and then you just
• 24:10
  get to qualify whether they use it in the ways that I thought
• 24:12
  they should and and so on. So plus.
• 24:14
  You're meeting new people and you're seeing their viewpoints
• 24:16
  and understanding their positions.
• 24:17
  And it's something like this is great where we're tied to, you
• 24:20
  know, the EIC conference where there's a lot of people that I
• 24:22
  recognize saw people I don't meeting for the first time and
• 24:24
  having newcomers conversations and you know, things like that,
• 24:27
  which is super cool. That's one of the things that I
• 24:30
  want for the future, is that if you go to an identity conference
• 24:33
  anywhere, then there's an identity beer after or before.
• 24:36
  So let's get one for Identiverse.
• 24:38
  I mean, we're all going to be there in a couple weeks, right?
• 24:39
  Yeah. Who do we have to throw it on
• 24:41
  the gauntlet to? Like what's the what do we need
• 24:43
  to have happen to have like an official identity beer at
• 24:45
  Identiverse or is it already in place?
• 24:48
  So we've already had a meet up on the Monday under different
• 24:51
  labels. It was the auth Sen last year
• 24:55
  and something else before that. So I'm currently waiting on
• 25:00
  response from the the venue just to see if we we going to be
• 25:04
  there or not. And the trouble with an event
• 25:07
  that can be as large as this in Las Vegas, the companies want to
• 25:11
  have someone who can give them their credit card and guarantee
• 25:15
  everything. So it will be an identity beer.
• 25:18
  I can guarantee that it will be an identity beer on Monday
• 25:20
  before the identity beers. It may be more crowd sourced and
• 25:23
  sort of all show up at the same time like a flash mob.
• 25:26
  Maybe right because. It's totally fine.
• 25:28
  Yeah, yeah. So either we do it at the
• 25:30
  Mandalay, at the Irish Pub, but I think the plan A is to do it
• 25:35
  at the BrewDog, OK, because BrewDog has lots of space and
• 25:39
  they have this terrace around the strip.
• 25:41
  And I want to do that from 4:00 PM and onwards.
• 25:44
  So everyone who gets into town and that they can just go to the
• 25:48
  go to the identity as a reception.
• 25:50
  And just a kind of a revolving kind of open spot where people
• 25:53
  can go to. Yeah, that's very cool.
• 25:54
  All right, well, this has been a lot of fun, so hats off to you.
• 25:58
  Congratulations. I mean, this is, you know, quite
• 26:00
  a, quite a success here. I'm really proud of the
• 26:02
  community. Yeah, so, all right, it's good
• 26:04
  to talk to you. I'm going to.
• 26:05
  We're going to get more drinks and more food.
• 26:07
  My name is Bjorn Bjorn for everyone not speaking Norwegian.
• 26:13
  Working in Norway, been working with an identity and access
• 26:17
  management for a bit more than 20 years.
• 26:21
  Working right now in a smaller boutique company called
• 26:24
  Commando. And yeah, I'm here at Identity
• 26:27
  Bear to meet my friends and colleagues and enjoying the
• 26:32
  sunshine for once. So I'm born in Nepal, as you can
• 26:36
  see, and I've been travelled quite a lot in my life, most of
• 26:42
  the continents. Norway is one of my favorite
• 26:46
  places because of the relaxed working community, meaning that
• 26:54
  we work together even though we compete outside of these nice
• 26:59
  venues. When we drink beer, we have good
• 27:01
  relationships. We can without any challenge,
• 27:04
  talk to anyone here, even though tomorrow morning we will be in a
• 27:08
  tough competition for some client or something like that.
• 27:12
  It's a very open and including company and country.
• 27:17
  Yeah, it picked me. So I started working with normal
• 27:23
  kind of operations back in 9899 and then I worked with like in
• 27:29
  the early days we built one of the first net banks back in in
• 27:33
  Norway and we started with access management.
• 27:36
  A lot of the people that have been working 20 plus years
• 27:38
  started with IBM ISAMS and and all those kind of technologies.
• 27:42
  So we built up one of the best I would say still really one of
• 27:46
  the best net banks in the world at that time in 99 two thousand
• 27:51
  on ISAM before it was purchased by a man.
• 27:54
  And from there on kind of moved into both from an access
• 28:00
  management perspective that moved into IGA, moved into
• 28:04
  access like attribute based access control, previous access
• 28:09
  management kind of all over the place.
• 28:11
  So so been doing most of the different main domains over the
• 28:16
  last 20 years. Yeah, how would I think about AI
• 28:20
  in I am and I and I have to say I'm, I'm really, I'm always
• 28:25
  interested in the new kind of technologies that comes in new
• 28:28
  standards, new products, new capabilities.
• 28:32
  And I'm really kind of baffled by some of the new tech like you
• 28:39
  have. And I'll just do some product
• 28:41
  mentions, even though it is no kind of thing related to me, but
• 28:45
  I am once doing really good AI on top of legacy or kind of old
• 28:52
  school or or existing IGA tools where you have like the native
• 28:56
  language people are used to using chatbot, they're starting
• 28:59
  to using Copilot and they can talk to an actual tool that just
• 29:04
  delivers immediate response. And I, I think it's kind of
• 29:08
  baffling. I see all the different type of
• 29:11
  vendors starting to build their own solutions and, and it's
• 29:15
  going to completely explode on how you interface with a
• 29:18
  different type of people. So the different, if you're, if
• 29:21
  you're an administrator, you'll get the kind of the interface of
• 29:25
  an administrator. If you're an end user, you'll
• 29:26
  get the interface of an end user.
• 29:28
  And in addition to that, of course, everyone talk about
• 29:32
  agentic AI and how that's going to influence things and how how
• 29:36
  to manage what you should be accessing and what shouldn't be
• 29:39
  accessed by an AI agent. But I still think it's like it,
• 29:43
  it's we're going to reduce the kind of knowledge need.
• 29:52
  We're moving a lot of the first 2-3, five years of experience
• 29:55
  because you can get that for free.
• 29:57
  And then it's more like understanding business
• 29:59
  understanding actually what's, what do you want to accomplish
• 30:02
  more than the technology. My name is Connor.
• 30:05
  I work in a consultant rig called Advancea.
• 30:09
  I got into I am a few years ago in 2007.
• 30:14
  Basically it picked me. I thought security was fun.
• 30:19
  I am was a way into the security really, really well.
• 30:23
  Good way to get into all of the good stuff that I am can offer
• 30:27
  everything about programming integration.
• 30:31
  But later on what caught my interest and made me stay is
• 30:35
  basically a business side of it. To me, identity is the way into
• 30:39
  security. It is the trust part, it is the
• 30:44
  compliance part and it is the governance part.
• 30:47
  To me, the thing that decide me the most about identity is that
• 30:50
  it's no day is the same. It's affects by, it's affected
• 30:56
  by everything and it affects everything around itself.
• 31:01
  So when we talk about AI, for example, they have a huge
• 31:06
  previous issue that is part of Identity core.
• 31:10
  And if you have ever tried to deanonymize someone, you have
• 31:13
  done that through identity functions and you can do that
• 31:17
  also through identity management functions.
• 31:21
  It is basically the same. It's the same, different sides
• 31:25
  of the same coin. Basically.
• 31:26
  The hardest problems I've ever solved with Identity have always
• 31:29
  been within the organization. It is been related to education.
• 31:36
  It's related to audit and governance.
• 31:38
  Always. It is making the management
• 31:43
  understand why a password policy is important.
• 31:46
  It is been making the connection between something as simple as
• 31:57
  the authentication rings within the Linux kernel within to top
• 32:04
  management of an organization. How does it actually affect each
• 32:07
  other and why? I worked as chief architect,
• 32:11
  lead architect for several projects.
• 32:14
  I worked as identity lead and different types of project
• 32:18
  leads. I also worked as a programmer
• 32:22
  within identity management projects.
• 32:26
  My especially within within IT is from embedded system sites
• 32:33
  and advanced Unix programming AI.
• 32:39
  And what's to me, the lead up to identity isn't really important
• 32:44
  is that you have a leader, you have a base to stand up.
• 32:48
  It might be business and it might be it.
• 32:52
  To me, the core core lead up was integration and very low level
• 33:01
  understanding of an operating system as well as normal masses
• 33:05
  degree. Ohh, this shirt.
• 33:08
  Yeah, it's so I, I started job search around December and I
• 33:14
  figured I, I was so bored with seeing everybody on LinkedIn
• 33:17
  going hey, I'm unemployed, I'm looking for work.
• 33:21
  Hashtag looking for work. It's so generic.
• 33:25
  Yeah, exactly. So I was like, that doesn't tell
• 33:28
  anything about who or what I am. So I was like, OK, here's who
• 33:34
  I'm what I am. I'm an old I am war.
• 33:36
  Horse. I've seen it all, I've done it
• 33:39
  all. So I figure let's just advertise
• 33:42
  that with a little bit of sense of humor.
• 33:45
  I don't know if it worked, but I got a job now.
• 33:48
  Okay, so this is our largest group yet, Identity, here in
• 33:52
  Berlin, Germany. So I'm going to ask the question
• 33:54
  is how did you get into identity?
• 33:56
  Well, first of all, what's your name?
• 33:58
  Where are you from? And then how did you get into
• 33:59
  identity? So we'll start with you.
• 34:01
  We'll just take the microphone and just kind of pass it along
• 34:03
  and we'll go from there. Thank you.
• 34:05
  Well, I'm Wolf. I'm actually a native from
• 34:07
  Berlin. I'm now the Chief commercial
• 34:09
  officer from Alerti and I got into identity almost by
• 34:13
  accident. Think identity has for a long
• 34:15
  time been the most undervalued and almost overlooked part of
• 34:19
  cyber security. But it is so important as now
• 34:22
  more and more of my clients are struggling with their cloud
• 34:25
  migration, with their S for Hana cloud migration, the rice.
• 34:30
  It forces them to clean up their identity.
• 34:32
  And all of a sudden, this is the core of the most important part
• 34:35
  of any digital transformation. And here we I am at Identity
• 34:39
  Beer, really enjoying myself and eager to learn more about
• 34:42
  Identity. Is this your first identity?
• 34:44
  It certainly is OK. Mine too.
• 34:46
  How many people have been to Identity Identity Beer before?
• 34:49
  I have a microphone. All right.
• 34:50
  So many. A couple of people have been to
• 34:51
  Identity Bears. OK, cool.
• 34:52
  OK, so let's go down here. Hello.
• 34:55
  What was the question, who are you?
• 34:58
  How are you and what would you say you do around here?
• 35:02
  Sam Evans, where are you from? Born in England, OK, now based
• 35:07
  in Lisbon in, in Portugal. How did I get into identity?
• 35:12
  I, I found into it. I was in IT 23 years ago, wires
• 35:16
  and boxes. And then and then I got into
• 35:20
  into recruitment and that was 20 years ago.
• 35:23
  And I looked at the room and everyone was recruiting for
• 35:26
  COBOL, kicks, DB2, DALFI, all these, all these different
• 35:29
  strange languages. And then I come across AI think
• 35:32
  it was role based access control opportunity.
• 35:35
  You pick something easy, but like no one, there was no one
• 35:39
  about that was recruiting for it or could recruit for it.
• 35:43
  And I thought I'd like to pick a little niche.
• 35:46
  And then that's what I'd done. So I started, I started working
• 35:49
  the network and finding people in that industry and built a
• 35:53
  quite a big phone book and a little black book and started,
• 35:59
  yeah, putting people into, into, into jobs and into roles and
• 36:03
  building teams. And yeah, that was the the
• 36:06
  origins of it. That's pretty cool.
• 36:07
  Yeah. 23 years, 20 years, 20 years.
• 36:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do you stay in identity for
• 36:13
  so long? It's a niche and it's failed for
• 36:18
  20 years. The same problem that we have 20
• 36:21
  years ago is still prominent today.
• 36:23
  It's a skill shortage. Why are we not doing more to
• 36:27
  educate and to to wolves point earlier?
• 36:31
  You know, the fact that we call it identity security now is a
• 36:33
  great thing because it means that we're weaving it into the
• 36:36
  fabric of security and it's it's getting the place that it should
• 36:40
  have. The fact that we're talking
• 36:41
  about a cedar roll, meaning the identity gets a seat at the top
• 36:47
  table and it's here to stay. It's going nowhere.
• 36:50
  So and all of those, that little black book that I was talking
• 36:53
  about, for me, people make projects, good people, 50% of
• 37:00
  projects are failing. How do we stop that?
• 37:03
  So there's a lot of improvement that needs to happen and I want
• 37:06
  to play a role in helping with the education, awareness and
• 37:10
  growth of all of that. So well, you're definitely
• 37:12
  playing a role here. Definitely drinking beer.
• 37:14
  That's probably the primary role right now.
• 37:15
  I could do that. All right, let's go down to the
• 37:17
  next. Who are you?
• 37:19
  Where are you from and how'd you get into identity?
• 37:21
  I'm Shane, I'm from Ireland, but I've been living in Switzerland
• 37:24
  for almost 30 years now and got into identity about 2526 years
• 37:31
  ago. So we're building for a large
• 37:33
  pharma company. We're building the company's
• 37:36
  first web-based applications are going away from client server
• 37:39
  apps. And one of the things that we
• 37:42
  kind of run into is like how do we figure out who gets access to
• 37:44
  it? And there was no idea.
• 37:46
  The concept of identity access didn't didn't exist, but we had,
• 37:50
  I think we had 47 different Active Directory setups and and
• 37:54
  we had to come up with the concept.
• 37:55
  Of how do we build user based access, enrolment, all different
• 38:01
  role management. How do you take those 47 active
• 38:04
  directories and make it 43 active directories, maybe more,
• 38:10
  but it's so so that was kind of the starting point.
• 38:12
  And then from there, similar to Sam, I kind of ended up
• 38:15
  transitioning towards the human resources side of it.
• 38:17
  Then looking at actually how do we start, you know, onboarding
• 38:20
  offboarding employees, How do all those.
• 38:21
  Processes work and over 30 years kind of developed across all
• 38:25
  those different components and and then you know with Securex
• 38:28
  and so it's and now looking at how do.
• 38:30
  We, you know, become a bit more effective at those project
• 38:34
  deliveries that are 50% behind and helping kind of helping
• 38:37
  everyone work. Very good.
• 38:40
  That's exciting. All right, let's go next.
• 38:42
  Pass it down. Whoever's got the hot potato.
• 38:45
  Who are you? Hold the microphone up.
• 38:47
  Who are you? Where are you from and how did
• 38:49
  you get into identity? Hi, my name is Francisco
• 38:52
  Rodriguez, I'm from Portal from Portugal and I joined the
• 38:57
  identity, the identity atmosphere space around 1314
• 39:06
  months, not years like these guys, but months because Ricardo
• 39:10
  here asked me to lead the, the business in Portugal.
• 39:14
  So I've, I've been working in the in the main customers in
• 39:17
  Portugal for the past 25 years. And I, I fell in love with the
• 39:22
  cybersecurity space, all the consulting part that's behind
• 39:26
  it, all the security parts. I'm an engineer by by training
• 39:30
  and optimist by nature. And, and I really love this
• 39:33
  conversation with the clients and I really feel that that the
• 39:37
  like Sam was saying, the the the cybersecurity part is, is, is
• 39:41
  evolving, it's shaping and we're like on the top of the wave now.
• 39:45
  So it's feeling very interesting to be going to this non human
• 39:50
  identities, gentic AI, all of this new stuff that's coming
• 39:53
  around, very hot topics to be working on now.
• 39:57
  So Francisco, you said that you've been in identity for just
• 39:59
  a few months now. Did I hear that right?
• 40:00
  Not. A few no. 14/14/14 OK, come on.
• 40:04
  OK. So many.
• 40:05
  Many, many, many, many. Months.
• 40:06
  So when? How does your viewpoint of
• 40:08
  identity change over the last 14 months?
• 40:11
  Very good question. I know.
• 40:12
  They should do a podcast. I should do a podcast.
• 40:15
  That's a great. Idea because honestly, I wasn't
• 40:17
  aware of, of this human and non human identities.
• 40:23
  It really changed the way I feel about it.
• 40:25
  And when I talk with, with previous clients that I, that I
• 40:27
  know personally, there's always an angle that somebody's is
• 40:32
  missing. So the point of, of the, the,
• 40:34
  the security part in identity really becomes very crucial.
• 40:38
  It's it's a very hot topic nowadays.
• 40:41
  Excellent. OK, Next.
• 40:45
  All right. Who are you?
• 40:45
  Where are you from? How did you get into identity?
• 40:47
  Hi, my name is Ricardo Martis. I work from Lisbon and travel to
• 40:53
  are there countries in Europe where we are present?
• 40:56
  How did I started identity? So I actually started as a pen
• 40:59
  tester. So it seemed by the 22 years ago
• 41:04
  more or less that the people that really knew about identity
• 41:09
  repositories and stuff, they, they, they were like hackers And
• 41:14
  I, I was fit for that purpose. And and so I started working
• 41:18
  with Send Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by
• 41:23
  Oracle. We got some really old people on
• 41:25
  this. Exactly.
• 41:28
  Yeah, I'm good looking as well, right.
• 41:30
  So, but the point was I did start like with Sun and then the
• 41:34
  reason why I was chosen to do that was because I used to do a
• 41:38
  lot of a lot of hacking on on Sun Aldap and identity Systems.
• 41:43
  So I was a good fit for purpose on that, on that role.
• 41:45
  Yeah, that was it. That's pretty cool.
• 41:47
  So that that shift from basically offensive, right,
• 41:50
  attacking things. What was something that you
• 41:52
  would like? Oh, I'm definitely going to get
• 41:54
  into this because this identity thing wasn't done.
• 41:56
  Like what I think about here is like a control.
• 41:58
  Was it like MFA was like a bad password?
• 42:00
  Was it like, what was your like? Oh yeah, these guys don't know
• 42:03
  what they're. Doing reality and actually 10
• 42:04
  years after it was, and I believe it still is with some
• 42:08
  colleagues actually doing that is that you can actually start,
• 42:13
  you can go and work on a company and two days later you can be
• 42:16
  the, the administrator of the, of the Active Directory in so 48
• 42:20
  hours. It's actually quite common.
• 42:22
  So and when you do like red team and you actually try to do that,
• 42:26
  that's actually still the case. So it's still, it's different
• 42:30
  technologies, different solutions, different problems.
• 42:33
  But at the end of the day, you can still gather all the
• 42:35
  identity information of everyone inside an organization and then
• 42:38
  can be done externally and internally.
• 42:40
  So it's still pretty scary. So it's still a big problem.
• 42:43
  So it's still lots of things to do.
• 42:45
  OK, well, you're just a real fountain of joy.
• 42:47
  Appreciate it. It's my pleasure.
• 42:49
  My pleasure all. Right, let's pass it down.
• 42:53
  All right. Who are you, where are you from,
• 42:56
  and how did you get into identity?
• 42:58
  Hi my name is Gabriel. I work for Securex as Acro and
• 43:02
  we are part of the wonderful Ellerety family and I'm from
• 43:07
  Switzerland. OK, so that was very brief.
• 43:13
  All right, let's go to the next person.
• 43:15
  No, I don't. I don't told you why I'm in
• 43:18
  identity. OK.
• 43:20
  Oh yeah. So why are you when I?
• 43:21
  Do that. Yeah, I'm in identity.
• 43:25
  To be honest it's it's like a by accident but as when I was in I
• 43:32
  liked it and I stayed now for more than 10 years.
• 43:36
  It chose you. Yeah, it chose you, right?
• 43:40
  Yeah, that's that's my my standing theory for six years
• 43:43
  now. So what keeps you in identity?
• 43:48
  Yeah. For for me, identity is the
• 43:50
  central point of everything when it comes to, to any processes
• 43:56
  in, in IT, in IT teams, in IT driven companies and what we
• 44:06
  need to more focus on identity because it's a central point of,
• 44:09
  of everything. Well, you can't use Identity
• 44:12
  Center. That's trademark.
• 44:13
  So find something else to say. All right, let's go to the next
• 44:17
  person all the way down at the very end.
• 44:18
  Who are you? Where are you from and how did
• 44:21
  you get into identity? My name is Christopher.
• 44:24
  I'm from America or the US. Where in America?
• 44:28
  Pennsylvania, OK. So northeast.
• 44:30
  So Eagles. Northeast.
• 44:33
  Eagles fan. You have to be a Steelers fan if
• 44:37
  you're. From Pittsburgh.
• 44:37
  Pittsburgh. I didn't hear that.
• 44:38
  Sorry. I don't know if I said that.
• 44:40
  I'm very sorry by the way, I'm not a.
• 44:43
  Steelers fan? That's OK, but I got into IAM,
• 44:49
  or identity security about seven years ago.
• 44:52
  I worked for a financial institution in the US and yeah,
• 44:58
  I mean, identity is the the main focus point and internal
• 45:02
  security is just as important as cybersecurity.
• 45:06
  And This is why I got into it, is to learn a lot about
• 45:10
  identities and how to protect them.
• 45:12
  And yeah, absolutely. What's the hardest thing about
• 45:16
  identity from your perspective? What is the hardest thing about
• 45:19
  identity? The person, Right.
• 45:22
  Like, I mean, individual human. Yeah, exactly.
• 45:26
  You know, you can teach people, but if they don't listen, then
• 45:33
  yeah, I mean, you can't. Humans.
• 45:35
  Are going to human exactly absolutely all right so let's do
• 45:38
  a quick cheers here thank you all for joining us here thank
• 45:41
  you for being an identity here thank you thank you thank you
• 45:43
  cheers cheers cheers all right salute thank you everybody.
• 45:49
  I will pass it down, yeah. You've been listening to
• 45:54
  Identity at the Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show.
• 45:58
  Make sure to like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon.
• 46:02
  But in the meantime, hit the website at
• 46:05
  identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at
• 46:11
  the Center.