From Books to Bytes: The Common Patterns Between Library Science and Identity Standards

What does library science have to do with identity standards? For Heather Flanagan, the answer is everything. In this episode of The Identity Heroes, she shares how her background as a librarian inspired a career simplifying the complexities of digital identity and open standards — and why building shared understanding matters more than ever.

Featuring: Heather Flanagan:
Principal at Spherical Cow Consulting

Hosts: Mark Callahan

Episode #8 -

OCTOBER, 2025

Show Notes

Heather Flanagan’s path into identity began in an unexpected place — library science. Long before leading working groups and shaping global standards, she was drawn to the art of organizing information, connecting systems, and making knowledge accessible. Those same principles now guide her work in the world of identity.

In this episode, Heather traces her journey from aspiring librarian to system administrator at Stanford and Duke, revealing how curiosity — and a stack of O’Reilly books — launched her into technology. When a Stanford layoff pushed her to reinvent herself, she built a consultancy rooted in collaboration and open standards, helping organizations like W3C, IETF, and the OpenID Foundation navigate complex identity problems.

She introduces her “spherical cow” philosophy — the idea of simplifying impossibly complex systems into workable models — and shows how that mindset helps translate the chaos of identity into actionable progress. Heather also explores how non-coders can meaningfully shape technology, the growing challenges of delegation and digital legacy in an AI-driven world, and the importance of mentorship and facilitation in keeping the identity community thriving.

Her story is a reminder that the skills of a librarian — organizing, explaining, and connecting — are the same skills that move technology forward. Heather’s perspective proves that identity isn’t just about systems; it’s about people who can bridge the gap between ideas and implementation.

✨ Key Takeaways:

How library science principles influence open standards
Why simplification is the secret to problem-solving in identity
The importance of non-coders in tech communities
Delegation and digital legacy in the AI era
The value of mentorship and cross-disciplinary learning

Heroes Journey:

00:40 — The Origin Story: From librarian roots to hands-on sysadmin, fueled by O’Reilly books and curiosity
10:45 — The Gauntlets: A Stanford layoff turned into a launchpad for consultancy and standards leadership
15:05 — The Justice League: “Spherical Cow” → simplifying complex identity problems for teams & execs
20:05 — The Road Ahead: Non-human identity, deep delegation, and digital legacies

🔗 Discover more episodes: strata.io/identityheroes

🎙 The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the guest and do not represent the opinions of their employer or family.

Transcript

Read transcript

Heather Flanagan [0:00:00]: As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never not been in identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:02]: When I became a bulletin board systems operator, my job was, do people have accounts?

Heather Flanagan [0:00:07]: Do the right people access the right things?

Heather Flanagan [0:00:10]: Do the right groups exist.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:11]: Ultimately, the whole purpose of having an admin is to control access to the system.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:17]: Totally.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:18]: Every single system I’ve ever worked on.

Mark Callahan [0:00:21]: It’s all been identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:22]: It’s all been identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:00:22]: It’s all about who can do what?

Heather Flanagan [0:00:24]: And how do you control it?

Mark Callahan [0:00:37]: Hey, everyone.

Mark Callahan [0:00:38]: On this episode of the Identity heroes.

Mark Callahan [0:00:39]: We have a chance to interview Heather Flanagan.

Mark Callahan [0:00:42]: You probably know the name from Id Pro.

Mark Callahan [0:00:44]: Did you also know she has a background in library science in Medieval studies.

Mark Callahan [0:00:47]: Well, actually, it’s a very natural path to identity when you hear her story.

Mark Callahan [0:00:51]: We also hear about how you take very complex messages and smush it down into a very easy to understand spherical power if you will.

Mark Callahan [0:00:58]: And last but not least, the contributions those non developers and the audience have down the identity industry and how non coat can actually have a real profound impact on the direction of things to come.

Mark Callahan [0:01:08]: Let’s have a listen to what Heather has to say.

Mark Callahan [0:01:10]: Welcome to this episode of the Identity Heroes.

Mark Callahan [0:01:17]: Today I’m joined by Heather Flanagan, who a lot of folks know, you and know of you through ID Pros.

Mark Callahan [0:01:22]: I’m so excited to have you join me today at.

Heather Flanagan [0:01:25]: And thank you for inviting me.

Heather Flanagan [0:01:26]: This is gonna be fun.

Mark Callahan [0:01:27]: You get to always ask questions of others and how I could ask questions of you.

Mark Callahan [0:01:31]: And so this is, hopefully enjoy the tables being turned in a fun way and just to share your background with everybody.

Heather Flanagan [0:01:37]: Happy to do it.

Mark Callahan [0:01:38]: Well, awesome.

Mark Callahan [0:01:39]: Well I know you had kind of a busy day.

Mark Callahan [0:01:40]: So we’ll we’ll just start jump right into a, the structure of these sessions, which we typically do.

Mark Callahan [0:01:45]: We try to create, like, this origin story.

Mark Callahan [0:01:48]: And that origin story centers around the heroes themselves.

Mark Callahan [0:01:51]: So we have this, like Heroes arc.

Mark Callahan [0:01:52]: And I have a hunch that this will resonate well with you as we think about some of your background.

Mark Callahan [0:01:57]: But nevertheless, you know, the challenges, the obstacles, the Gauntlet lets you’ve gone through to get where you are.

Mark Callahan [0:02:02]: And so kinda wanna just play out some hero’s journey with you if that’s alright.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:06]: Of course.

Mark Callahan [0:02:07]: Awesome.

Mark Callahan [0:02:07]: Well, you and I had talked on Eddie Pro.

Mark Callahan [0:02:10]: I’m sure we’ve crossed paths all the time at And other industry events, you had started off our conversation mentioning something about a background in in medieval studies.

Mark Callahan [0:02:19]: And, as I look at your, your Linkedin.

Mark Callahan [0:02:22]: I saw that, you know, a degree in history and you’ll said your master’s in library science in medieval studies is I’m guessing the the bachelor’s portion of that.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:31]: Mh.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:31]: I really was supposed to be a librarian and when I grew up.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:33]: I was I was set, man.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:35]: I was bound and determined.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:37]: I was gonna get my library science degree.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:39]: I knew from, like, age fifteen on.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:41]: That’s what I wanted.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:42]: I wanted that degree.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:43]: I was focused.

Mark Callahan [0:02:45]: Do we decimal tattoo to anywhere or anything like this that just like…

Heather Flanagan [0:02:49]: No.

Heather Flanagan [0:02:49]: But I do have a lovely tattoo with a with a book on my arm, which is actually hard to say.

Mark Callahan [0:02:54]: Yeah.

Mark Callahan [0:02:54]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:02:55]: Yes.

Mark Callahan [0:02:55]: I mean.

Mark Callahan [0:02:55]: Yes.

Mark Callahan [0:02:56]: Librarian the life.

Mark Callahan [0:02:58]: Well, and that was…

Mark Callahan [0:02:58]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:02:59]: So this…

Mark Callahan [0:02:59]: Without a doubt you’re our first Destined b librarian on on the show that we’ve had.

Mark Callahan [0:03:03]: And here we are an identity gather.

Heather Flanagan [0:03:05]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:03:06]: Would you be okay if I sort of started off like, your journey.

Mark Callahan [0:03:08]: And the way I was gonna do that is I just stole some of your positions and titles that you’ve held since you graduated and just sort of playing back and we can get a feel for the journey?

Mark Callahan [0:03:16]: Sure.

Mark Callahan [0:03:17]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:03:17]: So in loose chronological order, and and loose coupling.

Mark Callahan [0:03:22]: So I’m just gonna go with the tide.

Heather Flanagan [0:03:23]: Did you just call me a loose woman.

Heather Flanagan [0:03:24]: Wait a minute.

Mark Callahan [0:03:25]: Oh my gosh.

Mark Callahan [0:03:26]: I’m not going there.

Mark Callahan [0:03:26]: That’s that oh, now you can maybe me wash it I’m gonna be somebody many shades of red.

Mark Callahan [0:03:30]: I am keeping comp composing because I’m a professional moderator.

Mark Callahan [0:03:33]: And I am so good at this that I’m not blushing right now.

Mark Callahan [0:03:36]: Like I am, nevertheless, you started off as…

Mark Callahan [0:03:40]: Actually, okay.

Mark Callahan [0:03:40]: This for…

Mark Callahan [0:03:41]: This is the in most interesting transition, I think of all your career entries is the fact that you went from library science right into the cis admin and analyst role.

Mark Callahan [0:03:48]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:03:48]: Especially in the academic side, I think it was Stanford and duke both, and then went on to do program management and facilitation.

Mark Callahan [0:03:55]: Now facilitator runs through your life.

Mark Callahan [0:03:58]: I it feels like that’s just a common theme that you are is this this facilitator, but there’s also sprinklers of technical editor positions that you help, program coordinator.

Mark Callahan [0:04:08]: You’re are the Rf series editor, So there’s a lot of things I’m hearing about the standards involvement in in working groups.

Mark Callahan [0:04:15]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:04:15]: Tipping toes back in technical writer role, chief of staff an editor and facilitator.

Mark Callahan [0:04:21]: There’s the facilitator Once again, the place that we probably all know you from is being the executive director and principal editor of Id Pro, and thank you for that by the way.

Mark Callahan [0:04:30]: And last but not least you’re also the principal and and consultant you’re…

Mark Callahan [0:04:34]: The sole per provider of Spherical cal consulting.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:38]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:04:38]: And that’s not a librarian.

Mark Callahan [0:04:39]: Not I don’t see a librarian in there.

Mark Callahan [0:04:41]: Well where do the library?

Heather Flanagan [0:04:44]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:44]: Let me explain unto you the path, and it will all make sense.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:47]: It’s actually been…

Heather Flanagan [0:04:48]: Yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:48]: All fairly linear up until about fifteen years ago.

Mark Callahan [0:04:53]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:53]: So there I was.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:54]: I graduated with my library science degree because I was bound and determined to have it.

Heather Flanagan [0:04:57]: And oddly enough, once I got it, I never worked in a library ever again.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:02]: What I did do.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:04]: Now.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:04]: We’ll think about.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:05]: If you think about it, The…

Heather Flanagan [0:05:06]: When you get your graduating class of librarian, they are as our most college students poor.

Mark Callahan [0:05:14]: There.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:15]: And they’re not going into a lucrative field, which means finding jobs is actually very, very hard because they can’t just go move to the job and the job can’t afford to move them to it because there’s no money and being a librarian.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:26]: There we go.

Mark Callahan [0:05:27]: And I have a hunch of all the like brands we need growing up, probably had that position.

Mark Callahan [0:05:31]: Almost tenured, and for a decade, Need role.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:35]: But that was okay because what I found was the public research division of a privately owned newspaper called the Raleigh News and observer.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:43]: Also known as the news and Disturb, but that was like an inside joke at the time.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:48]: And I’m like, well public research.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:51]: That’s like being a reference librarian.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:52]: Surely, I can do that.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:54]: So I did that.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:55]: It was incredibly boring.

Heather Flanagan [0:05:56]: And a lot of what I did was roll posters and type labels.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:00]: Not exactly what I wanted to do with my degree.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:02]: But it was a privately it owned newspaper, and it was the mid nineties.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:06]: Some of you remember the mid nineties.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:09]: That’s called the dot calm era.

Mark Callahan [0:06:12]: Yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:12]: And sure enough, the library or the the newspaper was going to spin up this new thing called an Isp with modems and oh be cool.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:20]: And there was nobody trained in any of this stuff.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:23]: Right?

Heather Flanagan [0:06:24]: The…

Heather Flanagan [0:06:24]: Your your computer science graduates were not…

Heather Flanagan [0:06:27]: They were not practical in terms of, okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:30]: Do you actually know how to manage a server?

Heather Flanagan [0:06:31]: Or do you actually know how to do these things?

Heather Flanagan [0:06:33]: It was usually much more theoretical at the time?

Mark Callahan [0:06:36]: Right.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:36]: They were just looking for reasonably smart people, and they come to me and said, hey, we’ve got this bulletin and board system.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:41]: Could you run it?

Heather Flanagan [0:06:43]: And I said, so come the book?

Heather Flanagan [0:06:45]: Because I know what to do with books.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:47]: So And so they give me the book.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:49]: The lac comm bolton board manuals was about this big.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:51]: Right.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:52]: Cool.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:52]: And that went fine, And they said you know it’s just come work for us.

Heather Flanagan [0:06:56]: You don’t need to be in the public research division anymore Come work for the Isp, so I did.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:00]: And I became a Bulletin board systems operator.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:02]: That lasted for three whole months.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:03]: At which point they said, so we’ve got this system.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:07]: It’s called Dns.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:09]: Could you could you just take that on?

Heather Flanagan [0:07:12]: And I’m like, just come in the book?

Heather Flanagan [0:07:14]: Twitch they said, sure, and they give me the O’reilly cricket, and I’m like, alright.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:19]: And so I teach myself bind and I figured out, you know, how to manage the dns system for an Isp speak.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:25]: That was by February in March, they come to me and said so we’ve got this thing called Send.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:31]: And I just said just give me the book.

Mark Callahan [0:07:36]: I I love…

Mark Callahan [0:07:36]: Books shelf by the.

Mark Callahan [0:07:37]: I think it’s like all these incredibly ticket books.

Mark Callahan [0:07:39]: You have everything ever published on I’m guessing.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:42]: I had a lot of cricket book.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:43]: I.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:43]: All the O’reilly books.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:44]: All of it.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:45]: Several versions of the send mail.

Mark Callahan [0:07:47]: I can see all the artwork on the pot cover too.

Mark Callahan [0:07:49]: Course great.

Mark Callahan [0:07:50]: Yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:51]: They’re very.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:51]: And so I became a send.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:53]: At this point, I’m now a unique citizen, and I’ve never gotten out of tech since then.

Heather Flanagan [0:07:59]: From there, I went to work for, the largest privately owned software company in the world, Sas Institute as a system administrator.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:07]: Now Sas was interesting.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:08]: It’s based in North Carolina in around research Triangle park, and it was kind of a cult because they…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:17]: I mean, seriously, they had, like a one percent turnover rate for their for their staff because they had on health care and on site daycare care and on gyms and on golf, and on…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:28]: Cafeteria.

Mark Callahan [0:08:30]: Like Google before Google.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:31]: It was Google before Google.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:31]: And so no one ever left, which also meant that there was it…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:34]: In order to actually advance your career, really slow.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:38]: Really?

Heather Flanagan [0:08:39]: At which point I went to go work for for an actual dot com and did rights management.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:43]: From there, I went to…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:44]: That’s where in…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:45]: From there, I went into research and education.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:48]: That’s where I started working at Duke university.

Mark Callahan [0:08:50]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:50]: Where they were Was actually hired as assisted.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:52]: And within six months, this did not exactly…

Heather Flanagan [0:08:55]: This didn’t involve a book.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:56]: This involved a legal path.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:57]: Because I talked to my new boss.

Heather Flanagan [0:08:59]: And my new boss said, alright.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:01]: We’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna redo this job description, and we took the legal pad drew a line down the middle of one column said fun, monk column said not fun.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:10]: And we figured out all the things that I found fun were all the things that he found not fun.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:15]: And so we made the job description.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:17]: I became senior manager of the systems group for Central It Duke University with the fun column.

Mark Callahan [0:09:23]: Create your own job role right there.

Mark Callahan [0:09:24]: And that’s perfect.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:25]: It was fantastic.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:26]: So I worked there for about five years.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:28]: Then a physician opened up, it was almost exactly the same, except one level up, a director of systems, but almost like exactly the same systems and that was at Stanford University.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:37]: So then I went out I said, well, why not?

Heather Flanagan [0:09:40]: Pick up me my sweetheart cats poof off we go to the West Coast and worked there for about three years At which point I got laid off, which was awesome.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:51]: So cool.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:53]: They paid me to go.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:54]: I had the best summer ever.

Mark Callahan [0:09:56]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:56]: I I learned so much about textiles that summer.

Heather Flanagan [0:09:59]: I admit.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:00]: I weave, I make my own yarn.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:02]: I die my own yarn.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:03]: All these things.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:05]: Right?

Mark Callahan [0:10:05]: There’s an identity fabric joke here, but I…

Mark Callahan [0:10:07]: I’m failing it at moments.

Mark Callahan [0:10:08]: I’m just gonna, like, have lube and all these things.

Mark Callahan [0:10:11]: Sorry.

Mark Callahan [0:10:11]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:12]: All the things, All the things.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:13]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:13]: The thing is the day I got my my notice.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:16]: Of being laid off.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:17]: I mean, Stanford Very kind.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:19]: I was supposed to go to a conference that weekend, and they said go ahead.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:23]: We’ve already paid for all it, whatever.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:24]: We I don’t care.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:25]: So I go.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:26]: And there’s a thing about research and education that you miss in almost the entirety of industry, and that is just how deeply the collaborations happen from one institution to the next to the next to the next.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:38]: That’s where so much software has been developed so many ideas like, sam federation and whatnot.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:44]: They happen through the collaborations of all these institutions that come together who aren’t resourced enough to do the job on their own.

Mark Callahan [0:10:50]: Mh.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:50]: Probably can’t even afford to buy the product, but together they can build it.

Heather Flanagan [0:10:54]: And so I was now part of this group that was working on the…

Heather Flanagan [0:11:00]: What we call mill for just research and education around the world.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:05]: And I’ve been doing that for a couple of years as part of my role at Stanford.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:10]: Now I’ve gotten laid off.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:11]: And I stand up in front of the group, and I say, hello.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:13]: Sixty five of my closest friends.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:15]: My name is Heather Flooding.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:16]: And recently, at Stanford University, but I just got laid off, and everybody gasp.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:20]: It’s like the oxygen levels just went disappointing.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:22]: And by the end of…

Heather Flanagan [0:11:24]: Now at this point, they don’t…

Heather Flanagan [0:11:25]: Because they hell knew me, we’ve been working together for years collaborating, and they start coming up to me going, okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:31]: Because this now twenty ten.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:32]: Like, alright, I don’t have a job for you.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:34]: We’re in a recession.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:34]: This is really hard.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:35]: But I have a piece of work.

Mark Callahan [0:11:38]: Right

Heather Flanagan [0:11:38]: I have a grant.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:39]: I have a contract.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:40]: I have a thing with that help.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:43]: And I’m like, sure.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:45]: It sounds like fun.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:45]: And that’s literally how I became a, one person consultancy because, I just started acc pieces of work.

Heather Flanagan [0:11:54]: And over time, it started with being very much more of a contractor.

Mark Callahan [0:11:59]: Mh.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:00]: Where it was very tasks driven edit these documents.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:03]: Manage these projects write these reports.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:07]: It was very very scoped.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:08]: But over time that changed because I still had all my experience of how do you actually manage people?

Heather Flanagan [0:12:14]: How do you think strategically about the the mission of an entire university, something like that.

Mark Callahan [0:12:20]: Well, and it it seems like a grant too would also bringing some of the academic acronym that you had, if navigating that world as well.

Mark Callahan [0:12:27]: Like, now you’re the recipient to the grant as opposed to one…

Mark Callahan [0:12:29]: Managing or on that other side, but just having that an expertise and familiarity with it, probably means

Heather Flanagan [0:12:35]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:12:35]: Easier to work with.

Mark Callahan [0:12:36]: Okay?

Heather Flanagan [0:12:37]: Exactly.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:37]: So then I started being brought into more executive lever roles, more sort of like, general projects where they would ask me to to work on retainer because there was no specific tasks.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:47]: It was just make it work.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:49]: Make it happen.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:51]: Help these things.

Heather Flanagan [0:12:51]: Where I am today is almost exclusively with people that where want me to help them think about the standards process or to facilitate the standards process or to help coordinate large groups of people in technology so that they can come together and actually accomplish really cool things.

Heather Flanagan [0:13:09]: That is what I do.

Mark Callahan [0:13:11]: I mean, it seems like that cross institution getting back to the academic background actually starts playing out then in this world because you think that client side, everyone, especially in that era.

Mark Callahan [0:13:20]: It was, oh my gosh.

Mark Callahan [0:13:21]: He’s here.

Mark Callahan [0:13:21]: This Ip.

Mark Callahan [0:13:22]: I can’t share it with anybody in the world, and I’m not gonna tell anybody, especially not so across the aisle.

Mark Callahan [0:13:26]: And exact…

Mark Callahan [0:13:27]: And now it’s like this just seems like an…

Mark Callahan [0:13:29]: Once again, you wrote your own job description.

Mark Callahan [0:13:31]: You were meant to be in standards facilitator and and a working group facilitator.

Heather Flanagan [0:13:36]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:13:37]: Is there a tattoo for that?

Heather Flanagan [0:13:40]: Well, all of my tattoos have knives, so maybe.

Heather Flanagan [0:13:42]: Sharpen pointy.

Mark Callahan [0:13:46]: I like okay.

Mark Callahan [0:13:47]: Well, I mean, the…

Mark Callahan [0:13:48]: So in in a way, I would say yours is actually somewhat linear despite thinking the librarian path, this all jobs.

Mark Callahan [0:13:55]: This this makes sense.

Mark Callahan [0:13:56]: Like this is Where you are right, now?

Heather Flanagan [0:13:58]: It is a very linear path.

Heather Flanagan [0:13:59]: Right?

Heather Flanagan [0:14:00]: It is working with people.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:01]: It’s explaining things to people.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:03]: It’s helping organize the data that they’re going to use.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:06]: I’m not a, an architect.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:09]: I’m not a code.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:10]: You know, I’m not any of of of those traditional technical jobs, But as it turns out, those traditional technical jobs desperately need people like me, people with the library and background.

Mark Callahan [0:14:22]: And a communicator.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:23]: A communicator.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:24]: Sometimes they ask me about I don’t know.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:27]: Some of the Ai things that I’ve written, and I said, no.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:29]: No.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:30]: That’s not how my brain works.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:31]: I write it down because what will happen is I will remember that I have written it, and I know exactly where to find it.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:36]: I don’t know what it says.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:37]: Even though I wrote it, but I know I know where to go get it.

Heather Flanagan [0:14:41]: I I live on indexes in my head of where all the information is.

Mark Callahan [0:14:45]: It almost feels like one of the memory books that I was reading months about, like, building the house and the rooms and the things.

Mark Callahan [0:14:49]: And knowing exactly where it is in the room to go find the thing and forgetting the process, but that’s…

Mark Callahan [0:14:54]: Yeah I wish I had that retrieval process because I lack it.

Mark Callahan [0:14:57]: I am impressed.

Mark Callahan [0:14:58]: Well, here we are.

Mark Callahan [0:15:01]: Spherical cow.

Mark Callahan [0:15:01]: And I I understand.

Mark Callahan [0:15:02]: That there is…

Mark Callahan [0:15:03]: So I’m…

Mark Callahan [0:15:04]: I I I have to ask Spherical cal origin just because I…

Mark Callahan [0:15:08]: Your your consultancy, tell tell us about…

Heather Flanagan [0:15:11]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:11]: So spherical cow is a reference to a very old joke about physicists.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:16]: Theoretical physicists.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:18]: In fact.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:18]: If you want the whole joke, I’m not gonna…

Heather Flanagan [0:15:20]: I’m not gonna talk you with it here.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:22]: It actually has its own wikipedia entry.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:24]: Because it’s that old joke.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:25]: I’m not a physicist, nor can I necessarily play one on Tv?

Heather Flanagan [0:15:29]: But what you’re referring to is taking a incredibly complicated problem and squishing it down into something simple enough that you can work with.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:40]: You know, you can’t necessarily work with the ocean.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:43]: But if you scoop up the ocean and put it in a bottle.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:46]: You can at least start with a mock up of, okay, Kinda it kinda starts this way.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:50]: And my system administration groups, we did that a lot.

Heather Flanagan [0:15:54]: We talked about spherical cows all the time as we were trying to take the complexities of all the systems, the identities in the system, the access in the systems, the…

Heather Flanagan [0:16:03]: User requirements for the systems and squish them into something simple enough that we could actually make project plans that we could explain it to management that we could explain it to users.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:13]: And so it for it it almost became a term of art in systems as well as physicists.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:18]: But then, as I became an independent one of my first, almost clients was the laser inter parameter gravitational, wave of observatory people, more commonly known as Ligo, the black hole collision.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:31]: Finder.

Mark Callahan [0:16:33]: Hawaii or where are they at Carter?

Heather Flanagan [0:16:36]: They’ve got…

Heather Flanagan [0:16:36]: There’s actually several detectors around the world.

Mark Callahan [0:16:38]: I’m just gonna give all the detector network and all…

Mark Callahan [0:16:40]: I’m totally nerdy out right now.

Mark Callahan [0:16:42]: This is the…

Heather Flanagan [0:16:42]: It looks like a great big l is what it looks like

Mark Callahan [0:16:45]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:45]: There’s one in Louisiana.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:46]: There’s one in Han, Washington, and they’ve got some agreements with some of the other ones around the world.

Heather Flanagan [0:16:52]: But, at that point, I actually needed a proper business, right, with Business insurance and business checking accounts and all these things, and so I did that, and then I wanted to figure out what to name it.

Heather Flanagan [0:17:03]: And I’m like well, I’m working with all these people to make all of these comp paid a problem.

Heather Flanagan [0:17:07]: Something simple enough we could work with, and there’s these businesses over here.

Heather Flanagan [0:17:10]: They’re gonna get this drug.

Heather Flanagan [0:17:11]: And so I named it Spherical Count consulting.

Heather Flanagan [0:17:14]: I…

Heather Flanagan [0:17:14]: They made me an honorary physicist on the spot because they thought that was the best name ever.

Mark Callahan [0:17:20]: I am thinking I have a a rob childhood Am the son of a physicist.

Mark Callahan [0:17:23]: The Bell Labs physicist no last, and I have never heard this spherical couch joke.

Mark Callahan [0:17:27]: So I one that I am gonna be googling later and learning all about.

Mark Callahan [0:17:31]: So love of the the, again, here we are with Origin stories already.

Mark Callahan [0:17:34]: Right?

Mark Callahan [0:17:34]: In the hero’s journey.

Mark Callahan [0:17:35]: So, you know, as we…

Mark Callahan [0:17:37]: Are thinking to do that.

Mark Callahan [0:17:38]: So we we figured out the path.

Mark Callahan [0:17:39]: We figured out your arc to where you are today, we’re all kind of the benefit or beneficiaries, I should say of your spherical cow approach in the way that you moderate Id Pro, topics and body of knowledge and, like, the conversations that take place there and and things along those lines, as you’re thinking through areas that maybe had just really a pivotal moment for you in in life that you had in your career to get you into this identity path as opposed to someone more generalized networking and security topics.

Mark Callahan [0:18:11]: What took you specifically do you think into the identity world as as as you were doing, Was there any moment?

Heather Flanagan [0:18:18]: People people have asked that question, and I always find it a little bit puzzling.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:20]: Because as far as I’m concerned, I’ve never not been in identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:24]: When I became a bulletin board systems operator.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:27]: What was my job?

Heather Flanagan [0:18:28]: My job was, do people have accounts do the right people access the right things?

Heather Flanagan [0:18:34]: Did the right groups exist.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:36]: And there was the additional making sure things is patched, but ultimately, The whole purpose of having an admin is to control access to the system.

Mark Callahan [0:18:45]: It’s totally.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:46]: Every single system I’ve ever worked on.

Mark Callahan [0:18:48]: It’s all been identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:49]: It’s all been identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:18:50]: It’s all about who can do what And how do you control it?

Mark Callahan [0:18:54]: Absolutely makes sense.

Mark Callahan [0:18:55]: Well then…

Mark Callahan [0:18:55]: So then it it just…

Mark Callahan [0:18:56]: It’s always been identity as you always use followed this arc and always been longer there.

Mark Callahan [0:19:00]: Well, okay.

Mark Callahan [0:19:01]: Speaking of always been identity.

Mark Callahan [0:19:03]: Here we are twenty twenty five.

Mark Callahan [0:19:04]: We’re actually, almost done the twenty twenty five.

Mark Callahan [0:19:06]: Something

Heather Flanagan [0:19:07]: that happen.

Mark Callahan [0:19:08]: I have no idea.

Mark Callahan [0:19:09]: This is isn’t while.

Mark Callahan [0:19:11]: But nevertheless, okay.

Mark Callahan [0:19:14]: This is a horrible interviewer thing to say, but I’m almost gonna presume I know your answer to this question without asking this question, but I’m gonna ask this question.

Mark Callahan [0:19:20]: Twenty twenty five.

Mark Callahan [0:19:21]: What trend didn’t we see coming in twenty twenty four that was gonna have such a profound impact on where we are today in identity and access management?

Heather Flanagan [0:19:30]: I’m gonna have to poke at you a little bit because I wanna answer your question with a question.

Heather Flanagan [0:19:35]: Who’s we?

Mark Callahan [0:19:38]: I would say the audience that we are speaking to today.

Mark Callahan [0:19:41]: So the recipient sorry, if as we’re thinking through the…

Mark Callahan [0:19:46]: That the folks we’re gonna listen to this and and looking up to you and saying, I wanted to know her background and sure all the sure.

Mark Callahan [0:19:53]: So I’ll give you that as the week.

Mark Callahan [0:19:54]: The that’s not the specific.

Mark Callahan [0:19:55]: It’s just the people watching us.

Heather Flanagan [0:19:58]: Because I I’m fourth screen.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:00]: Some people will find the impact of Ai being the the transformative thing.

Mark Callahan [0:20:07]: Which, you know, they one it’s a magic trick.

Mark Callahan [0:20:08]: I just wrote it down here too to point that I had a hunch where we were going.

Mark Callahan [0:20:12]: With.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:13]: And yet, there’s people who’ve been thinking about this for years.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:16]: They’ve seen this coming.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:18]: They’ve known that this is gonna be a problem.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:19]: So Is it new for a bunch of people?

Heather Flanagan [0:20:22]: Sure.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:23]: Because they didn’t know what to pay attention to?

Heather Flanagan [0:20:25]: Stepping back a little bit to, okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:28]: Separating out Ai an energetic Ai and Gen ai from the rest of from the workloads and the Apis and things like that otherwise, make up non human identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:37]: Non human identity was like, hot last year.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:40]: And yet you can talk to people who’ve actually been focusing that that for the last two decades.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:45]: It’s just when when it pops up in sort of the popular consciousness, I guess, I would say as as a really big thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:20:52]: Another thing that has come up a lot more and yet has been a problem since before computers, and that’s delegation.

Heather Flanagan [0:21:00]: How to delegate properly, how to do it beyond one step, that’s an incredibly hard problem that’s been exacerbated by Ai, in particular, but also by all the digital transformation work that’s going underway as more and more things are put online your health care records.

Heather Flanagan [0:21:16]: Your financial records, all this stuff, you suddenly have a much broader problem of okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:21:23]: Well, what happens when you die?

Heather Flanagan [0:21:26]: To all of your stuff?

Heather Flanagan [0:21:28]: Who gets access to it?

Heather Flanagan [0:21:29]: How do you delegate that?

Heather Flanagan [0:21:30]: Unanswered problems that are really spinning up some interesting compelling work.

Mark Callahan [0:21:36]: Absolutely.

Mark Callahan [0:21:36]: I mean, I was I was gonna get nerdy even and just be, like, the delegation in medieval times is like the wax seal and signify ring as you’re thinking about yeah.

Mark Callahan [0:21:43]: We get proof ownership in proof of as, you know, it’s on behalf of is the the the courier is carrying a letter from one kingdom to it to yet another.

Mark Callahan [0:21:51]: And just…

Mark Callahan [0:21:52]: But you you’re you’re absolutely right.

Mark Callahan [0:21:54]: It’s it’s a…

Mark Callahan [0:21:54]: Sorry.

Mark Callahan [0:21:55]: Just think thinking through how old the problems actually are.

Heather Flanagan [0:21:59]: Yeah.

Mark Callahan [0:22:00]: He’s that the worldview framing and the the the Vernacular that we use now to describe the situation.

Mark Callahan [0:22:06]: It’s actually not that new by any new stretch.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:10]: Not actually that new.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:10]: It is more urgent.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:11]: That’s for sure.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:13]: Mh.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:13]: The rate of technological change is no joke.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:17]: That said, we’ve…

Heather Flanagan [0:22:19]: It is fast now, but I would also point to remember back to when cloud was new, and suddenly cloud taking over, and it became a transformational thing where you could suddenly get all of these efficiencies just by using someone else’s computer.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:33]: But then all of the interesting problems that that raised when you were using someone else’s computer, perhaps even a shared computer and you know, how did how did that res resource happen?

Heather Flanagan [0:22:42]: And how did you manage the identity for it?

Heather Flanagan [0:22:44]: And did you have to have multiple sources of truth to get to all the cloud infrastructure and could cloud infrastructure your talk to each other?

Heather Flanagan [0:22:52]: Ai is the same thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:22:53]: It’s just faster.

Mark Callahan [0:22:56]: I have a funny analogy here that is gonna somehow tie back to something you just wrote about, and you’re gonna go, Have no idea where you’re going.

Mark Callahan [0:23:01]: When I’m met my wife.

Mark Callahan [0:23:02]: I was one of the people who would brush my teeth leave the water running the entire duration of my you know, thirty second brushing teeth experience and and she is in in one that said, you turn off the water between the start of the brush and the end of the brush.

Mark Callahan [0:23:17]: And it just hasn’t been in my my motion.

Mark Callahan [0:23:19]: And thinking about the the water waste, you, which she brought to my attention in that moment, I was reading your post about the energy waste that that we’re based in some of the side consequences that aren’t being considered.

Mark Callahan [0:23:33]: Mh around the Ai usage right now.

Mark Callahan [0:23:36]: It’s it’s really a fascinating take on…

Mark Callahan [0:23:38]: You think about the same stability angle of what we’re being faced with and looking at the data centers that Elon and and Meta are are looking to to build.

Mark Callahan [0:23:46]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:23:47]: It has environmental impact.

Mark Callahan [0:23:49]: Like, actual environmental impact.

Mark Callahan [0:23:51]: It’s it’s it’s fascinating.

Heather Flanagan [0:23:53]: I mean, living has environmental impact, you get to make choices as to what impact do you want to have?

Heather Flanagan [0:23:59]: If you don’t wanna use plastic, which I think is a very healthy life choice.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:04]: Okay, then you’re you’re actually then supporting mining because they’re going to be mining for metal.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:09]: They’re going to be mining and shipping sand for glass, which has its own environmental impact.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:15]: Right?

Heather Flanagan [0:24:15]: All everything has an impact that we do.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:17]: It frustrate me that we don’t necessarily give that the attention it deserves.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:22]: So that you can say, yes, I am I am better with mining than I am with micro plastics.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:28]: People don’t phrase it that way.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:30]: They don’t think about it that way.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:31]: They think about…

Heather Flanagan [0:24:31]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:32]: But that’s more expensive or this is such a more convenient form factor, or it’s just one bottle.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:40]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:24:40]: Who cares.

Mark Callahan [0:24:43]: It it matters.

Mark Callahan [0:24:43]: Like, it’s it’s…

Mark Callahan [0:24:44]: It for me that that there was that moment where my wife was like, turn off the water while you’re brushing your teeth, you know, Like it’s thirty seconds, You know, it’s it’s it’s the scene.

Mark Callahan [0:24:52]: It’s barely easy part of it.

Mark Callahan [0:24:53]: And then thirty seconds twice a day, forty nine years, it adds up.

Mark Callahan [0:24:58]: And U.

Mark Callahan [0:24:59]: Not turning off an agent as you as you think about the processing power that it takes for that one task, and as it runs rampant, there is a impact.

Mark Callahan [0:25:08]: And it who cares at scale, especially the scale that I think we’re all see coming it matters.

Mark Callahan [0:25:15]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:25:16]: Really matters.

Heather Flanagan [0:25:18]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:25:19]: Interesting.

Mark Callahan [0:25:19]: I think you did it an excellent job of taking something that, you know, we didn’t necessarily see coming, but it was like, it was always kinda there and in framing it in the the proper context and I I appreciate the the different view of that for sure.

Heather Flanagan [0:25:32]: I do like writing.

Heather Flanagan [0:25:33]: Writing is a good outlet for me to think problems through.

Heather Flanagan [0:25:37]: So I will probably always be a blogger just because it it helps me personally, and then other people seem to get something out of it, which is always, which is always nice.

Mark Callahan [0:25:48]: Absolutely demonstrate skill for.

Mark Callahan [0:25:49]: You do a great job of that.

Mark Callahan [0:25:50]: And and, you know, so you’ve got an audience.

Mark Callahan [0:25:52]: You’ve got people who read your blog.

Mark Callahan [0:25:54]: You have the audience of membership, the Pro group, you know as we think about approaching identity as a team that that facilitator or angle that you’ve had just thinking through a…

Mark Callahan [0:26:05]: How many different bodies in and working groups are involved with right now?

Mark Callahan [0:26:09]: Just out of curiosity.

Mark Callahan [0:26:09]: Like, standards identity, organization.

Mark Callahan [0:26:12]: I a limited identity because I…

Mark Callahan [0:26:15]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:26:15]: I feel like you have you’re handing in a lot of thoughts right now.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:19]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:19]: It’s kinda funny.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:19]: So Id pro has been wonderful and I really enjoyed spinning up the body of knowledge and whatnot, but Id pro is not a standards organ and it’s actually probably the smallest bit of what I do.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:27]: Let’s see.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:30]: I’m a group chair in the W three.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:31]: Right.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:32]: On Federated identity, as well as something that may or me not touch identity depends on what people’s brings to us, and that’s the, something called the exploration interest group where people are like, we don’t know where to take this, give us advice.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:47]: And so they bring it to this interest group.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:48]: And so sometimes it’s identity.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:50]: Sometimes it’s web mapping.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:52]: Sometimes it’s Ai.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:54]: Somebody who knows.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:55]: It’s whatever people wanna bring with.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:56]: They don’t know where to put it.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:57]: There’s that.

Heather Flanagan [0:26:58]: I am the working group chair for the secure patterns for Internet credentials and the It.

Heather Flanagan [0:27:02]: I will occasionally author or c author papers with the open Id foundation.

Heather Flanagan [0:27:09]: We’ve got one now underway for death and the digital estate.

Heather Flanagan [0:27:13]: I have been…

Heather Flanagan [0:27:15]: I’m now the adviser for an organization called the Cyrus Foundation, which is very much in the digital wallet space, and that’s touching on some of the Eu efforts underway.

Heather Flanagan [0:27:26]: So that’s been a big thing as well that touches on standards if if if you wanna focus just on those.

Mark Callahan [0:27:33]: So Obviously, this is, again, physicians that are tailor made for your background, and I think your your areas of expertise.

Mark Callahan [0:27:41]: Is there anything for the audience that we watching this right now is they…

Mark Callahan [0:27:45]: Let’s let’s make…

Mark Callahan [0:27:46]: I’m gonna frame in a bit narrower for you Just so to.

Mark Callahan [0:27:47]: And you’re asking we as somebody is just starting out in the identity space?

Mark Callahan [0:27:51]: And especially right now as with some of the changes we’re seeing potentially with with Ai and and such, is there a particular working group or other that, more novice or someone early in their career might be more involved with or be able to join just to further their professional and personal understanding of identity on a whole.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:15]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:28:15]: Aside from joining Pro.

Mark Callahan [0:28:16]: Everyone much should join Id pro

Heather Flanagan [0:28:18]: And if they can’t afford to join Pro, they should read the articles in the body of knowledge because those are all freely available.

Mark Callahan [0:28:23]: And and what’s the Url for that?

Mark Callahan [0:28:25]: Just so that everyone has that?

Heather Flanagan [0:28:26]: Id pro dot org g slash body dash of dash knowledge.

Mark Callahan [0:28:30]: Awesome.

Mark Callahan [0:28:30]: We’ll put that on the, kinda around and make sure everyone has well hook.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:33]: Yep Yep.

Mark Callahan [0:28:34]: Go ahead.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:35]: If you wanna actually get involved in standards, I’ve got a couple blog posts that talk about some of the different standards efforts underway.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:40]: There…

Heather Flanagan [0:28:41]: I won’t wrote one recently about the different work in Ai for some of the open.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:46]: Open standards organizations.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:47]: For that matter, I’ve actually written about what is an open standards organization.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:51]: What does that even mean to be able to join such a thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:28:54]: Joining a group from scratch can be really intimidating, And that’s not how you can?

Heather Flanagan [0:28:58]: It’s not how you learn about identity?

Heather Flanagan [0:29:00]: Really, it’s that’s…

Heather Flanagan [0:29:01]: Because you’re…

Heather Flanagan [0:29:03]: It’s, like, diving into the deep end.

Mark Callahan [0:29:05]: And you don’t have something to contribute perhaps, And you’re just like, why, what am I doing here?

Mark Callahan [0:29:08]: Skeptical.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:09]: Well, that actually…

Heather Flanagan [0:29:10]: So not quite…

Heather Flanagan [0:29:12]: You’re actually not quite right on that one because

Mark Callahan [0:29:14]: Okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:15]: I think you fallen into the same trap that a lot of the beginners do fall into, which is I don’t have anything to contribute because I don’t understand selective disclosure for sea or web tokens.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:23]: It’s like, okay.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:24]: I understood each one of those words, but string them together and I have no idea what you just said.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:28]: Yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:28]: Which sure.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:30]: But if you like, read a document that explains that a little bit and you’re like, okay, I still don’t quite get it, but it sounds interesting, working groups need so many different kinds of people and so many different kinds of skills.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:43]: If everybody is the same in terms of I can write us back.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:47]: It’s a great.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:48]: Can you…

Heather Flanagan [0:29:48]: But that’s spec because we desperately need people who can actually test out.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:51]: If you read this, could you do something with it?

Heather Flanagan [0:29:54]: That’s a really fantastic way to contribute.

Heather Flanagan [0:29:56]: Alternatively, if you’re more product manager, and you would never be writing code anyway.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:00]: Every time there’s a working group meeting, I’m usually waiting for five minutes until someone will write take notes.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:06]: In a lot of the standards group they don’t like the Ai to take notes.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:09]: Because some of these conversations can be sensitive, and it’s hard to tell it, you know, pick up the pen.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:16]: Don’t write, you know, be a little bit more thoughtful in how you do it.

Mark Callahan [0:30:19]: Directing the record.

Mark Callahan [0:30:19]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:20]: Right.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:20]: So having people to actually type the notes of, incredibly helpful.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:25]: And I desperately needed every single week for someone to do that.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:28]: So, yeah, implement, people who are willing to facilitate the conversations.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:32]: I can implement a darn thing myself because this stuff doesn’t come with books

Mark Callahan [0:30:36]: yet.

Mark Callahan [0:30:36]: I working on it.

Mark Callahan [0:30:37]: But don’t.

Mark Callahan [0:30:38]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:40]: I don’t have to.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:40]: Because I have I have a completely different skill that’s still necessary that I can bring to the table.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:45]: I can facilitate a group.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:46]: I know how to actually bring a group to consensus without having any…

Heather Flanagan [0:30:52]: Particular thought on the technology itself.

Heather Flanagan [0:30:55]: So all different kinds of people are needed.

Mark Callahan [0:30:58]: Building on that and not asking you to summarize everything you know into just a couple of minute response, but thinking about building consensus.

Mark Callahan [0:31:04]: As a lot of us are on vendor side private sector, organization trying to communicate the value of identity.

Mark Callahan [0:31:12]: Mh up throughout the organization.

Mark Callahan [0:31:14]: You obviously rightfully re challenged me and in positioning what is identity, Do you give me words of wisdom on how to better communicate the value of identity internally for people who are in an organization feeling that they’re just pigeon hold into one little place?

Mark Callahan [0:31:31]: I get there’s strategic value here?

Mark Callahan [0:31:32]: There’s there’s…

Mark Callahan [0:31:32]: How do we convey that up in the organization.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:37]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:37]: Sometimes it’s…

Heather Flanagan [0:31:38]: You can easily see the strategic value, but strategic value gets eaten for lunch when you have a tactical problem today that could tank your company.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:45]: That’s something I hear a lot.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:47]: It’s like, yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:48]: I know you’re but you’re looking at five year problems, and I’m sorry.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:51]: My…

Heather Flanagan [0:31:51]: I got someone on the phone right now.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:53]: Yes.

Heather Flanagan [0:31:53]: I don’t have I don’t have time for that.

Mark Callahan [0:31:56]: I’ve an open jira ticket.

Mark Callahan [0:31:57]: I don’t have time to do the academic.

Mark Callahan [0:31:58]: What else that would be nice.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:00]: I get that.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:01]: I get that.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:01]: It’s a really really challenging thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:03]: The only thing you can do is, like, just keep up with it.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:06]: Look, you know, if you find an interesting article that just comes across your Linkedin feed forwarded on to other people saying, hi, hey.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:13]: I saw this thing thought about it, what do you think?

Heather Flanagan [0:32:15]: Hey, I saw that this company reported x amount of savings.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:19]: What do you think?

Heather Flanagan [0:32:20]: You know and sort of just keep an eye out for stuff and share it with the question, what do you think?

Heather Flanagan [0:32:26]: And see what comes back?

Heather Flanagan [0:32:27]: You might learn a lot more about your own internal problems.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:30]: You might get to hear people who say, well, I don’t see how that’s relevant.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:33]: That’s perfectly fine.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:35]: You can have a great conversation with.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:36]: I don’t see how that’s relevant.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:38]: Really?

Heather Flanagan [0:32:38]: I wanna actually know more about that because I read that, and here’s what I thought.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:43]: Where are we talking past each other because this could be a really interesting conversation.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:46]: And suddenly, you’ve got…

Heather Flanagan [0:32:48]: You’re learning more about their perspective on what’s important to them what’s their triggers, and they’re now gonna learn from you.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:55]: And know that they will be heard at the same time.

Heather Flanagan [0:32:58]: It’s a really great tactic.

Mark Callahan [0:33:00]: That was an awesome conversational You don’t move.

Mark Callahan [0:33:02]: I hope everyone kinda paid attention to that right and really to take that energy and go.

Mark Callahan [0:33:06]: This away with that.

Mark Callahan [0:33:07]: And I Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:33:09]: That’s awesome.

Heather Flanagan [0:33:10]: I have a black belt keto.

Heather Flanagan [0:33:10]: That’s what…

Heather Flanagan [0:33:11]: That was the thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:33:12]: Yes.

Mark Callahan [0:33:12]: Do that was accidental.

Mark Callahan [0:33:14]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:33:14]: I yes.

Mark Callahan [0:33:15]: That well, nevertheless us.

Mark Callahan [0:33:16]: That’s awesome.

Mark Callahan [0:33:17]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:33:17]: So now you absolutely…

Mark Callahan [0:33:18]: Hero, Identity Hero, and many of it you also have the…

Mark Callahan [0:33:23]: Yes.

Mark Callahan [0:33:23]: The than the the like, you know background to to back that up.

Mark Callahan [0:33:26]: Well, okay.

Mark Callahan [0:33:27]: Mentorship.

Mark Callahan [0:33:28]: Let’s, you know, I I Don’t wanna…

Mark Callahan [0:33:29]: I I know you’ve had a a long time.

Mark Callahan [0:33:31]: And I wanna be conscious of the time here.

Mark Callahan [0:33:33]: I just have a couple more questions if that’s okay.

Mark Callahan [0:33:35]: Sure.

Mark Callahan [0:33:35]: No problem at all.

Mark Callahan [0:33:36]: Mentorship.

Mark Callahan [0:33:37]: You know, that that is a place that I think a lot of us learn from.

Mark Callahan [0:33:41]: You know, I I often do these interviews which are a gable, who I’ve learned a ton from and looked up to.

Heather Flanagan [0:33:48]: Mh.

Mark Callahan [0:33:48]: But I also kind of have golden retriever energy, and I’ll just go talk to anyone.

Mark Callahan [0:33:51]: I’ll just ask them to tell to me about things?

Mark Callahan [0:33:53]: And sometimes it works and sometimes it does.

Mark Callahan [0:33:55]: But not everyone has that blind optimism that I idea.

Mark Callahan [0:33:57]: How do we find mentors or how do you seek out a mentor or who do you look up to as a mentor?

Heather Flanagan [0:34:02]: I have a list.

Mark Callahan [0:34:04]: I do.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:04]: I…

Heather Flanagan [0:34:04]: Oh, my gosh.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:05]: I have such a list.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:06]: These are people that I I just have the up utmost respect for and will be more than happy to Two, what was it?

Heather Flanagan [0:34:15]: Four days ago, I was sitting in a bar in the Mission District in San Francisco with Alan Foster, talking about the next fifteen years of global politics, economics and standards development and technology.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:30]: It was great.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:32]: As soon as more people came, I pulled up my ipad f took notes.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:35]: So what we just talked about because it was just such an interesting conversation.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:40]: Right?

Heather Flanagan [0:34:40]: Pamela Ding.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:41]: She’s another person that I will just be ecstatic to sit and ask, you know, back and forth all the questions.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:47]: Andy Hi, he’s got such a great view on governance, I’d I don’t think people know nearly enough about…

Heather Flanagan [0:34:56]: They know Andy, then they say Andy, universe.

Heather Flanagan [0:34:58]: So Michael, yeah, but there, talk to him about actual corporate governance, and you’re gonna hear some really interesting conversations some really interesting perspectives.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:08]: Eve email.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:09]: I mean, she’s like, who I wanna be when I grow up, Be her her her Vin factory subs stack is like, I I feel like such a pose or when I’m writing my blog post because then I look at what she’s written.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:20]: I’m like, actually, she said what I kind of wanted to.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:23]: Really good.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:24]: She’s a she is an analyst, and she is she is amazing.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:27]: I’m a an explain, not an analyst per s.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:30]: So it’s it’s different roles.

Heather Flanagan [0:35:32]: We we fill different gaps, but, yeah, I love her stuff.

Mark Callahan [0:35:36]: That’s.

Mark Callahan [0:35:36]: It is there anything that…

Mark Callahan [0:35:37]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:35:37]: I would have said, in other interviews.

Mark Callahan [0:35:40]: I probably would have expected somebody to say, you know, where do you go to learn more about changing just…

Mark Callahan [0:35:46]: Everything about the industry.

Mark Callahan [0:35:47]: What where something like your daily Reads?

Mark Callahan [0:35:48]: And and I feel like a lot of us, I’ve I’d been like, oh, I think the Id pro slack community is an amazing one to go and and have a ear to the ground for.

Mark Callahan [0:35:57]: Are there other resources that you use to stay on top of what’s changing that you might recommend to audience.

Mark Callahan [0:36:03]: But, that everyone has travel budget.

Mark Callahan [0:36:05]: Right?

Mark Callahan [0:36:05]: Events and preferences are awesome, but not everyone gets to go.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:08]: It’s actually very hard for me to answer because at starting out, really, it’s just urge your Lo and reach out to someone and just see if they’ve got thirty minutes to chat.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:18]: You know.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:19]: I have had people say, hey.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:20]: I want you to be a mentor for me and meet every week, and I’m, I actually can’t do that because I know what it takes to be a mentor, and I don’t have the bandwidth to to dedicate an hour every week to this kind of thing.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:31]: But if you wanted, like, a half hour with me just to chat about something, I’d be more than happy to do it.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:36]: And get, you know, a piece of hat…

Heather Flanagan [0:36:38]: A piece of knee, a piece of eve, a piece of andy.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:42]: Right?

Heather Flanagan [0:36:42]: And just reach out and say, hey.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:44]: See what, what any of these people have been writing about and read through that so that when you have a conversation, it’s not just a Hey.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:52]: You’re really cool.

Heather Flanagan [0:36:52]: How do I be you when I grew up?

Heather Flanagan [0:36:54]: Because I don’t know how to answer that question.

Mark Callahan [0:36:56]: No.

Mark Callahan [0:36:56]: I gotcha you.

Mark Callahan [0:36:57]: I gotcha you.

Mark Callahan [0:36:57]: And I think of Linkedin, like, the the follow option versus Connect is is the one.

Mark Callahan [0:37:02]: Like, there was a place where was, like, going went out and just, you know, what it was just connect connecting, like, someone who’s had profiles Was like, oh, just too much noise.

Mark Callahan [0:37:09]: I’m not gonna do that, but this give you a way too, in a, in a positive supportive way non creeper way.

Mark Callahan [0:37:14]: And do the post, and it feels like a really good recourse as well.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:18]: That’s something I had to change.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:19]: I had to switch it from…

Heather Flanagan [0:37:20]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:21]: People can connect with me.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:22]: If they want to to.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:23]: No.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:23]: You actually have to know my email address because I was getting so much review my product.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:29]: And, you know, for a small fee, Youtube can be certified and, you know, all these things.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:34]: And I’m like, yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:35]: So that would get a little frustrating.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:38]: So anyone can follow me.

Mark Callahan [0:37:40]: Anything Ai specific or age agent specific?

Heather Flanagan [0:37:44]: Oh, sometimes.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:44]: Person…

Mark Callahan [0:37:45]: Okay.

Mark Callahan [0:37:45]: Linkedin…

Heather Flanagan [0:37:46]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:46]: People would come to me and say, hey, I’ve got a brand new thing or I can make your marketing better via Ai or I can talk about cybersecurity Via Or I can you I’m like, I don’t think you actually eat my stuff to you.

Heather Flanagan [0:37:59]: I like Ai.

Heather Flanagan [0:38:01]: I use Ai, but I’m not gonna wholesale buy into it because it’s got issues.

Mark Callahan [0:38:07]: That there’s a whole other episode for us to

Heather Flanagan [0:38:09]: disclose so

Mark Callahan [0:38:10]: Whole whole other time.

Mark Callahan [0:38:11]: And…

Mark Callahan [0:38:12]: But this is an awesome.

Mark Callahan [0:38:13]: This has been really great.

Mark Callahan [0:38:14]: I appreciate you coming and chatting.

Mark Callahan [0:38:16]: I mean, I think everyone gets the benefit of you facilitating others messages, and I hope I did an okay job of facilitating some of your background and where we are, and thanks for spending the time with us today.

Heather Flanagan [0:38:26]: Of course, it was super fun.

Heather Flanagan [0:38:27]: Thanks for having me Mark.

Mark Callahan [0:38:29]: Oh, so.

Mark Callahan [0:38:29]: Well, anyone…

Mark Callahan [0:38:30]: I mean, you’ve you’ve got the long list up your peers are all the industry solve.

Mark Callahan [0:38:34]: Like, these these are the people that we know.

Mark Callahan [0:38:36]: Is there anyone that we should consider for Identity Heroes that maybe isn’t the the marquee name that we typically think of that maybe is someone unique that we should have on to hear their background.

Heather Flanagan [0:38:49]: Emily Van Land.

Mark Callahan [0:38:51]: Tell us more.

Mark Callahan [0:38:51]: And who where is it?

Heather Flanagan [0:38:54]: Emily Van Land is she lives…

Heather Flanagan [0:38:56]: I wanna say she lives in Belgium.

Heather Flanagan [0:38:57]: And I think she’s like, twenty six twenty seven.

Heather Flanagan [0:39:03]: She’s young for the industry.

Heather Flanagan [0:39:05]: And yet, one of the hats I wear is something called the identity Salon where we invite architects and thought leaders in in small curated groups under Chat House rule to talk about five ten year problems.

Heather Flanagan [0:39:19]: And we’ve invited Emily into this group of, like, all these senior level people because I don’t…

Heather Flanagan [0:39:25]: The…

Heather Flanagan [0:39:25]: How she has approached Ai, And the the philosophies of it and the impacts on the world, she’s she’s really a great person to talk to, and she’ll be a different demographic than you usually get.

Mark Callahan [0:39:39]: Salt.

Mark Callahan [0:39:39]: That hopefully you can make an intro for us.

Heather Flanagan [0:39:41]: Yeah.

Heather Flanagan [0:39:41]: Be happy to.

Mark Callahan [0:39:42]: Love blah love it.

Mark Callahan [0:39:42]: Well,

Heather Flanagan [0:39:43]: I’m actually gonna see her next week in london.

Mark Callahan [0:39:44]: Oh, perfect.

Mark Callahan [0:39:45]: Well, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d love to grab her on the show as well.

Mark Callahan [0:39:47]: So Heather, thanks so much for spending time sharing your story.

Mark Callahan [0:39:51]: Everyone is on Id Pro, if you haven’t done your intro, go to your intros right?

Mark Callahan [0:39:55]: That’s how we learn about each other a little bit too.

Mark Callahan [0:39:57]: And make sure you contribute on the the Slack community, but, neat parting words other other than thanks for joining us.

Heather Flanagan [0:40:03]: No.

Heather Flanagan [0:40:03]: I mean, thanks for having me, and I I hope folks got something out of this.

Heather Flanagan [0:40:07]: And if you had any other questions.

Heather Flanagan [0:40:09]: Reach me on Linkedin.

Mark Callahan [0:40:11]: Nearly great.

Mark Callahan [0:40:11]: Well, thank you so much.

Mark Callahan [0:40:12]: Appreciate it.

Mark Callahan [0:40:13]: And we hope to see everyone else in our next episode.

Mark Callahan [0:40:15]: Take care.

Previous episodes

Episode #9

JANUARY, 2026

The Plot Twist in Identity: Why 25 Years of Identity Work Just Became Obsolete

Featuring: Ian Glazer
Chief Customer and Strategy Officer

Episode #8

OCTOBER, 2025

From Books to Bytes: The Common Patterns Between Library Science and Identity Standards

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Episode #7

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From sales to IAM leadership: Building trust & empowering teams

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