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Identity Is Not the Product

Heather Flanagan
Decorative image - the great divide between where industries are now with identity verification and other industries

Sunrise at Toroweap Lookout on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This stunning overlook showcases dramatic cliffs, deep canyons, the Colorado River and golden light painting the rugged landscape, creating a mesmerizing natural wonder. Toroweap is a very remote location and very challenging to get to.

“Spend enough time in identity conferences, and it becomes easy to believe the market has moved on to advanced problems.”

We discuss reusable credentials, mobile wallets, biometrics, AI-driven fraud detection, orchestration layers, continuous signals, and assurance models. We debate whether browsers should mediate identity flows, how trust frameworks should scale, and which credential format will win the next round of arguments.

Those are real conversations. I would go so far as to say they are very useful, necessary conversations. But they are also conversations that can create a false sense of where the broader market actually is.

Sometimes it helps to step outside the identity industry bubble and look at how identity challenges appear to organizations whose primary mission has nothing to do with identity at all.

That reminder came into focus for me after the recent Identity Salon™ discussion on identity verification and proofing, followed by Tim Lloyd’s thoughtful article, Moving from Identifier to Identity for Researchers, about challenges in the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

It was a sharp reminder that many industries need better identity, but few are in a position to prioritize it.

A Digital Identity Digest
Identity Is Not the Product

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What identity specialists are discussing now

At the recent Identity Salon, the conversation around verification and proofing was notably mature. It was less about shiny tools and more about harder operational realities, which makes sense given this was a group of senior identity architects and leaders.

Participants explored how identity proofing should be tied to purpose rather than treated as a universal good. They discussed the risks of collecting more identity data than necessary. They questioned brittle one-time onboarding models and examined how identity evidence changes over time. Liability, governance, trust boundaries, and reversibility all featured heavily in the discussion.

That is what a developed market sounds like.

The questions were not about “Can we verify someone remotely?” or “Can digital credentials work?”

The questions are:

Those are second-stage problems. They absolutely matter and are worth solving. But they aren’t the problems an organization needs to solve first; not every industry has reached the stage where it can even ask these questions.

Then there is the rest of the world

Tim Lloyd’s article on researcher identity in scholarly publishing serves as a useful reminder about what identity is like for other industries.

Scholarly publishing has clear identity needs. It needs to know who the authors are, who the reviewers are, who is affiliated with which institution, who should have access to content, and who can be trusted in systems increasingly exposed to fraud, gaming, and automation.

Identity matters, but it is not now, nor has it ever been, the product they are worried about.

The product is publishing research, validating scholarship, enabling discovery, preserving reputation, and sustaining business models around all of that. That distinction matters more than many identity professionals realize.

When identity is not central to revenue generation or mission delivery, investment decisions look different. Projects move more slowly. Ownership is fragmented. Requirements compete with other priorities. Legacy processes linger because replacing them is expensive and disruptive.

From the outside, this can look irrational. After all, we know better, right? Well, no. It’s not irrational; it’s a resource allocation problem. And that makes all the sense in the world.

Why identity often stalls

The identity industry sometimes assumes slow adoption means organizations do not understand the problem. I think articles like Tim’s show that’s not really true. Sometimes they do understand it perfectly well; they simply have other fires to put out.

A publisher may care deeply about researcher identity while also facing platform costs, subscription pressure, AI disruption, metadata quality issues, editorial workflows, compliance demands, and staffing constraints. A university may understand lifecycle identity problems while focusing on enrollment, funding, student experience, and cybersecurity. A hospital may appreciate stronger authentication while trying to keep clinical systems running.

Identity is important in all of these places. It is just not the center of gravity.

That is why elegant identity solutions often struggle. They are sold as strategic transformations to buyers who need practical relief.

The lesson for identity professionals

If we want broader adoption, we need to be more honest about where other sectors actually are.

Many organizations are not ready for advanced ecosystem debates. They are still trying to solve first-order problems:

That’s their reality; insisting it isn’t or shouldn’t be misses the point. So, the right question is not, “How do we get them to adopt our mature identity model?” There’s a much better list than that.

The right questions are:

That is a much less glamorous conversation, but it’s how we can help make progress.

Identity is still infrastructure

Identity professionals sometimes forget that most organizations do not wake up wanting better identity. They wake up wanting fewer support tickets, less fraud, faster onboarding, cleaner data, safer access, smoother user journeys, lower costs, and fewer regulatory surprises.

Identity is often the means to those ends, but it is not the end itself.

That does not make forward-looking conversations any less important. Quite the opposite. Someone needs to be thinking several years ahead about wallets, reusable credentials, trust frameworks, proofing models, and how identity may need to adapt to AI, regulation, and changing user expectations. That kind of work matters because tomorrow’s constraints are usually visible before tomorrow arrives.

But strategy without translation has limited value.

Many organizations are not waiting for the next identity paradigm. They are trying to improve messy current-state systems with limited budgets, legacy infrastructure, and competing priorities. They do not need generic lectures about modernization. They need practical paths from where they are today to where the industry says things are going.

The challenge for identity professionals is in helping organizations make practical decisions now—ones that solve immediate problems while steadily moving them toward the architectures and trust models being discussed for the future. That means incremental progress with intent, not disconnected quick fixes or abstract long-term visions.

Every improvement starts with a first step. The trick is knowing where you’re trying to go and which early obstacles are worth solving now.

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Transcript

If you spend enough time working in digital identity, it becomes surprisingly easy to lose perspective on where the broader market actually is.

That’s not because the conversations happening inside the identity industry are unimportant. Quite the opposite. Many of the smartest people in the field are asking exactly the right questions.

Questions like:

These are important discussions.

However, if those are the only conversations you hear, it becomes easy to assume every organization is operating at the same level of maturity.

They are not.

Stepping Outside the Identity Bubble

Sometimes it is useful to step outside the identity industry itself and look at identity from the perspective of organizations whose primary mission is something entirely different.

Two recent experiences highlighted this clearly:

At first glance, these worlds seem unrelated.

One involved identity specialists discussing the future of trust, proofing, and architecture.

The other focused on practical operational challenges inside the publishing industry.

Yet together, they reveal something important:

And that gap matters.

How Identity Conversations Have Matured

The Identity Salon discussion focused on identity verification and proofing. However, what stood out most was how sophisticated the conversation had become.

The debate was no longer about whether digital identity systems can work.

Instead, the questions had evolved into much harder topics:

These are mature questions.

They move beyond first-generation identity thinking and into issues like:

That progress is valuable.

Because tomorrow’s identity challenges arrive faster than most organizations expect.

The Scholarly Publishing Perspective

Now contrast that with the publishing industry.

Research publishing absolutely depends on identity systems.

It needs to:

Identity clearly matters.

However, identity is not the product.

The actual mission is:

Identity supports that mission—but it is not the center of it.

And that distinction changes everything.

Why Identity Priorities Look Different

When identity is not the primary business focus, organizational priorities shift dramatically.

This affects:

As a result, identity initiatives are evaluated very differently than they are inside the identity industry itself.

For many organizations, identity improvements must compete against pressing operational realities.

Competing Priorities Across Industries

Consider the challenges different sectors face every day.

A publisher may be dealing with:

A university may prioritize:

A hospital may focus on:

Meanwhile, manufacturers supporting those sectors may struggle with:

In every case, identity remains important.

Sometimes critically important.

But it is still only one priority among many.

The Practical Reality of Identity Adoption

Because of this, organizations often evaluate identity projects using highly practical questions:

These are reasonable questions.

However, they are far less glamorous than many conference presentations suggest.

And that disconnect creates problems.

The Danger of the Identity Bubble

Inside specialist identity discussions, it becomes easy to recommend advanced solutions to organizations still struggling with foundational issues.

For example:

The advanced ideas themselves are not wrong.

The issue is timing.

Because maturity varies dramatically:

Some organizations are ready for advanced architecture.

Others are simply trying to stabilize what already exists.

The Real Job of Identity Professionals

This is where the real craft of identity work begins.

The role is not simply designing future-state architecture diagrams.

It is translation.

Identity professionals must help organizations:

Sometimes that means:

These steps may seem modest.

Sometimes they are even boring.

But they are often necessary foundations.

Why Forward-Looking Discussions Still Matter

None of this means forward-looking industry conversations are unimportant.

In fact, they are essential.

The industry still needs people thinking about:

Without that work, organizations would continue making short-term decisions that age badly.

Someone has to think ahead.

Someone has to identify where regulation, standards, and user expectations are heading before the pressure becomes urgent.

The challenge is ensuring those ideas can be translated into practical next steps.

That bridge is often missing.

Identity Is a Means, Not the Goal

Most organizations do not wake up wanting “better identity architecture.”

What they actually want is:

Identity is simply the mechanism that helps achieve those goals.

It is a means—not the end itself.

And that perspective changes how adoption happens.

Balancing the Present and the Future

Identity professionals need to operate with two perspectives simultaneously.

We need:

These are not competing missions.

They are complementary.

Real progress in identity rarely happens through dramatic transformation all at once.

Instead, it usually happens incrementally.

The important part is ensuring today’s fixes support tomorrow’s direction.

Final Thoughts

The identity industry often focuses on what comes next.

And that work matters.

However, many organizations are still working through foundational operational challenges that must be addressed before advanced identity models become realistic.

Understanding that gap is critical.

Because successful identity work is not just about architecture.

It is about helping organizations move forward from where they actually are—not where we assume they should already be.

Conclusion

Identity is essential infrastructure across nearly every industry.

But for most organizations, it is not the product.

Recognizing that reality leads to better conversations, better priorities, and ultimately better outcomes.

Because the future of identity will not be built only through visionary architecture.

It will also be built through practical, incremental progress that solves real problems today.

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