“London calling, yes, I was there too…And you know what they said – well, some of it was true“!

So it was the 14th of December 1979 when the now classic rock album London Calling was released by the Clash. A mind blowing 44 years, three months and 28 days later, London is calling me, once again.

I’m back here in town attending what I think it is my 20th Gartner Identity Management event. Back then it was called Catalyst, and it was the domain of the Burton Group. If you were there too, well some of it was true – right? Identity has become a huge thing and that’s what has drawn us all back here to London today.

I’m here at the O2 working with one of my portfolio companies CyberIAM. I joined the board of the company nearly two years ago, and I’ve come back to London to help the co-founder Andy Pinnington and his team tell their story. They’ve done a great job building a fantastic Identity Management services company and I’m proud to be here to help them as they continue to grow.

But you know it really is déjà vu. Walking around the event showcase floor, I see so many familiar faces, familiar companies and old friends, it’s like going to a class reunion. But fascinating to see how everything changes, but yet everything remains the same. I guess I can, with hand on heart, claim some degree of source and origin for the creation of this space. With many of the folks at this event, we created an industry, a marketplace and a lot of vendors.

Today I sit on the investor and advisory side of the equation, working with entrepreneurs, investors, and customers to bring to market the next generation of IAM solutions. If you’re interested in seeing one of them, come listen to my session at 1:10 pm on the “Evolution of Identity Infrastructure” and an introduction to the new ServiceIAM product that CyberIAM is bringing to market. I’ll give you an introduction to how I seen this space evolving, and to why I think the focus needs to move from new infrastructure to new tools that help manage it.

If you miss the session, no problem we’ve recorded a delivery of the slides which we’ve made available from the CyberIAM web site here.

So if you are at the event, London really is calling. Listen to that track by the Clash, come find me on the show floor and as Mick Jones said in the classic last line of the song, “and after all this, won’t you give me a smile”.

See you there!