[OpenID] "OpenID" selected as the 3rd runner up in the 2008 IT Buzz Words in Japan.

Tue Jan 6 11:18:31 UTC 2009

I think the process in Japan deserves better study by itself, but here are
some of the points that we kept in mind.

1) We (drivers of OIDF-J collectively) made sure that we capitalize on the
big bang the OIDF announcement and Yahoo! support of OpenID created: we
continually fed the press etc. with news (every month!) so that the interest
did not die out. Instead, it created snowball effect.

2) It is in a sense part of 1) but to make the steam going, we made sure
that we achieve a balanced interest in all the sectores including government
by visiting them and educating them, have the key players in each industry
supports us.

3) To do 2), we had to show the value, so we have created business use
cases, and made sure things get usecase driven. CX was one such case, and
the sample implementation at JAL generated a lot of interest across the
industries. We have shown them that with a bit of tweak, it can grow into
HIGHER SECURITY protocol that can carry higher value transactions, and that
it generates real money.

4) To remoeve the uncertainty from the technology buyer's perspective, we
have promoted the notion of "Harmonization", that in the end, it would not
matter whether you start from OpenID or SAML, that they should start
implementing NOW with whichever the more suitable technology for his
usecase.

So, in essence, we have been doing all the above in parallel, and that
created  a virtuous cycle. e.g., the cycle reates a new good news that press
will like, and that leads the implementers to implement, and that leads to
another news ... etc. Even today, a very interesting news (at least to me)
has come in, which I expect that it will create another round of press
coverage later.

Now, to Drummond's question, "particular factors about the Japanese market".

Well, certainly, the founders of OIDF-J were pretty well connected to
various sector. For example, Seki-san of SixApart was very well connected to
the press and Web2.0 type companies, NRI is very well connected to the
financial, retail, telcos, and government, and Verisign obivously to the
security guys. However, the participation of other people from the other
bodies were equally important. IdCon is a group of hackers who is interested
in Identity, and we helped each other, and that does help the
implementations move forward. Liberty Alliance was very helpful in
organizing a big conference and tell about "Harmonization" to enterprises
and governments. Certificate Authority people (not only Verisign but bunch
of them including JPKI people) helped us by financing our conference etc.
JAL let us implement the live system. etc. etc... There are much more than I
could quote here. It is this "united front" that made this possible in
Japan, I think.

Does this answer your question, Chris? I was not so sure about what you
meant by "advocacy lead", so... If I am missing the sweet spot, I will try
again so please let me know more about what you have in mind.

Cheers,

=nat

On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Nat Sakimura <sakimura at gmail.com> wrote:

> Right. We have to do it.
> I will try to write something up once my new year holiday ends... too much
> family obligations right now ;-)
>
> =nat
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Drummond Reed <
> drummond.reed at cordance.net> wrote:
>
>>  Congrats on this news, Nat. It's clear OpenID Japan is being highly
>> successful in getting good buzz for OpenID in the Japanese market.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition to Chris' questions, are there particular factors about the
>> Japanese market that you think are involved? What would be required for this
>> to catch on elsewhere?
>>
>>
>>
>> =Drummond
>>
>>
>>   ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] *On
>> Behalf Of *Chris Messina
>> *Sent:* Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:06 PM
>> *To:* Nat Sakimura; david at sixapart.com
>> *Cc:* OpenID List
>> *Subject:* Re: [OpenID]"OpenID" selected as the 3rd runner up in the 2008
>> IT Buzz Words in Japan.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm wondering how we could repeat this success in the US and elsewhere.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nat, can you point to any specific outreach/advocacy that lead to this?
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 6:41 PM, David Recordon <drecordon at sixapart.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> This is great news!  It's really amazing to see how OpenID continues to
>> take off in Japan.
>>
>>
>>
>> --David
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 27, 2008, at 7:51 PM, Nat Sakimura wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>  *On Dec. 22, Tokyo IT Newspaper published this year's buzz word ranking.
>> (http://itnp.net/category_betsu/24/2167/)*
>>
>> The ranking is done in Sumo Ranking style and they are Ranked as "Yokozuna
>> (Grand Champion)", "Ozeki (Champion, 2nd highest rank)", "Sekiwake (Junior
>> Champion, 3rd highest rank)" etc.
>>
>> This year, Yokozuna was iPhone, which was no surprise since it was the
>> first year in Japan. Ozeki was Google Street View, which is no surprise
>> either.
>>
>> What surprised me though was the 3rd highest rank, Sekiwake, which turned
>> out to be OpenID. It ranked higher than NetBooks (eePCs etc.) or Google
>> Chrome, etc.
>>
>> Anyhow, it is good to hear something that is assuring of our marketing
>> activity.
>>
>> For more details, see
>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/modules/wordpress/index.php?p=68
>>
>>
>> --
>> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> general mailing list
>> general at openid.net
>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Chris Messina
>> Citizen-Participant &
>>  Open Web Advocate-at-Large
>>
>> factoryjoe.com # diso-project.org
>> citizenagency.com # vidoop.com
>> This email is:   [ ] bloggable    [X] ask first   [ ] private
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>

-- 
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
http://www.sakimura.org/en/
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