I dedicate a column in my laptop TweetDeck application to the search term “Identity Management.”  It is enjoyable to scroll through now and then to see what folks have to say about this important topic.   Tonight, I was intrigued by a tweet from @susanguarneri “Online Identity Management: Get Found! http://bit.ly/djdFRm”.

It was interesting to find that Susan Guarneri, AKA the Career Assessment Goddess, defines Identity Management this way:

“Online identity management is career management for the employed and unemployed. Online identity management is also business management, particularly if your small business centers on you. Rather than waiting and hoping that your career or business future plays out successfully, why not take back control? Find out how you can get found online, differentiate yourself, and stand out positively from your competition.”

That is quite a bit different than what Wikipedia’s definition:

“Identity management or ID management is a broad administrative area that deals with identifying individuals in a system (such as a country, a network or an organization) and controlling the access to the resources in that system by placing restrictions on the established identities.”

It all goes to show how different perspectives may yield different definitions.  To Susan, Identity Management is all about taking control of one’s personal Identity in cyberspace.  To the unknown Wikipedia author (by the way, that article is begging for a re-write), Identity Management is all about some organization controlling the Identities of others.

Both are valid viewpoints.  It just pays to understand the perspective of each user of a phrase before passing judgment.