Identity Management is a real problem facing many firms right now. Most still grapple with it from the perspective of enterprise security, but many are beginning to realize that the security perspective in isolation leads to suboptimal design of collaboration and options for sharing and access. Enter network access policies and directory services. The space continues to grow. Top products are diversifying. Little guidance exists to understand this space and how to manage the tradeoffs inherent in the decisions.

I recently received a grant from the Salesforce.com Foundation for approximately $15,000 annually, indefinitely extendible. I have been using the software provided to explore the intergration and ease-of-use potential of software services on demand and how they provide workflow capacity to businesses.

I have also been developing and experimenting with open-source workflow tools including the Galaxia workflow tool and the workflow module in Drupal. None has particularly impressed me as well-done yet, even the more complex ones that enable full flow modeling, simulation, and optimization