The term “team of rivals” has famously been used to describe how Abraham Lincoln reconciled the personality differences of his political rivals and leveraged their strengths to help run his administration and push forward agendas for the common good. Similarly, when I use the term I’m referring to industry leaders putting their personal and professional agendas aside (for the moment!) to work together toward a common of goal of evolving Internet identity, security and privacy.

The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) recently hosted a two-day member workshop with several representatives from the United Kingdom’s Government Digital Service (GDS), a Cabinet Office in the Home Office. The representatives are responsible for creating and implementing innovative identity management programs for the UK.

European-based identity and security analyst firm, KuppingerCole, recently announced that OpenID Connect was awarded the 2012 European Identity and Cloud Award in the category for Best Innovation/New Standard. This recognition was largely based on OpenID Connect’s potential to significantly change digital identity using a simple interoperable Internet identity protocol to improve the way we interact with each other online.

One of the key takeaways from the last board meeting was that the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) should take every opportunity to help inform and advance conversations about Internet identity with a focus on governance, liability and business models. This is true in public and private sector engagements in the US (NSTIC), the UK (tScheme), and elsewhere. Here’s a brief overview in this regard: