Learning Digital Identity

Chapter 6. The Digital Relationship Lifecycle

When I was in grade school, our class captured a caterpillar and placed it in a jar with some leaves to see what would happen. You have probably done this too. Of course, in time, the caterpillar spun a cocoon, and the little jar became pretty boring. But our teacher encouraged us to keep watching, and one morning, we were thrilled to see a large moth in the bottle. This simple experiment clearly illustrated to me that the moth and the caterpillar were the same creature at different stages of its life.

Scientists use lifecycles to connect the seemingly unconnected. I’m a big fan of using lifecycles to analyze information technology problems for the same reason. Lifecycles help define all the phases of a problem or project so that they can be dealt with holistically rather than piecemeal. They’re also useful for categorizing activities associated with the process.

Digital relationships have lifecycles, as shown in Figure 6-1, regardless of whether those relationships are long-term, short-lived, or ephemeral. Understanding how the digital relationship lifecycle plays out on every system, and in the enterprise as a whole, is crucial when creating a strategy for managing relationships.

Figure 6-1. Digital relationship management lifecycle

Briefly, a digital relationship starts out with one entity discovering another. If they desire a relationship, ...