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In our business we operate a number of customer-facing web services which use an IdentityServer3 identity provider as the single source of identity. We have customised our setup to allow two sources of federated identity, and to pull certain claims from our CRM.

We have a new requirement to integrate a hosted instance of the excellent Discourse discussion forum, also using the same single source of identity.
Discourse does not support OpenId Connect, rather its own particular form of SSO.

Using IdentityServer3 as SSO source for Discourse

John Korsnes wrote the core of this approach, documented in his Medium article and on Github. In his article he gives a good overview of how the Discourse SSO works, and explains his approach:

• a custom endpoint on the IdentityServer, running in the same Owin context as the main IdP
• configure Discourse to redirect a login to the custom endpoint
• in the custom endpoint check if the user has a current authenticated session with IdentityServer
• if they have, generate a Discourse SSO payload from the user properties, and return to Discourse
• if they haven’t, display a simple login form, and once they have authenticated, generate and return the Discourse SSO payload as before

Our modifications

From our perspective the only drawback of John’s approach was that it only allowed for user authentication against the local IdentityServer accounts (username / password). Although that covers most of our customer accounts, we have extended our IdP with federated identity against our own company Office365 (Azure AD), and against Google, as some of our customers use Google Apps corporately.

To extend John’s approach we modified it so that instead of displaying a local login form we:

• register an application in our IdentityServer as a proxy for Discourse
• carry out an (almost) standard Authorization Code authentication process from our custom controller against the Identity Server
• the only difference is that because we are running inside the IdentityServer web piipeline we don’t need to redeem the authorization code agaisnt the token endpoint, but can ignore any generated tokens and query the Owin Context in the same way John does.

Our version is shown below

I’d been invited to speak about our experiences in using Dynamics 365 and Thunderhead ONE together – my slides embedded below.

Overall I found the day valuable and enjoyable, especially the review of new features in Dynamics Version 9 from Sarah Critchley, and Ben Walker detailing his experience with setting up a CI/CD environment for Dynamics.

Secondly as someone speaking at a CRMUG event for the first time I found the atmosphere welcoming and the facilities excellent.

Other highlight – finally meeting Scott Durow, the man whose blogs have saved us hours of work with the more arcane aspects of Dynamics!

Edit – it’s been pointed out to me that the “view full screen” button on the embed doesn’t work in some browsers – you can view directly in SlideShare here

In his review Harold has added the main attributes that he sees as being needed to meet the book’s criteria for human adaptation to a world of automation:

• Step-up: directing the machine-augmented world (creativity)
• Step-in: using machines to augment work (deep thinking)
• Step-aside: doing human work that machines are not suited for (empathy)
• Step narrowly: specializing narrowly in a field too small for augmentation (passion)
• Step forward: developing new augmentation systems (curiosity)

I challenge any UK-based educator or politician to identify where we are systematatically encouraging those attributes in our young people.

Joanne goes on to highlight from that White House report that an increasing proportion of US high-school students are not “college-ready” at the end of high school.,

She also quotes Andrew Yang‘s call to action in Quartz “Silicon Valley is right – our jobs are already disappearing” :

“Unprecedented things are happening in real-time and starting to wreak havoc on lives and communities around the country, particularly on those least able to adapt and adjust.”

How does that map to the UK?

My own, nascent, thoughts about what we should be doing as  matter of policy to address these changes mirror those set out in the Obama administraiton report:

• Invest in and develop AI for its many benefits
• Educate and train [citizens] for jobs of the future.
• Aid workers in the transition and empower workers to ensure broadly shared growth

How do those ideas translate to a UK perspective?

Investment in AI is critical – without it our society will not have the wealth  to support the changes thatare needed. That suggests  a legal environment that is pro-competition and without the negative impact of protectionism (whether enacted by UKGOV or potential trading partners).

Doesn’t sound much like the Brexit-tainted future we are currently looking at!

Alongside investment, we need a progressive tax system, and a government that is committed to spending the tax take in the areas that are needed.

Investment in education, and an adaptation of education to reflect the reality of a world in which many jobs are automated

.The country appears to be disinvesting in education, certainly when considered per-capita. The National Audit Office  has challenged ministers on the matter, and headteachers from across the country  are highlighting the challenges they face.

Even much-trumpeted plans about addressing regional school issues as part of the “Northern Powerhouse” seem doomed to be a further example of re-arranging the deckchairs unless additional funds are injected.

In this environment it seems foolishly optimistic to talk about adapting education to the future, not least because there is no national debate I can see about the need for a changed social contract in response to the predicted changes.

Yet the people who will be entering the workforce in 2030 are those children starting school now.

Without a national dialogue around the social contract, how will our political debate ever begin to address the prospect of large swathes of the population structurally precluded from employment as we know it now?

When debate around benefits is locked into old positions about deserving/undeserving, scroungers v safety net, and coercion to take any job at any price, how likely is it that we will have a reasoned discussion around profound changes such as universal basic income?

I’d love it if someone could point me to a UK politician, of any party, who is articulating any of these issues.

Or are we lost in a morass of protectionism and xenophobia?

Update

I see that the Science and Technology Select Committee reported in October on this topic:

Advances in robotics and AI also hold the potential to reshape, fundamentally, the way we live and work. Improvements in productivity and efficiency, driven by the spread of these technologies, were widely predicted, yet there is no consensus about what this will mean for the UK workforce. Some expect rising unemployment as labour is substituted for AI-enabled robots and machines. Others foresee a transformation in the type of employment available—with the creation of new jobs compensating for those that were lost—and the prospect of robotics and AI augmenting existing roles, and enabling humans to achieve more than they could on their own.

Despite these differing views, there is general agreement that a much greater focus is needed on adjusting our education and training systems to deliver the skills that will enable people to adapt, and thrive, as new technology comes on stream. Government leadership in this area, however, has been lacking. It is disappointing that the Government still has not published its Digital Strategy nor set out its plans for equipping the future workforce with the digital skills it needs to flourish. The Government must commit to addressing the digital skills crisis through a Digital Strategy, published without delay.

One for my reading list!

Beyond his suggestions I think the following are key in terms of building and information base about your target accounts:

• acquire as much contextual information about accounts as possible, via both automated and human sources
• whilst acquiring as much data as possible about individual customer interactions on touchpoints, put significant effort into linking those individuals to an account
• when customising the touchpoint experiecne for an individual, take into consideration their account context, including other recognised individuals

There are a growing number of indicators that the nature of employment will change radically in our lifetimes, but politicians are all ignoring this.

Background

On BBC Breakfast this morning there was a piece about robots, themed on the forthcoming exhibiton at the Science Museum,

In the piece they interviewed  Michael A. Osborne , Associate Professor in Machine Learning, University of Oxford in which he repeated the research estimate that robots would replace 35% of UK employment by 2030, e.g .transport, taxis, processing invoices etc.

That in turn is highlighted in this 2015 BBC story, extrapolated from this 2013 paper by Frey and Osborne which examined the US jobs market and concluded that estimated 47% of total employment was at risk.

Also this week in “Wanted: Factory Workers, Degree Required” the NYT quoted Eric Spiegel, the recently-retired president and chief executive of Siemens USA:

“In our factories, there’s a computer about every 20 or 30 feet. People on the plant floor need to be much more skilled than they were in the past. There are no jobs for high school graduates at Siemens today.”

Although the Frey and Osbourne paper does not put firm time horizons on their predictions, instead saying “We refer to these jobs as at risk – i.e. jobs we expect could be automated relatively soon, perhaps over the next decade or two”, some of the notable occupations with a predicted probability of replacement by machines of > 75% include:

• painters, construction and maintenance
• locksmiths
• electric motor and power tool repairers
• bartenders
• archivists
• barbers
• fast food cooks
• property managers and estate agents
• electronics technicians
• executive assistants
• technical writers
• pharmacy technicians
• accountants and auditors
• budget analysts
• paralegals and legal assistants
• credit authorisers
• drivers
• telemarketers

A counter view

By contrast, Matthew Yglesias puts forward a counter view – that we should be worried if we don’t automate lots of jobs, because of the dramatic negative impact on productivity.

In his view if societies do not embrace increasing automation (which by implication means finding the ways to invest in it) then they are doomed to a low-income, low living standard future, with a fatal combination of low productivity and spiralling healthcare and social care costs.

And…?

There is a clear message in this research – the very nature of employment is already changing far beyond the increased casualisation that is highest on most debates. Many forms of employment will disappear within the working lifetime of children now in schools.

At the same time we need to ensure that we can invest in the technology that will bring high productivity comemrce to the country.

Some questions for the politicians:

• how will the UK attract investment in the technology needed to operate efficiently in the 2030’s?
• what changes do we need to be planning NOW to the education system to prepare people for that world?
• how will our society support the people who cannot reach the levels of education needed to get the jobs that will be available?
• or is the UK doomed to slump to being a low income, low employment sweat shop?

Acknowledgements

New York Times link via Doug Belshaw

Featured image CC0 Pixabay

Matthew Yglesias link via Ryan Avent via Michael Osborne

There are some interesting papers to follow up in the comments (as an aside, shame how much of academic publishing is still locked behind paywalls)

Martin comments:

I think it is more about a view that academic research is not of value together with an inability or unwillingness to find the research. It’s certainly out there. A search for collaboration in Google Scholar comes up with 4 million references, albeit many are more about scientific collaboration than business collaboration. Because academic research is almost always technology-neutral the outcomes can be translated into current practice.

Luis responds

it’s always been said how far apart from each other both the academic and the business worlds have been all along, to the point where they remain irreconcilable, it’s going to become an on-going challenge unless either one of them, or both!, would concede, give in and decides to get closer. I think it’s very much needed, because I certainly agree with you there are tons of superb research done out there around sociology and it would have a tremendous impact if it were injected, applied, adapted and iterated in a business context.

On the other hand, the academic world also needs to get closer to the business world vs. continuing to live in a bubble (if they ever have). I think it’s down to us, practitioners, to bridge both worlds and get them to understand each other

From personal experience I would suggest some of those barriers to deeper adoption of academic insight in the business world (apart from simple prejudice) are:

• access to the material (see comment about paywalls above)
• accessiblity of the material – reading formal academic material effectively and efficiently is an acquired skill
• the mismatch between the narrowly specialized nature of most academic research and the broader nature of most people’s skills in the commercial world

Of these, in many ways I think the biggest is that last mismatch. I’m not convinced that we have ‘T-shaped‘ professionals any more, or if we have the ‘T’ has several legs, and the cross-bar is of quite varying thicknesses, with some very long tails (mixed metaphor alert!!))

(Aside, I did leave this as a comment, but for some reason my comments are not appearing – perhaps I’ve been moderated!)