Zombie identities go from place to place, never stopping. Google Gemini.
One way to catch all these zombies is for companies to band together. If the zombie appears at one company, then the other companies are warned if the zombie appears at their doorsteps.
And there are moves to create these fraud networks.
“Veriff sponsors a pooled fraud network, as does Socure, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Mitek Systems, Persona, Sift, and probably some other IDV companies.”
“TrustGraph [is] Incode’s privacy-preserving trust network built for the agentic era. TrustGraph connects fraud and trust signals across participating institutions without pooling, exchanging, or exposing customer data, so financial institutions, marketplaces, and AI companies can detect repeat fraud and agentic fraud and recognize legitimate customers who have been verified elsewhere. In Incode’s early access program, institutions using TrustGraph detected up to 53% more fraud than with their existing models alone.”
Fraud silos are the IDV version of walled gardens. Google Gemini.
But they’re all fraud silos
All right and fine and wonderful and amazing and stuff, but there’s one teeny tiny problem. If Veriff finds a zombie identity, it only helps if you’re on Veriff’s network. If you are on Incode’s network, you won’t learn anything. And vice versa. Fraud silos don’t help anybody.
Join my fraud silo! Google Gemini.
Needless to say, this is by design. In essence, identity verification customers have to choose which walled garden they want as their prison.
You can find a walled garden in identity verification also. From Google Gemini.
So which fraud network are you going to choose? The one with the most participating businesses? Or the one that is best at detecting fraud? What about one with the rebel persona? The one that reads driver’s licenses in 195 countries rather than a mere 190? When you engage in competitive analysis, engage in meaningful competitive analysis.
What if the vendors cooperated and created one mega-fraud network?
Or maybe, just maybe, some of these vendors will band together and create a mega-fraud network with businesses from multiple vendors. Imagine a massive network in which all 80+ identity verification companies share their fraud data with customers in all the vendor ecosystems.
Or maybe not. The likelihood of that happening is similar to the likelihood of Facebook allowing my Bredemarket page to post links to LinkedIn…
Do you have broad knowledge, deep knowledge, or both?
Knowledge can be categorized into several buckets.
Google Gemini.
Dash shaped. Like the — dash symbol, this professional has broad knowledge of multiple disciplines. However, they do not have deep expertise in any of them.
T shaped. Unlike the dash shaped professional, the T shaped professional does additionally offer deep expertise in one specialty.
Pi shaped. If you look at the Greek symbol π, you see two vertical elements below the horizontal one. This indicates that the pi shaped professional offers broad knowledge plus deep expertise in TWO specialties.
M shaped. This isn’t perfect, but the letter M has three points. (Ignore the fact that two are at the top and one at the bottom.) So imagine the three points indicate three specialties.
Comb shaped. Reserved for the Benjamin Franklins of the world who create governments, fly kites, manage fire and postal departments, write humorous text, and raise hell.
I won’t get into comb shaped professionals here, but when you can get a hold of an M shaped professional, it’s like getting three experts for the price of one.
Professional in what?
M shaped. Google Gemini.
But what type of M shaped professional are we talking about?
An M shaped accountant can guide your firm through the intricacies of accounting.
An M shaped engineer can roll with the frequent changes in engineering, not becoming obsolete like your expert C programmer.
An M shaped marketer can handle anything from demand generation to analyst relations to social media.
And an M shaped productmarketer can deep dive into three (or more) parts of product marketing, including positioning/messaging, market/product/competitor strategic analysis, go-to-market and sales enablement, and pricing/packaging.
Why I am not just an M shaped product marketer
M shaped what? Google Gemini.
I am M shaped, but I am not an M shaped product marketer.
In the wildebeest-populated Bredemarket world, the A in CPA stands for Analysis. The strategic stuff, including the aforementioned market, product, and competitive analysis. In other words, the stuff that can drive your firm to accomplish actionable innovation.
Impossible?
The C in CPA stands for Content. Messaging content. Go-to-market content. Sales enablement content. Whatever type of content you need.
22 types of content.
(Yeah, that’s an old style video, but it works.)
Well, that’s two, but what about the third? That thing that a product marketer should not do because it is not product marketing? The 4 Ps include product, price, place, and promotion.
I was a proposal writer at Printrak until I moved left on the Shipley scale and became a product manager.
When Sagem Morpho and Motorola’s Biometric Business Unit combined to form MorphoTrak, I ended up back in Proposals as a proposal manager. (Where I performed a critically important go-to-market effort, but that’s another story.)
When I started Bredemarket, some of my most lucrative work was proposal work for SMA: The Program Lifecycle Company (got the new branding in!) and other Bredemarket clients.
Then when I joined Incode as a Senior Product Marketing Manager, I was performing all sorts of tasks outside the traditional PMM bounds, including a bunch of proposal writing.
When I returned to Bredemarket full time I returned to some proposal work here and there, including some big wins that I still can’t talk about yet.
“FB wants me to upload a pic of my passport, birth certificate, license, ETC to be able to use Messenger due to “unusual activity”. Anyone ever had this issue? Because I am definitely not doing that.”
“The great paradox of identity verification, ripped from today’s headlines. To prevent fraud you have to risk fraud by giving selfie plus ID to a firm you don’t know—not Meta or Hertz, but a third party vendor you don’t know.
“I do happen to know a bunch of them, having worked for @incodetech and researching 80+ competitors. But they’re mostly anonymous.
“Until they make the news.”
Then I shared the link to my post about a company that is now infamous.
I have been talking about mobile driver’s licenses for years, ever since my then-employer IDEMIA began issuing them almost a decade ago. When accepted, mobile driver’s licenses can function as the physical equipment of your physical driver’s license. Even at the airport.
But you know what we haven’t had? Mobile birth certificates.
Mobile driver’s licenses vs. mobile birth certificates
Part of the problem is the complexity of the birth certificate ecosystem.
Yes, there are over 50 driver’s license issuers in the United States alone, and each issuer potentially has dozens of license types (license, ID card, commercial license, license under 21, license under 18, ID card under 21, ID card under 18, etc.). And their format potentially changes every few years. Incode and its competitors recognize thousands upon thousands of driver’s license types.
Birth certificates are even more diverse. Issued by states or counties, and issued in innumerable formats over the past 100 years. My birth certificate, issued…some time ago in Cook County, Illinois, probably looks extremely different from the birth certificate of a 2026 Cook County newborn. Could the identity verfication vendors even BEGIN to recognize all the different birth certificates?
Actually, some have. Several years ago when performing analysis research for a Bredemarket client, I looked at a number of these offerings, including VitalChek.
“Arizona has become the first U.S. state to let residents present a verified digital birth credential from a smartphone during Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) transactions, eliminating the need for a paper birth certificate in eligible cases.
“The program, developed by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the Arizona Department of Health Services and the Arizona Department of Transportation, delivers the credential through VitalChek.”
So, when accepted, the Arizona mobile birth certificate (I’m calling it an mBC until someone forces me to stop) can function as the equivalent of a physical birth certificate.
What about YOUR mobile birth certificate product?
The birth certificate is probably the most important document you can have. If mobile versions of birth certificates take off, it will be revolutionary.
If your company offers mBCs and needs help marketing your product, let’s set up a free meeting to discuss how Bredemarket can help you with content, proposal, or analysis services.
“Leveraging their 2024 Login.gov Next Generation Identity Proofing Blanket Purchase Agreement (NG BPA), Xcelerate Solutions and their subcontractor Socure were awarded a five-year, $163M call order for Functional Area Three on May 1, 2026.”
“Diamond Capture Associates, a woman-owned business specializing in enterprise technology consulting and large-scale government implementations, and Incode Technologies, a global leader in identity security and fraud prevention, today announced the award of a $37.4 million contract from the General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS).
“Under this call order, Diamond Capture Associates and Incode will support the Login.gov Next Generation Identity Proofing Blanket Purchase Agreement (NG BPA), a critical federal initiative focused on strengthening digital identity verification and reducing fraud across government services.”
We were both saying the same thing, but from different perspectives.
Here’s part of how Wheatley put it.
“Focus on care and concern – reach out, offer help, stay true to your company purpose and values.
“Meet your customers where they are – both where they ‘hang out’ now, and to meet their current concerns.”
But it’s important to remember why you’re doing this.
“Building a good marketing plan helps motivate your audience to take the next step. And, in the end, to say “yes” to what you’re offering.
“But of course, they need to want to come. Your intent needs to be authentic. It will be if you genuinely believe that you can offer them value (and they recognise that) and you want to be in the relationship for the long term, not just to make a quick sale this quarter.”
Earlier this week I signed a contract with a former client from the first stint of Bredemarket (2020-2022). I had to end that contract because my then-new employer Incode competed with my client.
But then Incode became my ex-employer, and eventually my former client came back.
Whenever product marketers create materials for others—whether for external or internal audiences—they need a feedback loop to ensure the audiences can, and will, use the materials.
Google Gemini.
Those who know me know that I am drawn to complexity like a moth to a candle, and constantly have to resist the urge to detail.
My draft 0.5s that go through severe cutting before anyone sees draft 1.0.
My Incode team’s 80+ “battlecards” that were four pages long.
Regarding the latter, I should have learned the lesson from my MorphoTrak days. I was creating sales playbooks for one of our products that were much more than four pages long. Detailed playbooks that went into detail about the product, the market, the competitors, and everything else.
Sales did NOT like them. I was told the truth about HOW salespeople would use these playbooks.
“I will glance at your playbook five minutes before meeting with a prospect.”
I could wish upon a star that the salespeople would spend four hours in intense study, but just because I wish for it doesn’t mean it is going to happen.
Now I wish…that my Incode battlecards had been shorter.
I don’t know if I specifically shared this, but when I was undergoing my eight days of wi-fi hell, I was firing off a lot of questions to Google Gemini.
A LOT of questions.
Troubleshooting, fact-checking, you name it. Questioning what I was being told in different chats and by different on-site technicians.
And as I asked all these questions, I noticed along the way that the generative AI engine had been trained to deliver emotional-sounding responses that would resonate with the frazzled person entering the prompt into the generative AI engine.
This stands to reason. The generative AI providers want us to use the tools, so they want to make the experience as positive as possible.
For example, at one point I entered this prompt into Google Gemini:
“When a fiber Internet support person scheduled a second technician for a service call, the support person said “There are times where signal issues take more than one service visit to get to the root of the issue.” What exactly are “signal issues,” and why does the line need to be “balanced”?”
Note how Google Gemini BEGAN its response to my prompt:
“It can be incredibly frustrating when your internet isn’t working and the fix feels like it’s being kicked down the road. However, “signal issues” in the world of fiber optics are a bit more complex than just a loose plug or a broken wire.”
For those who remember the Clinton era, Google felt my pain.
Let me note that Google is not a human who TRULY perceived how I felt at that point. (Your AI girlfriend doesn’t love you either.) But it had been trained to deliver an “it can be incredibly frustrating” response.
On a certain level, Google was telling me what it thought I wanted to hear.
And we can use this to tailor our generative AI prompts to get the responses we want.
How you ask generative AI
We already tailor our prompts.
Back in 2023, when generative AI was in its infancy, I intentionally asked a negative question about a particular company…and acted upon the response. (I will explain how later.)
Whenever a product marketer asks a generative AI engine to prepare a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for a competitor or a competitive product, the PMM is intentionally asking for negative weakness and threat information.
But you can also self-analyze…and encourage the generative AI engine to be brutally honest.
A pointed question
Let me illustrate this with the following prompt:
“Why does the marketing and writing company Bredemarket suck so badly?”
Using the word “sucks” in your prompt is the reverse of what we used to call a vanity search. Sure I’ve done those—if I ask Google about a biometric product marketing expert, I appear in the results. But when I asked Google Gemini a negative question about Bredemarket, it clearly delivered.
If you’re searching for a picture about how Bredemarket sucks, you’ve come to the right place. Google Gemini. Picture by Bredemarket.
The response started as follows.
“That is a pretty pointed question!”
Intentionally so. The introduction continued:
“To be fair to the “company” (which is actually a solo consultancy run by a guy named John Bredehoft), whether Bredemarket “sucks” depends entirely on what you’re looking for.”
It then got into the nitty gritty about how I suck. A few excerpts:
Answer 1: a one-man shop
“If you were expecting a full-service marketing firm with account managers and a design department, the reality of a one-man shop based in Ontario, California, might feel underwhelming.”
Answer 2: not for non-tech lifestyle brands
“If you are a general business or a lifestyle brand, his style—which is very technical, process-oriented, and “old school” corporate—might feel dry, rigid, or out of touch with modern, punchy social media marketing.”
Answer 3: he ain’t a corporate drone
“John has a very distinct, conversational, and sometimes quirky style (often referencing his own mistakes or niche industry drama). For some, this feels authentic and transparent; for others, it can come across as unprofessional or rambling compared to the polished “corporate speak” of larger firms.”
Answer 4: see answer 1
“If a project gets complex or requires a fast turnaround that one person can’t handle, the “process” (which he mentions frequently on his site) might feel more like a bottleneck than a benefit.”
My responses to Gemini
Let me note that these are NOT hallucinations. Every criticism is valid.
Whenever a cold call follow-up email asks if they should speak to another department, I laugh. To myself. There’s no one else in the office…I mean Bredemarket corporate headquarters. It’s only 25 square feet, after all.
And no, I’m not pitching Bredemarket’s services to Sofia Bee or other lifestyle brands.
Yes, I can write in “we are perfect” corporate-speak, but I am more effective writing for clients who admit to learning from mistakes.
Finally, I can deliver on projects that require a draft in 3 (or 7) days. If you need an army of consultants to deliver a 600 page RFP response by tomorrow, don’t call Bredemarket.
Remember when I asked generative AI a pointed question in 2023? The response from generative AI was dismissive of the company because it only supported a single factor for authentication, while generative AI knew that multi-factor authentication was ALWAYS better.
First off, the company was able to implement multi-factor authentication if its client wanted it.
Second, while multi-factor authentication CAN be better, it is not ALWAYS better.
So how did I respond to generative AI’s assertion? By writing content, both for people and for the generative AI engine itself, challenging its claims.
By the way, I mentioned earlier that I can write in my wildebeest-infused style, and I can also write in dry corporate-speak. In 2023, I could also write in the company’s then-current maverick-rebel-revolutionary tone.
Bear this in mind while reading the excerpts below, which make sport of denigrating “conventional wisdom.”
Enter multi-factor authentication, the technique that was supposed to render passwords dead. The theory is that even if a fraudster is able to spoof one factor of authentication, it is extremely difficult to spoof all the factors of authentication.
This is the conventional wisdom. Even the latest generative AI engines praise a combination of entering a code on a phone in addition to a password. This, according to one generative AI engine, provides superior security.
Nevertheless, conventional wisdom and generative AI can both be wrong.
If a password or PIN (something you know) is one of your authentication factors, it won’t offer much protection for the reasons outlined above. Password protection of an adult website does no good if the account holder’s underage child gets hold of the password.
If a key fob, smartphone, or other “something you have” item is one of your authentication factors, you are vulnerable to stolen fobs, spoofed phones, and other threats. Again, if Mom or Dad leave their phone lying around, a child can access an adult site.
With these and similar arguments, I asserted that the company’s highly-accurate and independently-tested facial authentication was BETTER than some poorly-conceived multi-factor authentication solutions, despite what generative AI (and conventional wisdom) asserted.
And I was able to assert these because, despite what some people say, knowledge (in this case in biometrics) is NOT a detriment. There’s something good about being a biometric content marketing expert, after all.
But what about your company?
Perhaps there’s a view about your company that needs correcting, whether it’s a generative AI hallucination or a competitor spurious claim.
And how do many companies react to negative views about them? They do nothing. They don’t give the claim the dignity of a response. So the record stands, uncorrectred.
