Background:  "ORCID update", December 2011: http://orcid.org/sites/default/files/orcidcni2011complete.pdf

Warming ourselves to the subject, here are some excerpts from relevant recent conversations:

RL"Bob": We thought that a concrete step would be to initiate mace-dir work around defining an "authorid" and a "published name" as eduPerson attributes. The spectre of us doing this might be enough to bring together some of the potential interested parties including some publishers, the national libraries, university libraries, OCLC, etc, to advise and dissent.  Some of we might want to consider whether any of the former incommon-libraries participants could be interested.

Of course in trying to do this we might find that what needs to be done is something entirely different (eg working with the author profile schemas from Catalyst or something), but as the play says: Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly."

KJK re issue of MACE-Dir as venue for ORCID attribute mongering: "I didn't mean to imply that mace-dir is not the right spot to discuss these attributes - I think it is. I meant to suggest that we take the opportunity of strong international interest in this to make sure our mace-dir processes respect the thrills of international discussion - perhaps taping a level set call so others can listen later in the process or at another time, leaning heavily on a wiki for continuous but asynchronous discussions, etc. Be more sensitive of internationals (though I do not want to get up at 3 am for a mace-dir phone call :))"

KeithH reply to KJK: "100% agreement from me.  Let's think about a MACE-Dir 'ORCID attributes 101' podcast-y thing.  I will start a wiki page & share the link.