A total of thirteen independent groups as well as a Special Interest Group for government customers have recently been formed across North America for the webMethods community. Through quarterly meetings and ongoing online discussions, these groups provide a real-world and user-driven forum for exchanging best practices, continuing education, and constructive dialogue with webMethods executives.

“Our webMethods investment is a strategic one. By taking an active role in our regional chapter, I can help to ensure that we get maximum return on this investment,” said Anuj Bhatia, chapter president for the South Central region and Integration Architect, BancTec. “I would encourage the entire South Central community of webMethods users to join me in working to ensure that this serves as an unmatched forum for exchanging ideas and experiences that will help all of us to develop better solutions."

“With today’s rapid pace of technological change, peers in the trenches are often the only authoritative source for proven advice to real-world challenges,” said David Schaefgen, chapter president, South East region and Manager, Enterprise Integration, ACH Food Companies, Inc. “This is the need that we seek to address with our expanded user group community. These groups will also play an important role in helping users stay abreast with the significant changes coming down the pike. For webMethods users, it’s important to participate as your webMethods’ skills and expertise have never been more important or more valuable.”

Each independent group is chartered with facilitating the following on a regional basis:

* Knowledge sharing – Working to ensure that best practices are more readily shared while providing a forum for more quickly addressing user’s unique issues and questions.

* Education – Partnering with webMethods and other practitioners to expand access to additional training and education in the field.

* Networking – Facilitating greater access to a broader universe of users, who can provide referrals to qualified job candidates and experienced vendors as just one example.

* Advocacy – Providing regular feedback to webMethods regarding the product roadmap, customer service issues and other topics of interest.

While each group will be locally managed by their independent user community, webMethods is taking an active role in ensuring each organization’s continuing success. In addition to underwriting some of the organizational costs, webMethods is making developers and product managers available to each group to provide a deeper dive on key technology issues as well as advanced insight into forthcoming technologies.

“A vibrant user community, distinguished by the open exchange of new ideas and field-tested learnings, is an invaluable resource for our customers,” said Deborah Rosen, executive vice president, Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, webMethods, Inc. “This is particularly true as we continue to rollout a number of new products that further accelerate our customers’ success. With direct access to both webMethods experts as well as their peers that are pioneering these technologies in the field, each group will play an important role in helping users achieve faster and more predictable implementations.”