CM Pros Goes Global - Australia, Benelux and Canada West

Content Management Professionals (CM Pros), the international content management community of practice, announced that three geographic communities have been formed under its new member-driven committee process: The CM Pros Australia Community, The CM Pros Canada West Community and The CM Pros Benelux Community.

The CM Pros committee process—which enables members to formally organize in groups based on geographic location or common interest in a particular topic—empowers any group of at least three members to form a committee by issuing a call for participation to the entire membership. A steering committee—elected by community members at the group�s first meeting—oversees the creation and progress of subcommittees and strives to advance the mission of the committee. CM Pros communities may host events and meetings as well as engage in working activities, such as by publishing newsletters or contributing white papers to CM Pros growing Knowledge Resource library.

Steering committees for The CM Pros Canada West Community and The CM Pros Australia Community have been formed. In Australia, co-chairs David Warwick and James Robertson are joined by Lauren Bryan and Matthew Harris. In Canada West, chair Rahel Anne Bailie is joined by Nenad Furtula, Fred Hoeflok and Jeff Sinclair.

The stated purpose of The CM Pros Australia Community is to provide Australian content management professionals with networking opportunities, a forum for examining content management topics of interest, promotion of content management in Australia, educating on content management and developing mutual opportunities. The CM Pros Australia Community will also provide a central source for media comment on the content management industry and forward the CM Pros international mission statement and objectives within Australia. Their next meeting is scheduled for October 17, 2005 in Middle Park, Victoria.

“Web content management remains a rapid growth segment in Australia and it is rare in its capacity to pull together professionals from a broad cross-section of the business community from content creators, publishers, marketers, company executives, designers, programmers, integrators and vendors,” stated David Warwick, co-chair of The CM Pros Australia Community. “The CM Pros Australia Community offers significant networking and information sharing potential that does not exist in any other Australian professional forum. Without any promotion, our growth in a matter of weeks to 28 members highlights the pent-up demand in our corner of the world.”

The stated purpose of The CM Pros Canada West Community is to provide a local forum where professionals engaged in content management can learn and share information about content management to further the body of knowledge in this field. The group�s kick-off program meeting was held on October 3, 2005 in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the group convened around the theme “Putting the Content Back into Content Management.”

“Content management is the next big efficiency initiative since the Web,” said Rahel Anne Bailie, chair of The CM Pros Canada West Community and president of Intentional Design. “Content management is already making a big difference to companies who have implemented it—implemented it properly, that is—and will have a huge impact across all industry sectors and sizes. We can�t afford not to have a forum where professionals of all stripes—practitioners, vendors, and the business sector—can come together to discuss strategies and emerging best practices.”

The stated purpose of The CM Pros Benelux Community is to provide content management professionals with networking opportunities, a forum for exchanging and examining content management topics of interest, promoting and professionalizing content management in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and educating on content management and developing mutual opportunities. The CM Pros Benelux Community will also provide a central source for media comment on the content management industry and forward the CM Pros international mission statement and objectives within Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Furthermore the group will assist new communities in other European geographies with their start-up activities, as well as engage in ongoing knowledge exchange and networking programs with them.

The group�s first meeting was held October 5, 2005 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, at which time a steering committee was elected among candidates Dani�lle Kolmer, Maarten Korz, Adriaan M. Bloem and Erik M. Hartman � all of The Netherlands � and Peter Hinssen of Belgium.

“This new community enables innovation and knowledge sharing within a regional group of individuals that share interests and experiences,” declared Maarten Korz of De Lage Landen Financial Services in The Netherlands. “The combination of an international organization and a high degree of topical and local activity gives CM Pros members the breadth and depth we need to be effective content management professionals within our region.”

Erik M. Hartman is one of the founders of CM Professionals and currently serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors. “It was a real honour to be the only European member who has been voted as a Board Member, and I always wanted a Benelux Community for content management professionals. As the international organization matures, it�s time to focus on local Benelux activities.”

Participation in CM Pros communities offers members the opportunity to build professional networks through face-to face-interaction and intensive collaboration. These first three CM Pros Communities united more than 100 members in a common purpose: to support content management professionals as they strive for excellence in this increasingly important discipline.

“CM Pros Communities enable more frequent, directed and meaningful member interaction,” affirmed Frank Gilbane, a member of the CM Pro Board of Directors and CEO of Bluebill Advisors, and publisher of The Gilbane Report. “Our unmatched knowledge exchange programs facilitate an overall increase in the degree of quality content management professionals can achieve for their customers and employers.”

Reinforcing the organization�s increasing relevance, CM Pros today also announced that its membership now exceeds 500 content management professionals.

“We�ve experienced an exciting period of growth,” said Laura Walker, executive director of CM Pros. “That growth is testament that our new Community program—as well as the superlative industry expertise we�re delivering through our fall events—offers tangible benefit to content management professionals.”

About CM Professionals

Founded in 2004, CM Pros—which has grown from a founding group of 30 content management experts to more than 500 members—provides information, expertise and support to content management professionals and the organizations they serve. Through peer-to-peer interchange, the collaborative development of best practices, a series of educational events and definitive knowledge resources such as a content management glossary and resource library, the organization fosters a better public understanding of this critically important discipline.