Workflow Management Coalition
Newsletter - October 1995
WfMC hires PR Agency to increase visibility worldwide
The External Relations Committee is excited to announce that during
the August meeting, it was decided to hire Phase Two Strategies in
California to further promote the Coalition's work. With the support
of Phase Two, the Secretariat will intensify contact with the European
press. Meanwhile, Phase Two has worked out a strategy for enhancing
the Coalition's visibility by:
- expanding upon WfMC's relationshipswith industry analysts and
researchers
- using editorial meetings with influential publishers to create
relationships and attention
- building on Coalition's spokespersons' visibility as experts on
workflow to develop coverage in relevant trend stories
- increasing awareness among senior management and educating them on
workflow by promoting workflow trends in business publications
Putting this strategy into practice, William Boehlke and Elizabeth
Johnson from Phase Twoare working on the following activities:
- creating a media contact target list
- preparing a press kit to disseminate to the press
- arranging in-person briefings by WfMC spokespersons (country
contacts and ERC members) with industry influencers
- drafting press releases regularly, coordinating third-party
endorsement approvals, pitching exclusives to appropriate publications
- cultivating relationships with freelance writers who are an
important source of content in the workflow market
Members will benefit from increased attention for and acceptance of
the Coalition's accomplishments on a global level.
Workflow Client API to be adopted
The Coalition is thrilled to announce the adoption of the interface 2
API standard during its meeting in Frankfurt. The release of the
Workflow Management Coalition Application Programming Specification
(WAPI) will allow vendors to start building towards that spec.
Coalition members who are writing or intending to write front-ends to
the API set will be presenting the results of their efforts at the
meeting.
Rapid Membership Growth
Increasing interest in workflow technology has resulted in significant
membership growthforthe Coalition. Since its formation in August 1993,
the Coalition has expanded from 50 companies in 1993, 85 in 1994 to
over 150 today. Members include vendors (60%), users (10%),
analysts/integrator (15%), and universities/various institutions
(15%).
The strong expansion of membership serves to enhance awareness of the
Coalition's work at an important stage in its development.
This trend reflects the growth in the workflow software market
estimated at 47% in Europe and North America in the last four years,
according to BIS Strategic Decisions.
Significant increase in information requests
The past few months have seen a continued growth in the number of
people inquiring about the Coalition and its activities. This
interest, especially from users, assists in maintaining and further
generating awareness opportunities in the workflow market for the
Coalition and its members.
Coalition Annual Handbook
The ERC is working on an exciting new project: the publication of an
Annual Handbook. The book will contain information about workflow
automation products, services and companies, market information and
comments from a variety of people from the world of workflow. It is
targeted at individuals and companies within the workflow arena,
whether end-users, vendors or resellers. Coalition members will be
kept informed of all progress in publishing the annual handbook.
New Working Group
A new Working Group on Common Architecture was established at the
Coalition meeting in August with the goal to facilitate:
- a base IDL definition for the Coalition APIS.
- conflict resolution between working groups.
- changes to existing documentation to achieve consistency.
- consistency of terminology, notation, spelling, conformance, and
other areas of specification.
Anyone interested in joining, can do so by contacting Paula Helfrich
(EBM), chairperson of the group.
Next meeting:
Coalition general meetings are held quarterly on a rotating basis in
North America and Europe. WG sessions take place in between these
meetings.
The next meeting will be held in Orlando on February 7-9, 1996
following the BIS conference there (February 4-7).
For further information or copies of Workflow Management Coalition
Publications, contact:
Workflow Management Coalition Office
Attn. Alfons Westgeest or Emmy Botterman
Avenue Marcel Thiry 204,1200 Brussels, Belgium;
Tel: +32 2 774 96 33. Fax: +32 2 774 96 90.
E-Mail: 100113.1555@compuserve.com
See the WfMC Home Page or contact one
of the Country Contacts
Last updated: Thu Mar 21 14:24:16 1996
by Austin Tate, AIAI, University of Edinburgh (a.tate@ed.ac.uk)