OMG’s Business Ecology Initiative (BEI) Reaches 250 Member Mark
Discussion groups are now forming, accepting participants

Needham, MA, USA – September 14, 2009 – OMG’s™ Business Ecology™ Initiative (BEI), sponsored by IBM, has reached the 250-member mark in the less than six months since its launch at IBM IMPACT, and at Forrester IT Forum 2009 in May 2009. Together these companies will advance the concepts, techniques and benefits of Business Ecology. The BEI is also announcing the formation of its first discussion groups, which will be conducted via teleconference and quarterly in-person meetings. Gail Raynus, President/Principle Consultant, ShareDynamics, will be leading “The Chief Business Ecologist Working Group” discussion. For more information on joining the BEI and participating in the discussions, please visit http://www.business-ecology.org/ac-pr. 

The BEI, through advocacy programs, educational events, relevant standards and resources, brings together best practices in process management to develop and deliver on Actionable Architecture™. The Initiative is focused on erasing the artificial lines between business and Information Technology (IT) so that IT becomes a ubiquitous, integral and vital asset to the company and leads decision-making, structural change and enterprise-wide quality initiatives, drives efficiency and revenue, and provides measurable, clear return on investment. Industry analysts have noticed the trend towards Business Ecology. Forrester calls this “Lean BPM.”

“The economic downturn is highlighting the need for what we’ve coined as ‘Lean Process Improvement’ – leveraging BPM to eliminate bloat from operational business processes,” said Clay Richardson, senior analyst, Forrester Research. “Business Process professionals and executives are hungry for Lean process frameworks and standards that maximize business value, while minimizing corporate waste. We expect interest to continue and increase rapidly as the Lean Process Improvement space evolves.”

First Discussion Groups Forming
The BEI is now forming various working groups/discussion groups. The first discussion group will be “The Chief Business Ecologist Working Group,” which will take place on the third Friday of each month from 1:00-2:00 ET beginning on Friday, September 18. Call details will be posted on the BEI website. The purpose of this discussion group is to collaborate on ways “we as a community can better define and promote the concept of Business Ecology and the role of CIO as a Business Ecologist.” Topics of discussion include:

• What is a Business Eco System?
• Value creation, Management, and Sustainment within Business Eco System
• Business drivers and Business Critical Success Factors
• The S-Curve
• Business Eco Architecture
• Tools of Business Ecology

Additional working/discussion groups are being planned and will be announced shortly. Call schedules will be posted on the BEI website.

Business Ecology™ Initiative
OMG is the leading proponent of the drive towards Business Ecology through the Actionable Architecture™, which will provide details on how to create sustainable business processes. This movement requires standards, but also relies on a stronger relationship and communication mechanism for IT and business alignment. OMG uses its proven ability to bring communities together and motivate new initiatives through offerings beyond standards work and into industry collaboration forums such as the SOA Consortium, BPM Consortium and GCIO.

OMG recognizes that there must be a way to measure, model and drive the effectiveness of this transition to closer IT and business alignment through standard maturity models. OMG supports this through our growing work in maturity model definitions such as the Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM) and the forthcoming Green Computing Maturity Model (GCMM).

As standards continue to play an instrumental role, OMG will continue its standards work and play a key role in defining new standards that support business and IT alignment. OMG currently has more than 100 standards programs underway.

Outreach
The BEI conducts outreach and advocacy programs around Business Ecology and the Actionable Architecture. In addition, the Business Ecology Advisory Panel is being formed and will comprise leading CEOs, CIOs, COOs, Analysts and Visionaries from both technical and business backgrounds. This panel will assist in analyzing market trends and insure that BEI work is in line with the business needs of IT. IBM will be a participant in the Panel.

For more information on membership and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ken Berk, vice president business development at ken.berk@omg.org or +1-781-444 0404.

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About OMG
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium that in 2009 is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, including: Real-time, Embedded and Specialized Systems, Analysis & Design, Architecture-Driven Modernization and Middleware and an even wider range of industries, including: Business Modeling and Integration, C4I, Finance, Government, Green Computing, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal Compliance, Life Sciences Research, Manufacturing Technology, Robotics, Software-Based Communications and Space.

OMG’s modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG’s middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.

More information about OMG can be found at www.omg.org.  OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA.

Note to editors: MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, XMI, UML, UML logo and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, Business Ecology, Actionable Architecture, SOA Consortium, SysML, SoaML, MOF, MDA Logos, BPMN, OCRES, OCUP, OCEB, Green Computing Maturity Model, GCMM and Unified Modeling Language are trademarks of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Edited by Stephanie