Wide Format Imaging

The Xinet Users Group (XUG) today announced the election of Eric Hegdahl as president of the independent nonprofit association. Hegdahl, the Marketing Technology Officer at Graphic Systems Group (considered to be the largest production agency in the U.S.), brings over 15 years of technical and prepress experience in the graphic arts and printing industry (and two years on the board of XUG) to the post. As the name suggests, the organization exists to support users of Xinet workflow systems. Xinet has developed image server software for the graphic arts, communications, publishing and printing industries since 1991. Now the de facto standard among advertising agencies worldwide, the Xinet WebNative platform is the only digital asset management system that offers a dynamic production workflow toolset.

XUG was the brainchild of Kenny Kirsch, of Xinet integrator NAPC (in Waltham, Mass), who put together the first users conference in New York City in May 2005. Attendance exceeded expectations by almost four times the initial estimate. Afterwards, Kirsch drew together a group of enthusiastic Xinet users to pick up the idea and form an ongoing Xinet Users Group. He then handed off the project to the users and stepped back so that the group could run as a grassroots organization, completely independent of any vendor. Since then, XUG has built a solid foundation thanks to the efforts of volunteer Xinet users including past President Michael Iulo and Director Sam Moore. Recently the Xinet Users Group launched a website at www.xinetusersgroup.org to help Xinet users all over the world (estimated at over 2,000 users) communicate and share helpful information with each other.

“As a forward looking organization, XUG intends to build a strong international community of Xinet users who can speak freely both with each other and with the vendors who serve them,” notes new XUG president Hegdahl. “By sharing ideas, prioritizing needs, recommending real-world solutions and making sure that each new company implementing a Xinet solution doesn't feel it has to reinvent the wheel, XUG will deliver increasing value. We also plan to feed information upstream as well. As XUG gathers field information concerning Xinet users’ needs [in terms of product revisions, future integration, and workflow requirements], we hope to assist Xinet and other third-party vendors to prioritize their product developments. Eventually XUG hopes to represent and assist all Xinet installations with a vibrant, active membership program that will harness the collective knowledge of the Xinet community and become an advocate to help drive innovation in the product and its applications.”

Related:

• www.graphicsys.com