At our last FMPUG-MN meeting we had the privilege of having Stephen Gallagher (Senior Director, Americas Field Sales Systems Engineering) and Mark Ringo (Business Account Manager, Midwest) from FileMaker Inc. speak with us about the state of FileMaker while they were in town.
We talked about the FileMaker Business Alliance (FBA) that now has over 1,000 members worldwide. Another helpful resource is Technet that has 38,000 members.
They encouraged us to take the FileMaker certification exam. You can prepare by studying the FileMaker Training Series materials, become familiar with the FileMaker Help system, and building a good database so you have practical experience. The exam is great at determining if you have the competencies required to be a good developer.
We also discussed the value of FileMaker DevCon (Developer’s Conference).
Steven suggested that we engage or contact them directly in sales situations that have good potential and in reporting bugs that need to be escalated quickly for resolution.
Stephen shared about an amazing FileMaker solution that was created very quickly to assist medical personnel in Japan after to the Tsunami hit. It allowed them to match hospital beds around the country with people in need. It filled a critical need effectively in a short amount of time to really help thousands people.
We clarified the idea that our group FMPUG-MN though called a FileMaker USER Group is really a FileMaker DEVELOPER Group. We assist people with education and resources that are interested in learning how to build effective FileMaker solutions. As we are a group of professionals we may consider having our meetings during the day.
All in all it was a great meeting with valuable information and networking with other FileMaker developers. Thanks to everyone that came.
Leave a Reply