Meet Matthias Blomme, an Integration Specialist from Integration Designers, who has held the IBM Champion title since 2024. He is recognized for his ongoing advocacy, expertise, and leadership in the IBM integration community.
His favorite IBM product is App Connect Enterprise. Matthias recently attended the IBM App Connect Early Experience week at Hursley and has been a regular attendee for over a decade. He enjoys the networking value the event provides, facilitating direct interaction with the minds behind products: developers, architects, project managers, and more. If you want to know more about his experience, check out his blog, “ACE, AI, and Why You Should’ve Been in Hursley” on the IBM TechXchange community website.
Out of all types of advocacy, Matthias’ favorites are community support and blogging. Engaging with the community gives him the chance to learn from others and offer his own assistance. Through blogging, he’s able to explore topics in greater detail. One blog that he’s written, ACE BAR Build Commands – Unraveling the Differences, is one he’s particularly proud of, for two reasons. First, a colleague received very positive feedback on the piece from his customer, who was proud to say it was written by someone on his own team. Second, Matthias had an open support case with IBM for a very specific build exception, and the support team unknowingly pointed him his own blog post, not realizing he had written it. From a broader work perspective, he’s proud of helping a customer completely redesign their packaging and deployment process, set up a full CI/CD pipeline from scratch, and simultaneously transition from on-prem to cloud deployments.
Matthias said if he wasn’t working in tech, he’d be a personal trainer. He stays up-to-date on training and nutrition science and enjoys sharing tips with friends. Just like his work as an IBM Champion, Matthias would use his knowledge to teach and support others in his community.
When asked what drives him to give back to the technology community and be an IBM Champion, Matthias said: “Because it's a community. I've always enjoyed helping others when I can. Initially, that support was limited to my own team or nearby teams. But through the wider community, I’ve been able to extend that reach. It’s not just about giving back—it's also fascinating to see what others are working on. Sometimes that inspires me to try new things or look at problems from a different angle. It’s a true give-and-take experience.”
Lightning round: