The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

We are fortunate here in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are many vibrant user communities in this area. Looking just within the local Java developer community, there are active groups in San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto and Mountain View. That doesn't even include the more specialized groups like the recently formed JavaFX User Group or the Bay Area Scala Enthusiasts. This is just the groups that I am aware of and just within the sphere of Java development. There are similar clusters of developer user groups around other technologies in this area too.

All these individual groups are great in their own right, but, I truly believe there is the potential for some real synergies where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is why I enthusiastically participated in the first ever Community Leadership Summit this past summer. It is also why I have taken the lead in organizing the West Coast Community Leadership Summit (CLS West) coming up on January 9th, 2010. It will be a one day unconference for community leaders/managers/evangelists at DeVry University in Daly City. The event will be free, but, we are asking people to register in advance here.

That is not all. Ignite CLS West that same evening is taking place at the Google office in downtown San Francisco. Our community themed Ignite is open just to CLS West attendees and their invited guests. Kaliya Hamlin, Leslie Hawthorn, Sudha Jamthe, and Grant Bowman are already on board to give Ignite Talks.

We are grateful for the venue sponsorship being provided by DeVry University during the day for the unconference and by Google in the evening for the Ignite. We are also thankful for the financial support of our Silver Sponsors: the O'Reilly User Group Program and the Oracle Technology Network. Sponsorships are still available at the Platinum ($2000), Gold ($1000) and Silver ($500) levels.

For Twitter users, you can follow @CLSWest and @IgniteCLSWest on twitter. There are also Twitter lists for the CLS West Organizers and our Ignite Speakers.

Finally, it is my hope that our CLS West gathering in January will inspire the formation of a meta-community locally for community leaders providing mutual support and synergistic collaborations going forward for years to come. Please join me at the inaugural West Coast Community Leadership Summit and be a part of making this vision a reality.