CLS West

CLS West 2012: Better Late Than Never

2011-12-12T20:29:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the very late start of registration for CLS West 2012. The good news is we have many of the same great organizers and sponsors again this year. If everyone helps spread the word, we should still be able to get a great turnout again on January 14th. Please sign up now here:

http://clswest2012.eventbrite.com

We were forced to change venues for this year. DeVry University in Daly City would have been happy to have us back, but, the really large room that we were able to use in the past is no longer available. So, we wouldn't fit in their space anymore. The good news is that X.commerce at eBay has stepped forward as our venue sponsor this time. We will be at the eBay Town Hall in San Jose on Saturday, January 14th.

This is actually an upgrade in terms of the available space and the wifi support. The bad news for past attendees coming from San Francisco is there is no longer a direct public transit option to the venue. However, I am hopeful that with enough sponsorship we can afford to rent a shuttle to get folks to/from the nearest Caltrain station. We are not there yet though. So, any help in getting more sponsors would be most appreciated.

That's All Folks, Van Riper

Please RSVP for upcoming meetup - Thu Sep 29

2011-09-16T04:38:00.000-07:00

Please RSVP for upcoming meetup at http://bit.ly/n8DiDO

What: Organic vs Structured approach to community building, which works better? Is it better to let the community decide the structure and purpose of the community, or should a structure be built which fits the model of the kind of community that you envision working best?

When: Thursday, September 29, 2011 @ 7PM
Where: OCSC Sailing School San Francisco Bay @ 1 Spinnaker Way, Berkeley, CA

Current Standings for Topics for the Upcoming CLSWest meetup

2011-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Votes - Topic
20 - How do off-line businesses blend online-community successfully (i.e. co-working spaces)?
17 - Community Managers who have done interesting things
14 - How do successful Developer Relations Programs do it?
11 - Measuring the success of a community
9 - Explore best practices in online community engagment.
5 - Organic vs Structured approach to community building, which works better?
2 - Engage a speaker from The Community Roundtable

For the upcoming meetup*, suggest topics and vote on topics at the CLSWest Idea Board.
RSVP here.
* When: Thursday, September 29, 2011 @ 7PM

Where: OCSC Sailing School San Francisco Bay @ 1 Spinnaker Way, Berkeley, CA

Organic vs Structured approach to community building, which works better?

2011-08-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

What: Organic vs Structured approach to community building, which works better?

When: Thursday, September 29, 2011 @ 7PM

Where: OCSC Sailing School San Francisco Bay @ 1 Spinnaker Way, Berkeley, CA

How: sign up at www.meetup.com/clswest/events/30932411

Organic vs Structured approach to community building, which works better? Is it better to let the community decide the structure and purpose of the community, or should a structure be built which fits the model of the kind of community that you envision working best?

Venue supplied by OCSC Sailing School in the Berkeley Marina.

Which curator has a list of community managers? #octribe #TheCR #CmtyBC #CLSWest #cmgrchat

2011-06-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

I have one list:

@erich13/clswestCommunity Leadership Summit West

And here are the lists which I follow, that are related to community managers:

@TheCR/thecr-experts
Individuals we think know what they are talking about and have spoken with our members
@TheCR/thecrlive-boston
People who have joined us for #TheCRLive in Boston
@cmtybc/cmtybc-members
List of Community BackChannel members

@thomasknoll/octribe
The octribe hashtag is used to make it easier to discover thoughts from the online community tribe
Which curator has a list of community managers?

Notice the new links on the right-hand side of our home page

2011-05-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Did you notice the updates to our clswest.us home page?

If you did not notice the updates, there are two new links on the right-hand side, in the LINKS section.

The 1st new link, "Suggest Meetup Topics", points to our Idea Board. This is where you can pose questions and topics for discussion. These topics can be commented on in-place and these ideas will be the lead-ins for conversations at our meet-ups.

The 2nd new link "Other CLS West Resources" points to a collection of CLS West web components. As our community of community leaders has dispersed components, a collection, or single place seems like a logical need, to facilitate access.

Kind Regards,

Eric "erich13" Herberholz

Community Relations Specialist, Communications Adept, Social Media Strategist, Browser Freak, Disc Golfer - www.linkedin.com/in/herberholz

Community Components

2011-05-31T07:34:00.001-07:00

CLSWest (Community Leadership Summit West) - San Francisco Bay Area

Community Components:

Home: CLSWest.us
Google Group: groups.google.com/group/CLSWest
Meetup: meetup.com/CLSWest

For Ideas for future meetups: CLSWest.uservoice.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/West-Coast-Community-Leadership-Summit/212084873095
Twitter: twitter.com/CLSWest (@CLSWest)

hashtag for CLS West: #clswest

More...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Next Meetup: Thu June 2, 2011 7PM at Microsoft Corporation in Mountain View, CA

2011-05-27T00:17:00.000-07:00

All,

Here are two topics we will start with:

How do Online & Offline Communities Mix?
How to create a successful Power User Program?

You may continue to suggest topics, comment on topics, and vote on topics at the CLSWest Idea Board.

RSVP for the Meetup here: www.meetup.com/CLSWest/events/18299711

Thanks to Kenny Spade, Academic Developer Evangelist at Microsoft, for holding this event at Microsoft Corporation in Mountain View.

Thanks also to Layla Sabourian, organizer of "First Thursday Silicon Valley Online Community/Social Media", for co-hosting this event.

Kind Regards,
Eric "erich13" Herberholz Community Relations Specialist, Communications Adept, Social Media Strategist, Browser Freak, Disc Golfer

CLS West Idea Board

2011-05-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

We continued the dialog at the bi-monthly kickoff meeting on April 28th, 2011 at Adobe Systems in San Francisco. There was an engaging discussion held with a panel on "Why Online Community Metrics Suck: Numbers vs The Human Factor". Panelists were: Susan Tenby (Techsoup.org), Ryan Singer (Stanford Peace Innovation Lab), Scott Rutherford (UserVoice), Khris Loux (AboutEcho.com)

First off, I would like to thank our panelists for their contributions and for their support. There were lots of excellent questions & answers as well as passionate debate on both ends. Lots of people got involved.

So, as was mentioned, we have created a CLSWest Idea Board, that will be used as a topic suggestion box. Here's the link to the CLSWest Idea Board.

I met with Dave Nielsen and we have seeded the Idea Board with some suggested topics. Please contribute your suggestions and vote up the ones that you like. You have up to 5 votes, to use at your discretion.

The CLSWest Idea Board: CLSWest.uservoice.com

Thanks to Evan Hamilton, Uservoice Community Manager, for this use of UserVoice.

Stay tuned for the date, place and location of the next meet-up, being planned for June. The topic will be... well, we don't know yet =:-) ...

So, please suggest and vote up topics ->CLSWest.uservoice.com

If lose track of the above link, you can always refer back to the Community Leadership Summit West home page: CLSWest.jottit.com

Kind Regards,
Eric "erich13" Herberholz

@davenielson @richreader @pcrampton posting their sessions at #clswest

2011-01-15T09:59:00.001-08:00

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Crowd at #clswest acknowledging the sponsors for today's #clswest Unconference

2011-01-15T09:28:00.001-08:00

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Volunteer for CLS West - it's easy, social, and makes you a good person

2011-01-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

Why volunteer for CLS West? Three reasons:

1) It's really pretty easy

We're looking for a lot of volunteers to do very small jobs, rather than a few to do big jobs. Volunteering won't prevent you from getting to attend most sessions, nor will it exhaust you.

2) If you don't, this event won't happen

CLS West is entirely run by volunteers, so if nobody volunteers it won't happen (and there won't be food). There are a number of people doing the hard work for free...the least you can do is volunteer a few minutes of your time to help make this run smoothly.

3) You'll meet people

Networking helps you get jobs, learn more, and make new friends. By volunteering you'll have a great excuse to interact with the organizers, volunteers, and attendees.

Convinced? Shoot me an email at volunteer[at]clswest.us and I'll get you hooked up with a slot.

-Evan Hamilton

Volunteer Coordinator, CLS West

Photo courtesy of Charlie and Kasie Bennett

Calling all Sponsors

2010-11-28T21:39:00.000-08:00

We did get a late start organizing CLS West 2011. As a result, we are behind where we were last year at this time with respect to sponsors for the event. We do have the following Silver Sponsors so far:

We are still hoping to provide lunch during the unconference and dinner at the evening social gathering afterwards. If your company is interested in sponsoring CLS West 2011, you will find information on the cost/benefits of the Platinum/Gold/Silver corporate sponsorship levels here. You can also send inquiries about sponsorship to this email address:

sponsorship [at] clswest [dot] us

Another thing we are doing this year is giving attendees the option to be individual sponsors of the event when they register for the unconference. There will continue to be the free registration option. We added two paid ticket options. For professional community workers, there is a $100 registration option. There is separate option to be a personal sponsor where you can specify the amount of your sponsorship when you sign up. We are recommending $25 for personal sponsors, but, we will gladly accept lesser or greater amounts.

Similar to the way we list our corporate sponsors, there will be an option (you decide when you sign up) for public attribution of our personal and professional sponsors. Anyone that has already registered for a free ticket can still become a personal or professional sponsor of the event. Send us a request to cancel your free registration first though at this email address:

info [at] clswest [dot] us

CLS West 2011

2010-11-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

Plans are in motion for our second annual CLS West unconference. Registration is now open for this free one day unconference. We will be back at DeVry University in Daly City on January 15th, 2011. We also have Kaliya volunteering her professional services to facilitate our unconference again. Please join us!

If you would like to help organize the CLS West unconference or the Community Dinner that evening, you can join our separate Mailing List where the planning discussions take place. You will also find information on the mailing list about the brief (30 minutes) weekly conference calls leading up to the event.

Finally, we need to move fast to get sponsorships lined up. Similar to last year's event, we have sponsorship opportunities at the Platinum ($2000), Gold ($1000) and Silver ($500) levels. Adobe is already on board as our first sponsor at the Silver level. If your company would like to sponsor CLS West 2011, you can contact us here:

sponsorship [at] clswest [dot] us

To call it a Camp or NOT to call it a Camp, That is the Question

2010-07-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

At the recent Community Leadership Summit in Portland, Dave Nielsen proposed that regional unconferences be called Community Leadership Camps rather than Community Leadership Summits. The rationale being that the unconference format we use is closely aligned with the "Camp" brand (FooCamp, BarCamp, CloudCamp, etc...). In practice, I don't think people would spell it all out. So, we are really talking about the term CLCamp. This would then lead to qualification of the regional events by geography appended to that. At least, that is how it tends to work for the other branded camps. In our case, that would mean CLCamp West.

My first reaction was a very strong one against this proposal. However, I have since realized that Dave's proposal only pertains to the unconference events and not all the other activities associated with the existing CLS West brand: Ignites, First Fridays, Special Events, etc...

You see, CLS West is not just an unconference. CLS West is a "community" of community leaders here in the bay area that come together in many different ways. This led to the realization that CLS West needs to live on as the umbrella entity associated with our Ignite events, our First Friday dinner gatherings, and special events like the CLS West Karaoke Holiday Party in the works for December of 2010. =)

So, what we are really talking about is the event name for our next unconference gathering here in the bay area. Regardless of the name, the sponsoring entity/organization will be CLS West. With that in mind, the possibilities that I see for the event name are:

CLS West
CLSCamp West
CLCamp West

Personally, I don't have a strong need to associate our unconference event with the "Camp" brand. I believe the advantages of that association are outweighed by the weakening of the association with the "CLS" brand. Which is why my first choice would be to leave it alone and have our main event simply use our umbrella title of CLS West. However, I could live with incorporating the "Camp" brand into the name as long as the "CLS" brand is kept intact. This means I would be okay with CLSCamp West.

What I am strongly opposed to is calling it a CLCamp. This completely removes the "CLS" brand association. For me, the "CLS" brand represents the concept of bringing community builders together in a vendor-neutral environment. It just so happens that the first ever CLS event was an unconference. Through the activities of CLS West over the past 6 months, we have demonstrated that the "CLS" brand as described here can be effectively applied to other event formats too.

So, now you know my opinions on the matter. Although I spearheaded the formation of CLS West and continue to take a leadership role in the community, I realize that I am here to serve the community. The best way to serve the community in this situation is to solicit your input into the final decision. To that end, I have created this simple online poll where everyone that is a member of CLS West can vote and be counted. We will implement the community's decision whatever it may be.

That's All Folks!

Ignite CLS West: YouTube Channel

2010-02-18T23:41:00.001-08:00

For those of you that missed Ignite CLS West, the videos of the talks are now available on our very own YouTube Channel. In order of delivery that night, we have:

Peter Kellner: Befriending a Corporate Giant
Ann Winblad: What's in a name?
Carlos Hernandez: Social Media for the Uncomfortable
Tammy Baker: Start a Community Event: Ready, Set, Go.
Robert Stephenson: Program for the Future: CoLABoration 2010
Sudha Jamthe: Extending your community from web to social ecosystem
Vinnie Lauria: Social Alchemy - How to grow a community from 5 to 5,000
Nancy Frishberg: Keys to Success as a Volunteer Organization
Karsten Wade: The Open Source Way: Creating and nurturing communities of contributors
Mary Vincent: Green Software - Case Studies and Opportunities for You and the Planet
Dave Nielsen: The Unpanel - One way to get your unconference started
Kaliya: We are not at WAR! How the Identity Community is Collaborating in 2010

I am confident that you will find each talk is well worth the 5 minute investment required to check them out. My personal favorite is Sudha Jamthe's talk. If nothing else, you must see her assertion that "I am not funny" at the start of her talk. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I was definitely ROTFLOL and I was not the only one. =)

That's All Folks, Van

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

First Friday: South Bay

2010-01-31T23:55:00.001-08:00

Announcing a new Meetup for Community Leadership Summit West!

When: Friday, February 5, 2010 6:00 PM

Krillion, Inc.
607A W. Dana Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
650-965-0222

Please join us for the very first CLS West First Friday dinner. We will be ordering Chinese takeout from Cafe Yulong and eating at Krillion in downtown Mountain View. Start time is listed as 6pm and people are welcome to arrive then, but, the food will be arriving around 6:30pm. When you RSVP, there will be a chance to recommend a main dish that you would like included in our order. Here is an online menu for Cafe Yulong. This first dinner will be paid for out of the surplus funding for CLS West.

The Krillion office is near the Hair By Heinz salon at the corner of Dana and View streets. The entrance to Krillion is just around the corner from the salon with the entrance actually being on View street despite the street address being 607A Dana. There are several parking lots nearby including one right across the street. There is also plenty of street parking in the area. The location is also 3 short blocks from the combined Caltrain and Light Rail station in downtown Mountain View.

Primarily, this is an opportunity to join other experienced community leaders and organizers to discuss, debate and explore the many avenues of building strong community. At this very first one though, I would like to gather feedback on what people liked about our recent CLS West unconference *and* suggestions for how we can improve it next year.

After dinner, those that are interested can keep the conversation going over drinks at a nearby bar. The tentative plan is to move the gathering to the Tied House at 954 Villa Street from 8pm to 10pm. It is also an option to skip the dinner and join us afterwards at the bar. Unless you are joining us at Krillion before 8pm, it is recommended that you check the @CLSWest twitter stream for any updates on last minute changes in the group's plans before joining us for drinks.

Finally, we are looking for First Friday organizers in San Francisco and the East Bay. I could also use a co-organizer for First Fridays in the South Bay. This is something we will be doing on a monthly basis going forward. The expectation is the organizers for a given locality would become assistant organizers for our CLS West meetup group and arrange a First Friday Dinner once every three months as we rotate through these three locales. If this is something you would like to volunteer for, please contact Van Riper. Thanks!

Learn more here:
http://www.meetup.com/clswest/calendar/12480930/

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

We are NOT Family

2010-01-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

The theme for our first CLS West event was "We Are Family." During the event proper, there were no complaints registered about this theme by anyone in attendance. However, I have since learned that several local community managers chose not to attend primarily because of this theme and in particular the use of the word "Family." If I had known that earlier, I would have never chosen this as our theme for the event. It is ironic that my intent in choosing that theme was to communicate that this event was open to all and it actually communicated the exact opposite to some people.

I still personally have no problem with the theme as I expressed it, but, I can not control how others choose to interpret it. I subscribe to the hippocratic oath principle of "do no harm." Although I meant no harm, it would be harmful to the CLS West Community to continue to use messaging that refers to "Family." Per my original intent of communicating that CLS West is open to all, the right thing to do is to refrain from that kind of messaging around CLS West activities going forward.

To that end, I have deleted the @CLSWest/family twitter list after first migrating everyone on that list to a new @CLSWest/community twitter list. If you use twitter and you would like to be on our community list, simply retweet this @CLSWest tweet and you will get automatically added to the list within 24 hours.

Also, I had discussed earlier on the CLS West Google Group the idea of having some informal Friday evening gatherings about once a month going forward and referred to them as CLS West ~~Family~~ Fridays. We will be moving forward with these informal monthly gatherings, but, the name has been changed to CLS West First Fridays and they will be scheduled on the first Friday of each month. The first one will be on Friday, February 5th. I've already setup a CLS West Meetup Group you can join to hear about CLS West First Fridays. Once you have joined the meetup group, you can suggest First Friday venues here. You can vote for suggested venues there too.

I already suggested a first gathering in downtown Mountain View for February 5th. The intent is to rotate these gatherings to locations in the East Bay, San Francisco and elsewhere based on your input. I hope to see you all at some future CLS West First Friday.

That's All Folks!

Our Sponsors

2010-01-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

There were a few last minute sponsors that need to be included in our final sponsor banner. CLS West was a huge success this past weekend and it would not have been possible without the support of all these sponsors:

Platinum: PayPal X
Gold: Guidewire
Silver: Adobe, Meetup, Oracle, O'Reilly
Venue: DeVry University, Google
In-Kind: Brisbane Printing, unconference.net
Book: Innovation Games, Packt Publishing, Peachpit, Pearson Education, Wrox

If you run into anyone from one of our sponsors, please let them know how much you appreciated their support of CLS West 2010. Thanks!

To All Our CLS West Sponsors: Thank You!

2010-01-08T13:46:00.001-08:00

With the late addition of Guidewire as a Gold Sponsor, we have reached our funding target for this event. Due to the combined generosity of all our sponsors listed above, we will be providing a delightful Indian buffet catered lunch at the unconference. Plus, we can cover the costs for professional high definition recordings of all the Ignite talks in the evening. Not to mention the morning/afternoon coffee, some healthy snacks and plenty of beer at the evening Ignite. Nor all the free books we will be giving away thanks to all the book publishers supporting this event. CLS West is less than 24 hours away starting with badge pickup at onsite registration at 9am. See everyone bright and early tomorrow at our first annual CLS West gathering.

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Yeah! 25 More Free Tickets

2010-01-05T23:08:00.001-08:00

We could still use a few more sponsors, but, we have a contingency plan to cover the costs in place now for an additional 25 tickets. If you were holding off from inviting someone else due to the event being sold out, now is the time to let them know about the event. They can register here:

http://clswest.eventbrite.com

That's All Folks!

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

No More Free Tickets Without More Sponsors

2009-12-31T17:35:00.001-08:00

The good news is we reached our original target of 150 people registering for the West Coast Community Leadership Summit (CLS West) today. The bad news is that, without some additional last minute financial sponsorship, we will have to start charging $20 per ticket for late registration next week. We have some sponsorship leads, but, most of them can only be followed up after the holiday weekend has passed. You can expect some additional tickets to be available one way or another sometime on Wednesday, January 6th. Check back here regularly or follow @CLSWest for updates on additional tickets next week.

We are still accepting sponsors at the Gold ($1000) and Silver ($500) levels. The sponsorship levels and the associated benefits are outlined in this one page PDF document. You can also contact us directly with inquiries about CLS West sponsorship at:

sponsorship [at] clswest [dot] us

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

CLS West Theme: We Are Family

2009-12-25T16:21:00.000-08:00

Not surprisingly, I found my inspiration for the theme of our first West Coast Community Leadership Summit in Jono Bacon's new book: The Art of Community. Of course, I ordered a copy of the book as soon as it was available and have been reading it in small doses over time since then. This past week, I was reading chapter 10 which covers creating and running events when I found our theme in the section entitled Building Family Values:

"Great communities are built on great relationships. When people really feel a sense of belonging they are enjoying not only being productive but swimming in the tide of your community’s personality. When you put productive people together in a room (real or virtual) and they feel a sense of family, your community will be inundated with belonging."

I don't expect everyone attending CLS West to immediately feel that we are all part of one big San Francisco Bay Area community leadership family. However, our main goal with this first CLS West gathering is to begin to foster that sense of family. Thus, our theme for this year: We Are Family.

P.S. This is by no means intended as a sales pitch for Jono's book. It is freely available online to enjoy, share and modify under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike Non-Commercial license. If you can not afford to buy the book, you will find the link to the free ebook PDF download at the bottom of this page. In my opinion, it is a must read for people who are serious about community management.

Check Out Our Attendee Photo Gallery

2009-12-20T19:21:00.001-08:00

We decided to create an Attendee Photo Gallery to make it easier to connect the names with the faces during CLS West. It is already seeded with the photos of the event organizers and the unconference speakers. Check it out:

http://bit.ly/clswest-gallery

If you like, you can upload your own photo to the wiki and add yourself to this photo gallery. Please be sure to insert it alphabetically by first name into the existing gallery. If you would rather not do it yourself, Mark Terranova has volunteered to help get everyone's photo into the gallery. Mark will be handling email requests to add people to the photo gallery sent to this address:

people [at] clswest [dot] us

It could be as simple as sending us a link to your Twitter account or your LinkedIn public profile. That would be enough information for us to use your Twitter or LinkedIn profile picture and link your name below the photo back to the corresponding account. Of course, you can provide a specific link for your entry in the gallery even if you point us to your Twitter or LinkedIn profile for your gallery picture. If you do choose to send in a photo via link or email attachment, an image with square proportions and at least 73x73 pixels in size is required.

That's All Folks, Van

P.S. The reason we didn't include Facebook as one of the easy options is due to the fact profile pictures on Facebook are not constrained to square proportions. We are trying to avoid the need for any additional image processing on our part when handling requests to add people to the gallery.

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Final Speaker Roster for Ignite CLS West

2009-12-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

In conjunction with the CLS West Unconference, this community-themed Ignite is being held on the very same day in the evening. This will be a private event for CLS West attendees and their invited guests. If you are a community leader in the bay area, you should consider signing up for both events.

If you just like the idea of a community leadership ignite event, you should find someone you know in community leadership that is attending the unconference on our attendee list and ask them to invite you as their guest to the Ignite. The community leaders giving Ignite Talks on January 9th are:

All of our speakers except for Ann Winblad and Robert Stephenson can be followed from this Ignite CLS West Speakers twitter list. They are also listed in the CLS West People Photo Gallery on our wiki. Check it out!

Busy Week on the Sponsorship Front

2009-12-11T19:14:00.001-08:00

The big news is the Adobe User Group Program run by Rachel Luxemburg has signed on as a Silver Sponsor. Marsee Henon from the O'Reilly User Group Program has been busy lining up several other book publishers as In-Kind Sponsors too. In addition to the O'Reilly books that Marsee is sending, she has arranged for Packt Publishing, Pearson Education's User Group Program and Peachpit Publishing to all donate books to CLS West.

We could still use a few more Gold ($1000) and/or Silver Sponsors ($500). At our current sponsorship level, we will have to cap registration at 125 people in order to be able to cover both the CLS West Unconference and Ignite CLS West expenses and still keep these as completely free events.

We already have 90 people registered to attend and we will definitely hit the 125 limit fairly soon at our current sign up rate. I would hate to have to limit participation or charge attendees due to a lack of sponsorship support. Our Sponsorship Sheet outlines the various levels of sponsorship available and the sponsor benefits for each one. If you have any leads/questions in regards to sponsorship, you can contact us at:

sponsorship[at]clswest[dot]us

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Wow! 9 Adobe User Group Leaders Signed Up for CLS West Today!

2009-12-07T18:38:00.001-08:00

I met Keith Sutton at Silicon Valley Code Camp in October of this year. Keith runs the most excellent Silicon Valley Flex User Group. I invited him the other day to join me at CLS West on January 9th at DeVry University in Daly City. Today, he signed up and he managed to get 8 more people all involved in the local Adobe User Group (AUG) communities to sign up with him. I did something similar inviting local Java User Group Leaders to CLS West, but, the solidarity of the AUG Leaders all signing up on the same day is quite impressive. I look forward to meeting them all at CLS West. So, are you involved in community leadership locally? If so, you should join us on January 9th and invite your peers in community leadership to sign up too. Registration is free and takes just a minute to complete online here:

http://clswest.eventbrite.com

You should see who all is coming and who our sponsors are. It is going to be a great community event. What are you waiting for?

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

Joining the CLS West Mailing List

2009-12-06T08:35:00.000-08:00

Joining the CLS West mailing list is simple. All you need to do is enter your email address into the following box, click the Subscribe button and then click on the link that is emailed to you to confirm your subscription.

To email the list, send email to:

clswest AT googlegroups DOT com

I want to stress that the CLS West Mailing List is to be used for discussions of regional community leadership issues specific to the Western Region of the United States. For example, the communications around the organization and planning of CLS West are a perfect example of what this mailing list is to be used for. Conversely, any general discussions relevant to the global community of community leaders belong on the International CLS Mailing List.

Finally, I want to assure everyone that we have setup our CLS West Mailing List with an eye towards spam prevention. We have post moderation turned on for initial posts from new members. Our mailing list moderators will be banning any new users attempting to spam the list. This also means your own first post to the group could be slightly delayed in going out. If that happens, you can contact us at:

info AT clswest DOT us

Ignite CLS West Speakers Announced . . . . . . . More Sponsors Still Needed

2009-12-05T19:42:00.001-08:00

I thought it was about time to give an update on our plans for Ignite CLS West. We have confirmed speakers for 8 of the 12 available speaker slots. We plan to have the remaining 4 speakers confirmed within the next week or so. Follow @IgniteCLSWest on Twitter to get real time updates. There is also an Ignite Speakers Twitter List associated with this Ignite. The confirmed speakers so far are:

Ann Winblad - SDForum

Carlos Hernandez - Social Media for the Uncomfortable

Dave Nielsen - CloudCamp

Grant Bowman - Ubuntu California

Kaliya Hamlin - Internet Identity Workshop

Leslie Hawthorn - Google Summer of Code

Peter Kellner - Silicon Valley Code Camp

Sudha Jamthe - PayPal X Developer Network

Although attendance at this Ignite will be limited to CLS West Attendees and their guests, we do plan to live stream the talks on the web. Plus, we are hoping to professionally record all the Ignite Talks for later viewing online. However, we could really use some additional financial sponsorship help to make that happen. Sponsorship opportunities are still available at the Gold ($1000) and Silver ($500) levels. If you would like to be a CLS West Sponsor or can provide potential sponsorship contacts at local companies, please contact us.

Last but not least, we have official Ignite CLS West Schwag available for purchase online. I am not talking about low-grade marijuana (not that there is anything wrong with that ;-) ). Check out our Ignite CLS West Cafe Press Store.

That's All Folks, Van

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

2009-11-09T00:51:00.000-08:00

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.

West Coast Community Leadership Summit

2009-10-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

We will be having a West Coast Community Leadership Summit (AKA CLS West) event in January. It will start with a one day unconference similar in format to the first Community Leadership Summit that was held this past summer. The unconference will go from roughly 9am to 5pm on Saturday, January 9th. It will be held at DeVry University in Daly City.

In addition to easy access by car (with free parking at DeVry), it is one short block from the Daly City BART station. People will be on their own from 5pm to 7pm for dinner. I recommend taking BART into the city for dinner. After dinner, we will be reconvening at the Google office in downtown San Francisco from 7pm to 10pm for a Community Ignite event. CLS West attendees will be allowed to invite 1-2 guests each to join us at the Community Ignite.

Both venues are confirmed for January 9th, 2010, thanks to the efforts of Irene Koehler (DeVry) and Stephanie Liu (Google). We could use some more help with the planning and preparations for CLS West. Please join this CLS West group in order to be involved in the planning over the next three months:

http://groups.google.com/group/clswest

That's All Folks!