Calling All Sponsors

Our fourth year is shaping up to be the best CLS West yet. Check out our new Campsite! CLS West 2013 would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors:

With one week left before CLS West 2013, we could really use some additional sponsorship to cover the meal costs. What makes CLS West extra special are the community networking lunch and dinner included in the event. We would hate to have to cancel the dinner due to lack of sponsorship.

Sponsorship is still possible at the Platinum ($2000), Gold ($1000), Silver ($500) and Bronze ($250) levels. The sponsorship benefits at each level are noted on our Campsite and in this PDF one pager. Contact information for Dave Nielsen, our sponsorship chair, is provided in both places too.

That's All Folks!

CLS West 2013: Same place, New date!

eBay will once again host us in their Town Hall conference center in San Jose on Saturday, February 2nd. This is the perfect space for an unconference of our size. You can register here:

clswest2013.eventbrite.com

We will follow the same format as last year with an unconference during the day and an evening dinner/social event all in the same space. The good news is they have great guest wifi and there is plenty of free parking at this location. The bad news is there is no Caltrain or BART station within walking distance. However, it is a short half mile walk from Component Station on VTA Light Rail.

This year, we are charging $10 for general registration to cover a portion of the event cost. You can still register for free as long as you sign up to do one hour of volunteer work during the event. This way, everyone will be contributing in a small way towards the support of the event.

And speaking of contributing to the event, we have opportunities for financial sponsorship at the Platinum ($2000), Gold ($1000), Silver ($500), and Bronze ($250) levels. If your company would like to be a CLS West 2013 sponsor, contact us at sponsorship@clswest.us.

CLS West 2012: Better Late Than Never

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

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

• 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

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

Posted via email from CLS West's Posterous

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!