Season's Greetings!

The start of 2010 marks the second decade of continuous leadership and innovation for your global Cluster Action/Research Networks.

The original focus and direction of your clusters was knowledge management (KM). This focus was important to transform smoothly from the 20th Century's mechanical, process engineering mindset to the complex knowledge ecosystems of the 21st Century. Because of the enormous importance of networks, markets, media, integration, connection and complexity to people, knowledge, business, economics, government, the environment and civil society, a number of  new, major knowledge clusters have emerged, in addition to KM.

As a member of your global clusters and action/research networks, you will be invited to activate and participate in your low-cost, high-value vertical clusters. Meanwhile, clusters always take this time of year to strengthen your community vision, renew its commitment to you and reinforce its mission, goals and objectives. 

Clusters were founded in the 1990s on one principle only: deliberate, periodic transorganizational collaboration and diverse, authentic conversation is good for people and great for business.

A decade of clusters has proven open conversations in group settings, in attractive surroundings, at low-cost and with high standards drives innovation and prosperity in the knowledge economy. For participants, sponsors and speakers, clusters achieve fundamental advancements in knowledge through authentic conversation. Higher-order connections nourish collective intelligence and breakaway innovation. Cluster participation propels lasting transformation through diverse interactions and new relationships.

Clusters themes are future-focused and practical. They are set by leaders and innovators not by the establishment or bureaucrats. Specifically, your cluster themes precede the typical content found at expensive, hype-fueled PowerPoint conferences. Clusters provision the essential content, context and connections for sustained innovation.

Sponsors' first and only priority are on Next Practices – fast moving, critical methods and technologies poised to have an enormous business and enterprise impact. Enterprise Next Practices include collective intelligence, social media, network analysis, business visualization, open mashups, prediction markets, complexity science and organizational narrative.

By in large you will not find these themes in any depth at your dull, commercial conferences. Cluster's specifically focus on early-stage innovations. This allows participants to pursue, accelerate and achieve a competitive advantage through confident, timely adoption of innovative Next Practices.

In 1998, Cluster sponsors published their built-to-last foundational charter. It has not changed in a decade. It is as follows –

"Clusters are fluid, organic, rhythmic collaboration and open action/research networks. They are ad hoc, spontaneous and proximate conversation. Clusters are 100% led by participants. Colonizing themes in a day-long conversation is your only modality. Regional sponsors vary from quarter to quarter. Governance originates from the network only. Above all, Clusters have the highest standards for venues, speakers, meals, participants and thought leadership. The modest participant sponsorship nourishes the network and provides sustainability, independence, rhythm and continuity."

Clusters are 100% conceived, led, governed and funded by participants, sponsors and stakeholders. They are open, non-commercial and not for-profit. All are welcome. The modest tuition and sponsor tuition are to conduct events and nurture the global research network on behalf of participants and sponsors.

See below for your next seminal cluster and community gathering.

Enterprise Mashups Summit: High Velocity Integration

Your action/research network clusters have been tracking the traditional KM and establishment conferences worldwide. There is great encouragement they are advancing the enormous importance of high-velocity enterprise integration to business. Enterprise mashups sharply improve knowledge ecologies, drive down costs, develop agility and, above all, foment fast-moving innovation. Your Enterprise Mashup Summit leads the holy grail of enterprise computing: bridging secure, institutional IT and fast-moving business requirements for timely and effective business applications.  

Enterprise Mashups are application hybrids combining content and functions from more than one existing source to create powerful applications, integrated Web experiences and expanded customer value networks. Mashups are created by combining internal sources such as enterprise data with other internal or external resources. Mashups are commonly created when different application program interfaces (API) are combined or 'mashed' to create an entirely new application.

Mashups are the smarter-faster-better-younger sibling of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). While SOA was created by and for IT, the focus of enterprise mashups and your summit is squarely on the business user and line-of-business computing requirements.

Enterprise Mashups are the fastest growing corporate computing ecosystem on the Web by far. Mashups are social, role-based, network-centric, complex, distributed and essential to all knowledge-based networks, models and businesses.

Mashups are the essential method to enhance customer experience, to drive productivity growth (innovation) and achieve fundamental advancements in knowledge-based competitiveness. Customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders gain enormous benefits using enterprise mashups to create new applications that improve customer  experience, low-costs and achieve favorable outcomes overall. Mashups are critical to knowledge management, collective intelligence networks, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and customer experience and intimacy.

By participating in your cluster, you will gain specific advantages and benefits including developing relationships with experts, practitioners, vendors and thought leaders. You will help build the roadmap for enterprise mashups. In addition to achieving a highly successful bootstrap of your enterprise mashup strategy you will gain a deeper, practical understanding of applied IT in enterprise and customer networks.

Secure, online cluster registration from the event website is open. Registration in advance is required for all clusters.

Open Enterprise Mashups - Secure Registration

Action/Research Clusters Closing Remarks for the Decade

In the past, leaders were thought to have specific, ascribed properties. Leadership, it was thought, was just exercising the attributes of a leader. Now, fortunately, that thinking and model is forever obsolete.

Leaders today are revealed, propelled by relationships. Leadership excellence inhabits connections. The quality and nature of the leader’s relationships contribute to success and prosperity. Without relationships there can be no leader, without networks of relationships, there can be no leadership.

Organizational excellence inhabits patterns of connections. These patterns are networks. It is within these high value networks, in the roles, links and exchanges, where productivity, innovation, invention and excellence thrive.

Developing personally and organizationally means conscious, deliberate and intentional movement away from embedded ties to investment and pursuit of new connections and diverse relationships.

Intelligence originates from developing and nurturing new connections. For over a decade, your global action/research clusters and retreats have been and are specifically configured to aid participants to discover and breed new relationships.

The outcome is better leaders, stronger leadership and improved performance overall.
The natural ebb and flow in the Cluster ecosystem accommodates the formation of productive relationships for all. For 2010, and the second Cluster decade, we wish your networks, patterns, markets and relationships the most success and prosperity.