Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley

The Commonwealth Club programs director should take a lesson from Powell’s book about showing kindness to others.
Colin Powell was in town (June 7) to give a talk (Q&A) and also sign his latest book.
The event was at the Santa Clara Convention center and nearly 2000 people came to hear him. The talk was from noon to 1:15 with book signing immediately after.
No pictures with him were allowed but you could take photos from afar.
Gen Powell likes to talk and he gave very complete answers; it did not sound canned but sincere.
My main complaint is with the Commonwealth Club handlers. These were small women dressed in suits who pushed the folks into lines, grabbed your book (s) and performed the hand-​off to Powell. My time standing in from of the his raised table was perhaps 4 seconds for my one book. He seemed like a appreciative guy and might have actually shook my hand if we were allowed.

A fabulous series of speakers at a much lower rate than you will find at other venues. This year I have heard Jonah Lehrer (fabulous) and Tom Brokaw (great). I’m looking forward to the Van Jones and James Fallows events this spring.

The commonwealth is an organization where you can listen to someone for about 60 min to 90 min. The location, guest, speakers, and rules vary based on the event.
You are just there to listen to a guest, who get questions from a moderator who SELECT his questions and questions from a crowd. Therefore the questions tend to be very simple, and very basic. No hard question. No hard answer from the guest. The conversation is very jovial. You can only applaud or do nothing. It is not a true town hall in the sense that you can actually questions the motive of a guest. If the guest is here to present a book, you can buy the book at the event, and wait in line for an autograph.
I have assist 3 times to the Commonwealth Club.
On 1÷27÷2011 in San Jose, I listened to Dr. VS Ramachandran. While I was glad to see him, I didn’t learn anything new. He was easy to talk to and I was allowed to take a picture shaking his hand.
On 4÷26÷2011 in Palo Alto, I came to listen to Paul Allen, Co-​Founder of Microsoft. This was the only time where nobody was allowed to take pictures with flashes (there were no such rule with Ramachandran and Feinstein). While I waited for 15 min to ask to get a picture, I was asked to leave REPEATEDLY as soon as I asked him for a picture with no flash.
On 4÷27÷11 in San Francisco, I came to see Senator Dianne Feinstein. While she did shake a lot of hands and took a lot of pictures with people, I didn’t have the chance to get her picture. Anyhow, she seemed a lot more open than Paul Allen.
Overall, I think you should go to such event only if you want to see a person live. Otherwise, you may learn very little if you did a bit of research on the guest. The price is very low if you are a student. I don’t think it is worth to join the membership.

The Commonwealth Club brings in lots of interesting speakers from all different spectrums of scoiety, politics, culture, arts, economy. I like the fact is a non partisan & educational organization. Went to see Rick Bayless speak in Palo Alto recently to get some insights on his cooking, his new book and experiences in general. Looks like James Elroy, the writer of LA Confidential is coming around and I might have to check that out amongst a number of other speakers.