The announcement by IBM this week that they have entered the community
consulting business, is a wake-up call for organizational learning that
the CoP movement is catching fire (at last!).
Here is their announcement:
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/data/knowledge/practices/details.html
and a late 1999 article on their approach. Somehow I found this CoP
attention to be slightly mechanistic and a little too prescriptive (just
my bias?).
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/data/knowledge/media/cop.pdf
We seem still be missing a deep understanding of what happens inside those
successful communities.
What practices help to build identity and still keep the boundaries
permeable for new members and ideas?
How exactly do CoPs share awareness (business intelligence
gathering?), validate, critique and build their internal knowledge.
What approaches allow vibrant CoPs to recognize, craft and
distribute critical distinctions and gather working heuristics?
What are the foundations that encourage radical experimentation,
allow falling forward, enable a community to reflect and capture
double loop learning?
How do CoPs contribute to an organizations ability to self-organize
in the face of growing complexity?, what is the nature of their strange
attraction?
How can we best guide aspirant communities along the road to
creative, continuous, generative learning?
Another recent article on CoPs by Eric Raimy.
http://www.hrexecutive.com/cover.htm
Would greatly appreciate your comments.
Denham Grey
http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?DenhamGrey
Annealing my way to greater understanding please join in.
--Denham Grey <dgrey@iquest.net>
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