CoP: Best Practices
by Etienne Wenger [Published in the "Systems Thinker," June 1998] You are a claims processor working for a large insurance company. You are good at what you do, but although you know where your paycheck comes from, the corporation mainly remains an abstraction for you. You are an engineer working on two projects within your business unit. You are a CEO and, of course, you are responsible for the company as a whole. We now recognize knowledge as a key source of competitive advantage in the business world, but we still have little understanding of how to create and leverage it in practice. We frequently say that people are an organization's most important resource. However, they are a company's most versatile and dynamic knowledge resource and form the basis of an organization's ability to know and learn. Defining Communities of Practice Communities of practice are everywhere. Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. Communities of Practice in Organizations Dr.
Knowledge Networks: Introduction
Editors, Paul Hildreth and Chris Kimble Publisher, Idea Group Publishing Hard cover ISBN: 159140200X Soft cover ISBN: 1591402700 The current environment for organizations is one that is characterised by uncertainty and continuous change. In the mid 1990s, a new approach called Knowledge Management (KM) began to emerge (Ponzi and Koenig, 2002). Communities of Practice (CoPs) as a phenomenon have been around for many years but the term itself was not coined until 1991 when Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger used it in their exploration of Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Lave and Wenger (1991) saw the acquisition of knowledge as a social process where people can participate in communal learning at different levels depending on their level of authority or seniority in the group, i.e. whether they are a newcomer to the group or have been a member for a long time. Thus, a new member of the community moves from peripheral to full participation in the community. What it is about? Evolution
Communauté de pratique
Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Pour les articles homonymes, voir COP. La théorie des communautés de pratiques formalisée par Wenger (1998)[1] s'inscrit dans une évolution épistémologique qui a conduit le domaine de la gestion des connaissances d'une vision technocentrée vers une vision anthropocentrée. Cette théorie prône une perspective sociale de l’apprentissage, insérée dans les pratiques collectives au sein des communautés de pratique. Wenger (2005), développe le concept de communautés de pratique comme un groupe de personnes qui travaillent ensemble (à travers des plateformes internet par exemple tels que des forums, des vidéo-conférences, des courriels…) et qui sont en fait conduites à inventer constamment des solutions locales aux problèmes rencontrés dans leur pratiques professionnelles. Pour Wenger, trois dimensions structurent les communautés de pratique (Wenger, 1998) : Un engagement mutuel : Tous les membres de la communauté doivent respecter cet engagement.
The dynamics of managing/nurturing networks of practice
Image by D'Arcy Norman via Flickr I received a beautiful article (thanks to Julie Ferguson!). Just got a tip through the comments that it's also online. Agterberg, M., Van den Hooff, B., Huysman, M., & Soekijad, M. (2010). The authors make a distinction between NoPs and CoPs; networks of practice and communities of practice. CoP or NoP doesn't matter, there are important insights into the management interventions to support NoPs (or CoPs I'd say...). I've never held the belief that communities are fully self-emergent and that you can not intervene/facilitate in communities of practice. What are the findings from the study of 22 NoPs in one organisation? 4. Personally I feel relational and structural embeddedness are very connected to each other and both relate to the level of social capital. But what did the study find out about management interventions in all these types of embeddedness?
Communautés de pratique : un partage des connaissances idéal
La compétitivité d'une enteprise dépend directement de la qualité des connaissances auxquelles ses employés ont accès : être mieux informé que la concurrence est un objectif majeur pour chaque firme. Ce qui explique le succès des outils de partage des connaissances - ou KM. Pour Etienne Wenger cependant - l'un des gourous du collaboratif -, les managers ont une idée bien trop restrictive du partage des connaissances, qui se cantonne souvent à des bibliothèques statiques, des répertoires de documents écrits. Pourtant, "ce sont les savoirs dynamiques qui font la différence - explique posément E.Wenger dans une article de Systems Thinker. Un mystérieux lieu d'échange Ces acteurs échangent leurs savoirs - sans même que l'entreprise en soit consciente - au sein de "communautés de pratique". Mais quels sont donc ces lieux importants qui se constituent sans que la hiérarchie n'en sache rien ? Autant de raison de leur offrir de bonnes conditions d'épanouissement.
La théorie des communautés de pratique - Etienne Wenger
Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger and communities of practice
contents: introduction · communities of practice · legitimate peripheral participation and situated learning · learning organizations and learning communities · conclusion · references · links · how to cite this article Many of the ways we have of talking about learning and education are based on the assumption that learning is something that individuals do. Furthermore, we often assume that learning ‘has a beginning and an end; that it is best separated from the rest of our activities; and that it is the result of teaching’ (Wenger 1998: 3). But how would things look if we took a different track? Supposing learning is social and comes largely from of our experience of participating in daily life? It was this thought that formed the basis of a significant rethinking of learning theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s by two researchers from very different disciplines – Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. Communities of practice The characteristics of such communities of practice vary.
The Rise of the Sharing Communities
Creative Commons photo by Lobkovs As the sharing economy picks up momentum, its reach has become global. In cities and towns around the world, people are creating ways to share everything from baby clothes to boats, hardware to vacation homes. There are also groups emerging that consciously identify with the big-picture sharing movement. These groups focus on education, action and community-building, and advocate for a cultural shift toward widespread sharing. From neighborhood-level cooperatives to global organizations, these groups work to bring sharing into the mainstream. What follows is a far-from-exhaustive list of sharing advocacy groups around the world. Ouishare With hubs in Paris, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Rome and Brussels, Ouishare is an international network of entrepreneurs, citizens, activists, journalists and designers working toward the development of the collaborative economy. “We need complex solutions to solve complex world issues,” he says. Let’s Collaborate!
