Hopefully we all know them… those contexts where you feel like you are able to have really meaningful conversations with people about your experience of and involvement in practice. You feel that you can be who you are as a learner. Communities, workshops, events, co-authoring… they can all give rise to those kinds of interactions …
Social learning capability: four essays on innovation and learning in social systems This series of essays was written by Etienne in 2009 as a reflection on EQUAL, a project with the European Union Social Fund in which both he and Bev were involved as consultants. One goal of EQUAL was to increase the social learning …
Something got us excited in a strategic meeting with Executive Networks the other day in San Francisco. Executive Networks is a company that builds communities of practice for executives mainly in HR. The Community Directors were very appreciative of our Assessment Framework. They were particularly taken by the value-creation matrix (Figure 7.1, page 39). They …
Are the new “web 2.0” technologies relevant? Technology has always been relevant to communities to help members connect across time and space and share relevant resources. Web 2.0 technologies are often associated with new, more “horizontal” ways to connect and share information, networked thinking, and new forms of representation—all uses of technology that are very …
Do communities use tools like “Second Life” for their activities? Avatar-based web worlds (e.g., Second Life). Some communities have meeting areas on avatar-based sites. It allows them to have more of a sense of shared space even when they cannot be together in physical space. For instance, the ability to see who is there, even …
What use are media-sharing sites for communities? Some communities open accounts on media-sharing sites, such as Flickr for sharing photos, so that members can share photos, videos, and maps. This provides a simple way to document community events or to collect resources relevant to members. In other communities members use their own individual accounts and …
Are Facebook, Linked-In, or Goggle+ tools for communities? Networking websites, such as Facebook, Linked-In, or Google+, offer quick, simple, and cheap ways for communities to open spaces for interaction. While the sites may not offer all the features that communities of practice need, they present the advantage of being located where people already have accounts, …
Should a community be “tweeting”? Micro-blogging, using a tool such as Twitter or Yammer, has become a very popular way for some communities to stay connected. It is used in a variety of different ways, including to: Stay connected. Micro-blogging allows members of a community to be in very close contact on an ongoing basis …
Why are analytics important for a community? Analytics, such as Google Analytics, enable community leaders to collect, analyze, and act on data they receive about how people are connecting to their website. Data is easily collected and represented in many different ways. A community leader can see which pages are being read by whom, from …
How do communities use tagging? Communities can use a set of tags as communal keywords, thus creating shared set of pointers to resources relevant to members. A “tag cloud” (the set of tags that a community uses sized according to frequency of use) can be a way to represent dynamically what a community is interested …
