How do communities use blogs? Communities use blogs, such as Blogger or Wordpress, in two ways: individual blogs and collective blogs. Individual blogs give people a personal voice as contributors to a community. Some communities offer individual blogs inside the community space for specific purposes, such as telling personal stories of practice. Some communities also …
How do communities of practice use wikis? Wikis, such as MediaWiki used by Wikipedia and Wikispaces which is popular for Educators, are used by communities of practice to create and publish collective, co-authored documents, including web pages. They also use wikis as interactive workspaces for conducting projects or for creating a shared memory of events. …
Do we need to change our organizational culture first? Organizational culture can work against communities of practice, if it is individualistic, competitive, and focused on the short term. Changing organizational culture is very difficult. Change initiatives to address cultural issues have had mixed results at best. One of the problems of these change initiatives lies …
If knowledge is power, why would anyone want to share it? Knowledge is indeed a source of power; but hoarding knowledge is not necessarily the best way to benefit from its power, especially in the context of communities of practice. Generalized reciprocity. In a community of practice, sharing knowledge is neither one-way nor merely a …
What about power? Wouldn’t communities become a threat to the organizational hierarchy? Existing across an organization’s formal structures, communities of practice rarely derive much power directly from positions in formal hierarchies. But communities do not usually seek positional power, with its control over resources and accountability for investments—tasks for which communities are not well suited. …
Should communities of practice attempt to assess or measure the value they create? The issue of measurement and assessment is a controversial one when it comes to communities. Some see measurements as community killers and some see them as the only way communities can survive in organizations. The reality of most communities is more nuanced. …
What about tasks and expectations for communities of practice? Communities of practice that have high expectations about what they can achieve tend to be energized. And yet misplaced tasks and expectations can also make the community feel like just another job to do. So the question tasks and expectations hinges on a key distinction between …
Should organizations institutionalize communities of practice? Because of this tension between vertical and horizontal processes, integrating communities of practice in an organization is an exercise in paradox. Organizations tend to pay attention to structures or issues by institutionalizing them but it is a delicate task to integrate communities of practice into the organization without squelching …
What should an organization put in place to cultivate communities of practice systematically? If organizations are going to cultivate communities, in their midst or across their boundaries, they have a responsibility to create a context in which these communities can thrive. Large numbers of communities of practice today live inside or across organizations that influence …
What are three key success factors for communities of practice? Communities of practice are complex social structures, whose voluntary and self-governing nature makes them quite sensitive to subtle dynamics. As a result a host of factors potentially contribute to their success (and to their failure). Any of them can become critical in some circumstances, but …
