THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COMMUNITIES

Collaboration is very much a key word in today's environment. It's at the heart of communities of practice (CoPs), it's the goal of any functional team and it's the raison d'etre of a whole slew of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. To establish an effective CoP, you m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Knowledge Management Review 2008-11, Vol.11 (5), p.22
Main Author: De La Rue, Keith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collaboration
Communities of practice
Community
Information technology
Knowledge management
Organizational behavior
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Collaboration is very much a key word in today's environment. It's at the heart of communities of practice (CoPs), it's the goal of any functional team and it's the raison d'etre of a whole slew of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. To establish an effective CoP, you must first think about the community. A CoP is not a work group or a project team. For a start, work groups are motivated in a totally different way; they exist as an entity within an organization, with a common management structure and defined deliverables within that structure. A successful CoP may prove a better learning environment than traditional organizational training courses or even today's e-learning tools. Learning-based communities provide more meaning and context than traditional structures. For a CoP to be successful, the community must become part of the practice itself. Many professionals have long depended on formal guilds and trade associations for mutual support and collaboration.
ISSN:1369-7633