Comments on: How relevant are communities of practice in a network age? http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/ sharing ideas thoughts and feedback Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:44:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: John Tropea http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32931 Mon, 18 May 2009 23:24:36 +0100 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32931 Olivier, As usual a philosophical comment that I will have to look into a bit till I understand it as a whole. The hyper-individualism sounds like behaviour we see in social networks, and at the same time pastoral communism is what we see we online collective groups eg. a facebook group...do you think? I did like your post about "socialized services" http://venividiluxi.com/en/?p=102, in regards to CoPs require time and effort (whether a team or CoP there is a sense of group effort). You allude to that a more individual centric approach, although a different dynamic, has less engagement and time consumption issues "Most people see online communities as communities of practices, which are known to be hard to implement because they require engagement of members and managers. Immediately people associate engagement as costly (time consumption from the financial angle) if not dangerous for the corporate reputation (B2C)." "...my stake is that we can take advantage of the “crowd” without demanding any engagement from any of its members. This is what I call a socialized service. A socialized service is a service where the activity of an individual is made visible to others, so that it creates awareness among service users." Olivier,

As usual a philosophical comment that I will have to look into a bit till I understand it as a whole. The hyper-individualism sounds like behaviour we see in social networks, and at the same time pastoral communism is what we see we online collective groups eg. a facebook group…do you think?

I did like your post about “socialized services” http://venividiluxi.com/en/?p=102, in regards to CoPs require time and effort (whether a team or CoP there is a sense of group effort).

You allude to that a more individual centric approach, although a different dynamic, has less engagement and time consumption issues

“Most people see online communities as communities of practices, which are known to be hard to implement because they require engagement of members and managers. Immediately people associate engagement as costly (time consumption from the financial angle) if not dangerous for the corporate reputation (B2C).”

“…my stake is that we can take advantage of the “crowd” without demanding any engagement from any of its members.
This is what I call a socialized service. A socialized service is a service where the activity of an individual is made visible to others, so that it creates awareness among service users.”

]]> by: Olivier Amprimo http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32930 Mon, 18 May 2009 14:47:42 +0100 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32930 Nice post John. It's a very long one. Do you try to compensate the limitations of Twitter? ;-) For me the shift from CoPs to today's communities / network is the one of topic centricity to user centricity. The notion of "networked individualism" is to me the best one for that. That being said, this actually is today a problem for most organisations. Even if the society has evolved toward a strongly individualistic orientation, organisations remain group oriented. Their IT is built for that and their manager have are more comfortable (they feel they can handle it). In fact, what we have there is the classical, central question of political philosophy: how you articulate the one and many. User centricity tends to reactivating Liebniz Monads (hyper individualism), but at the same time open-source reactivate organic forms of socialization (what I call pastoral communism!). What is sure is that mechanist solidarity (Tonnies) and as such Institutions / Bureaucraties are a stake. The media industry is well aware of the problem ;-) That's for the paradigm of 2.0. When ones look at semantic and stuff, institutions have a big role, but those are knowledge institutions (such as (digital) libraries) as they have the content and the possibility to organise it in a superior way. Corporations rarely have this in consideration. My 2 unstructured cents! Nice post John.

It’s a very long one. Do you try to compensate the limitations of Twitter? ;-)

For me the shift from CoPs to today’s communities / network is the one of topic centricity to user centricity. The notion of “networked individualism” is to me the best one for that.

That being said, this actually is today a problem for most organisations. Even if the society has evolved toward a strongly individualistic orientation, organisations remain group oriented. Their IT is built for that and their manager have are more comfortable (they feel they can handle it).

In fact, what we have there is the classical, central question of political philosophy: how you articulate the one and many.

User centricity tends to reactivating Liebniz Monads (hyper individualism), but at the same time open-source reactivate organic forms of socialization (what I call pastoral communism!). What is sure is that mechanist solidarity (Tonnies) and as such Institutions / Bureaucraties are a stake. The media industry is well aware of the problem ;-)

That’s for the paradigm of 2.0. When ones look at semantic and stuff, institutions have a big role, but those are knowledge institutions (such as (digital) libraries) as they have the content and the possibility to organise it in a superior way. Corporations rarely have this in consideration.

My 2 unstructured cents!

]]> by: John Tropea http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32874 Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:43:07 +0100 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32874 Exactly Samuel...this is something I really have to stress when I get requests from managers to create them 5 CoPs. I'm like, hang on...do these CoPs already exist as email lists or meetings, etc.. or are you trying to build them. Please get the 5 people who will lead these CoPs and their posse of contributors to approach me (if they exist). Check out this post, Online communities : Bottom-up requests. for this exact explanation... http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/03/20/online-communities-bottom-up-requests/ Exactly Samuel…this is something I really have to stress when I get requests from managers to create them 5 CoPs.

I’m like, hang on…do these CoPs already exist as email lists or meetings, etc.. or are you trying to build them. Please get the 5 people who will lead these CoPs and their posse of contributors to approach me (if they exist).

Check out this post, Online communities : Bottom-up requests. for this exact explanation…

http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/03/20/online-communities-bottom-up-requests/

]]> by: Samuel http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32870 Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:33:19 +0000 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32870 Nice post John. As you see I'm catching up on all your interesting posts... ;-) Citation: "I would also (to take the issue on) argue that attempts to create CoP through formal process and control are also a mistake. If a community has value it will form and the technology now allows that. Control and censorship are not appropriate." Isn't this exactly the point Wenger made in his books about communities? He relates to 'social worlds theory' and basically says: communities just exist, they are their, emerge on their own, etc. The tools should support the communities that are already there. Of course managers or employees can try to create communities, but they will never proliferate if they don't have a shared concern that is already there. Nice post John. As you see I’m catching up on all your interesting posts… ;-)
Citation: “I would also (to take the issue on) argue that attempts to create CoP through formal process and control are also a mistake. If a community has value it will form and the technology now allows that. Control and censorship are not appropriate.”
Isn’t this exactly the point Wenger made in his books about communities? He relates to ’social worlds theory’ and basically says: communities just exist, they are their, emerge on their own, etc. The tools should support the communities that are already there. Of course managers or employees can try to create communities, but they will never proliferate if they don’t have a shared concern that is already there.

]]> by: John Tropea http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32804 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:38:21 +0000 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32804 Hey Tony, Thx for reading the jumbo sized post. You say "Form of community on top of networks"... I see this in 2 ways 1. I think this is what SMT and CMC do with their Wordframe blog aggregators. People are still blogging in their own space, on topics they like, and it's up to the blog aggregator to moderate posts. These bloggers are able to message each other within the system which provides a form of connection, but they could do this in email, Twitter, etc... The fact the my blog is aggregated at these places and now also CNC, doesn't alter my experience of being on the web, I don't feel any less restricted. So there is a big difference between community and just plain old aggregation. 2. Google Connect is attempting (what MyBlogLog didn't do properly) to make the distributed blogosphere a connected one, and we also have the DiSo project http://diso-project.org/ In this case there isn't a blog aggregator. All that's happening is with the blogs you usually read in your RSS Reader or visit daily, you are now able to officially connect or add them to your network and interact with them. Before you only read these people and perhaps commented on their posts, well now you are connected to them more directly. I'd like to know more about your idea Hey Tony,

Thx for reading the jumbo sized post.

You say “Form of community on top of networks”…

I see this in 2 ways

1. I think this is what SMT and CMC do with their Wordframe blog aggregators. People are still blogging in their own space, on topics they like, and it’s up to the blog aggregator to moderate posts. These bloggers are able to message each other within the system which provides a form of connection, but they could do this in email, Twitter, etc…

The fact the my blog is aggregated at these places and now also CNC, doesn’t alter my experience of being on the web, I don’t feel any less restricted. So there is a big difference between community and just plain old aggregation.

2. Google Connect is attempting (what MyBlogLog didn’t do properly) to make the distributed blogosphere a connected one, and we also have the DiSo project
http://diso-project.org/

In this case there isn’t a blog aggregator. All that’s happening is with the blogs you usually read in your RSS Reader or visit daily, you are now able to officially connect or add them to your network and interact with them. Before you only read these people and perhaps commented on their posts, well now you are connected to them more directly.

I’d like to know more about your idea

]]> by: Jacob McNulty http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32802 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:18:42 +0000 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32802 This is an interesting take on the subject - thank you. It summarizes well something that's been swirling around in my head for a bit. At my current client we just switched from 'CoPs' to 'Knowledge Networks' both in our langauge as well as our approach. It's a subtle distinction but one that will matter in our implementation. 'Pure' CoPs may have been ideally suited for the age before networked learning took off but now that it's here perhaps their application will be less. I look forward to watching it unfold... This is an interesting take on the subject - thank you. It summarizes well something that’s been swirling around in my head for a bit. At my current client we just switched from ‘CoPs’ to ‘Knowledge Networks’ both in our langauge as well as our approach. It’s a subtle distinction but one that will matter in our implementation.

‘Pure’ CoPs may have been ideally suited for the age before networked learning took off but now that it’s here perhaps their application will be less. I look forward to watching it unfold…

]]> by: Tony Karrer http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32801 Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:42:10 +0000 http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2009/02/17/how-relevant-are-communities-of-practice-in-a-network-age/#comment-32801 Fantastic post. I need some time to digest and get some thoughts down around this. Obviously, I believe strongly that there's benefit it trying to bring together a form of community on top of networks. I've been in the eLearning blogging network enough to have wanted to create a bit of community on top. But it's really not a community - and I'm not sure I know what the right properties are for this thing on top. But there's also the other 95% of people interested in the topic but who are not really part of the community. There has to be ways they can participate without fully participating. This is great stuff and I look forward to discussing it more with you. Fantastic post. I need some time to digest and get some thoughts down around this. Obviously, I believe strongly that there’s benefit it trying to bring together a form of community on top of networks. I’ve been in the eLearning blogging network enough to have wanted to create a bit of community on top. But it’s really not a community - and I’m not sure I know what the right properties are for this thing on top. But there’s also the other 95% of people interested in the topic but who are not really part of the community. There has to be ways they can participate without fully participating.

This is great stuff and I look forward to discussing it more with you.

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