Knowledge Communities

Testimonial

2010-06-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

"I want to thank you for guiding us in the process of building this community of practice. I think the work itself and community we are creating has so much potential, and the role you are playing is really important. I look forward to our continuing work together!"

Rabbi Bridget Wynne
Executive Director
Jewish Gateways

Testimonial

2010-06-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

"Thank you very much for being a masterful guide this year....Very helpful and will continue to be very useful."

Chelsea Bailey, Communal Leadership Specialist at Board of Jewish Education of New York
Former Asst Prof in Early Childhood Education at New York University

Tips on Knowledge Management from the Community Rountable

2010-06-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

From the Community Roundtable: On our recent 'State of Community Management' webinar we got so many great questions that we've archived them all here. One question we liked in particular dealt with a problem many community managers face when trying to gain traction with their audience.

Q: How to overcome barriers for knowledge sharing?

A: Any cultural change takes time but I like to think of it as an infection model. Pinpoint and find key influencers who are already supportive of more open sharing of information and acclimate them to new tools and techniques. Like leaders, it may take some time but it is well worth it as they will 'infect' the rest of the organization. Also people must have the time, receive recognition, and have familiarity with new tools and processes in order to participate effectively. Think about the 'What is in it for me' factor - if that is not there, the initiative will be hard to move forward.

More from Rachel:

Reducing barriers to knowledge sharing is a classic cultural change issue and, like many things in community management, not one with a "right" answer. Changing behavior requires motivation to change and the best motivation is to make the change meaningful to the individual in question. The difficult part is what is meaningful to one person may not be to another and means a variety of programs, training, mentoring, and incentives have to be applied to create lasting change. This theme comes up repeatedly and you can find some ideas and practices employed by practitioners in The State of Community Management.

Jim's take:

Internally, it has a lot to do with having the right people in your corner. While it's important to have an enthusiastic senior executive involved in getting your company to embrace knowledge sharing, I've found it's the middle managers that are the key to widespread adoption. Often times it's their teams and relationships at stake, so if you're able to show them the value, you're on your way.

Another key to building a knowledge sharing culture (internal and external) is creating opportunities for experimentation. I've found brown bag lunches are extremely effective at getting people together to try new tools and techniques. During a customer conference several years ago, I put a Flip camera on each lunch table along with a table tent with three questions. The people at the table took turns recording interviews of one another and had a lot of fun in the process. Later in the day we showed them a compilation of the interviews and you could see them have that "aha" moment. Not soon after we launched a customer community with great success.

Finally, publicize and reward. Often times it's hard to be the first person trying something different. Publicly acknowledge people who take that risk and reward them for their courage. It can be something as simple as lunch with the Sr. VP, just something that makes them feel good about sharing what they know.

Cross-posted with permission of the Community Roundtable: A peer network for community managers and social media practitioners.

Jigsaw by Lawrence Kushner

2010-06-08T03:56:00.000-07:00

Each lifetime is the peices of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls go this way and that.
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. No one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle.
Like before the days when they used to seal
jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Insuring that
All the pieces were there.

Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.
Sometimes they know it.
Sometimes they don't.

And when you present your piece.
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,
Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger from the Most High

Reprinted with permission of author and publisher: Lawrence Kushner 1977, pp 69-70. Honey from the Rock.

Thank you to Linda Greenseid the facilitator of the PEJE Leadership Community Of Practice for my calling attention to this poem.

Quotes I like - shared by IISC

2010-06-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

These wonderful quotes have come in the mail to me from IISC - the Interaction Institute for Social Change. I saved and gathered them and share them below.

Be a lamp or lifeboard or a ladder Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shephard. (Rumi)

The essence of love is to affectively affirm as well as unselfishly delight in the well being of others, and engage in acts and care of service on their behalf, without exception, in an enduring and constant way. Love. (Institute for the Study of Unlimited Love at Case Western University)

If we are to survive as a global community, we must understand the imperative nature of giving birth and space to the moral imagination in human affairs. (John Paul Lederach).

Do what you do best and link to the rest. (Jeff Jarvis)

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Simple model for Collaborative Group Work by Ken Otter

2010-06-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

This simple model was derived from a 13 month research project by Mat Schwarzman, Linda Sartor and Ken Otter while doctoral students at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1995. Using Collaborative Inquiry methodology facilitated by Elizabeth Kasl, Mat, Linda and Ken, studied the experience of several groups engaged in collaborative work. This is the outline of their findings.

I. VALUES OF IDEAL COLLABORATION

A) The infrastructure of the group ought to be developed and determined by the group.
B) Authority, power, and leadership ought to be shared by members of the group.
C) Shared meaning-making should be fostered.
D) Individual and group development ought to be viewed as mutually enhancing.
E) A group purpose ought to be agreed-upon collectively.
F) Facilitation should be practiced in service to the group's collective purpose.

II. STRATEGIES FOR COLLABORATION

A) Emphasize inquiry over advocacy.
B) View all perspectives as potentially valid.
C) Provide reassurances about the challenges inherent in collaboration.
D) Attend to development of group skills needed for collaboration.
E) Foreground group goals and purposes throughout.
F) Create opportunities for members to cultivate interpersonal connections.
G) Encourage reflection as a regular feature of group life.

III. EVIDENCE OF COLLABORATION

A) All members actively participate.
B) Roles are not rigidly fixed or permanent.
C) Agreements are articulated and operationalized.
D) Meaning is constructed by the group as a whole.
E) Varied perspectives are registered and encouraged.
F) When conflict occurs, members attend to it with an eye towards the potential benefit it may hold for the group.
G) Unexpected meanings, decisions and other results get made.
H) Members articulate differing perspectives held by one another in a similar fashion.

Cross-posted with permission of the author. Originally posted posted by Ken Otter on Leadership Learning Community discussion: leadership for a new era Aug 5 2009, 3:06 PM EDT

Hiring A Social Media or Community Manager?

2010-05-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

This blog post is cross-posted from Community Roundtable with their Permission

Hiring A Social Media or Community Manager?

by Rachel Happe on January 18, 2010

ShareWe recently had a member call on Hiring for Community Management and also discussed the topic at last week’s #TheCRLive. It’s a hot topic for a variety of reasons. There is growing interest in the field and growing demand for community managers. Our members’ had some additional perspectives:

Community an social media management job descriptions vary widely with little consistency

There are a number of business functions and processes that community managers can support but often the specifics are also inconsistently articulated in job descriptions

Expectations of community manager roles and compensation are not very well aligned

Hiring organizations don’t necessarily know what is reasonable to expect from different levels of community managers or are not always able to identify the level of experience they need

The attributes of community managers are often more important than the skills or experience but that is not the way most organizations hire

Because Community Roundtable members like Rachel Makool, Dawn Lacallade, and Amber Naslund have more experience than most with regards to hiring community managers we think there is an opportunity to work with our members to develop baseline job descriptions and salary ranges for the following positions:

Social Media Expert

Moderator

Community Manager

Director of Community

VP of Social/Community

Like any other type of organizational role, as the position becomes more senior, more strategy/planning/management responsibilities are included and compensation should rise accordingly. We see a lot of job recs being posted that are looking for people with 1-3 years of experience compensated for at that level but also wanting those people to own the social strategy, policies, and internal evangalism. The effort to find a good match for that rec is likely to be frustrating – while there are plenty of young and ambitious potential employees that understand social software tools very well and are eager to take on an organization’s social initiative, they may not have the management and organizational experience needed to effectively champion and execute the strategy. Those young people who do have the skills to build and execute a new organizational strategy are like their more experienced peers in knowing that it deserves a higher level of compensation.

There are two problems causing even further frustration. The first problem is that many social initiatives right now are pilot or new initiatives that just barely have the funding for one junior position who may not have the business and management experience necessary to be successful. This is a chicken and egg problem – without an experienced community manager, the initiative may not be successful but the organization can’t afford an experienced person until the initiative is successful. The second problem is that for those organizations that realize they need a mid-level to senior person to develop and execute an appropriate social strategy, there is a fairly small group of individuals with that experience and very often not in the location needed.

There are a few ways organizations can manage this situation:

Hire consultants. Many experienced community managers have become consultants (Rachel Makool, Sean O’Driscoll, Jake McKee, Janet Fouts, and Dawn Foster are examples) and are in demand for helping companies navigate the transition from pilot to operational communities.

Outsource moderation and/or community management. eModeration, Tempero, LiveWorld, Fresh Networks, and Impact Interactions all offer some combination of moderation and community management. These services can help companies who are starting out, exploring, and experimenting. In particular, moderation is often outsourced completely as needs often fluctuate significantly over time.

Spend time seeking out and investing in understanding the most effective use of human resources. Human resources are critical to the success of a social initiatives but if the role and responsibilities are not clear and appropriately aligned, it can lead to a lot of frustration on both the part of the organization and on the part of employee. The more the hiring manager understands, the better off the outcomes will be. Consultants, training, and services like ours can help tremendously with understanding how to effectively hire and use community management.

Rewards and Targets do NOT Work in Complex Environments

2010-03-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Directly from David Gurteen Newsletter: Thank you David! It's hard to hear the truth.

To my mind the failure by business but more so governments to understand the adverse affects of measures, rewards and targets is a colossal Knowledge Management failure. As far as I can tell nearly all the research and evidence shows that rewards and targets do NOT work in complex environments. In fact they have the opposite effect of what is intended! But despite all the evidence to the contrary they continue, out of habit, to put their heads in the sand and do not change. This post from Ron Donaldson on A blind pursuit of targets points to yet more evidence. I really wish I had collected all the stories of the failure of targets by the Labour government over the last 12 years or so. I think there is enough to write a book! As Ron says "Is anyone in Govt health, education or the environment listening?" This really is a KM issue. We have the knowledge but we refuse to act on it! But apart from anything else "we really must stop trying to do things to people and to start to work with them".

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/newsletter117#L004753

Epic Change: an organization putting the power of storytelling and social media into the hands of the local communities they support

2010-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a webinar hosted by Darim Online on the strategic use of Facebook (FB) for non-profits. We were invited by Caren Levine, who is a part of our Kehilliyot Community of Practice. Darim Online specializes in internet strategies for Jewish organizations and their communities, and the webinar was part of the organization’s “Social Media Boot Camp.” The host, technology maven Avi Kaplan ( on twitter @meshugavi ), provided valuable insights into using FB’s tools. Besides laying out the great strategic use of FB groups, analytics, pages, and friend lists, Avi also talked about using FB for “causes,” something he knows a lot about from his deep work with the 3-year old nonprofit, Epic Change.

Intrigued by Epic Change’s mission to “amplify the voices and impact of grassroots change-makers and social entrepreneurs,” we set up a web meeting with him the following week via Web X . What we discovered was the organization’s innovative use of technology and social media to create and spread change through the powerful combination of social media tools and age-old storytelling.

Epic Change has been focusing on a project in Arusha, Tanzania—the support of the Shepherds Junior School. Co-founders of Epic Change, Sanjay Patel and Stacey Monk, an IT project manager and a management consultant respectively, created the nonprofit organization after a life-changing trip volunteering in Africa in 2007. The project supports the work of the school’s founder, Mama Lucy Kamptoni, who they describe as a “savvy and passionate local woman.” Epic change made initial loans to the school and then helped them find creative ways to pay back the loan, such as a school performance and selling hand-made crafts.

In addition, the organization has facilitated finding partners to raise money for the school, such as the May 2009 $10,000 grant from Ideablob, which funded the school’s first technology lab. In October 2009, the fifth graders became the first #TwitterKids of Tanzania when they partnered with LacProject, part of a social media curriculum. The story of one of the local students whose life has been impacted can be found here. One particularly successful partnership was with Silicon Valley Tweetup, where they raised over $2,000. You can read more about their success in getting this community’s story out there through blogging themselves, forming partnerships, and empowering the locals with the technology to give voice to their own perspective (and “tweet” their thanks) by visiting Epic Change's news page.

We at Knowledge Communities were honored to talk with Epic Change and learn about their extraordinary work. This organization is a leading example in building community around an important cause and using the tools of storytelling and social media to raise funds to support grassroots change-makers that are in need of resources in order to continue their work. We are also thankful to our Kehilliyot Community of Practice and the sharing and generosity that members show towards one another, thereby allowing us all to gain more insight into good work and how it is getting done around the globe.

Diana Norma Szokolyai

Associate Consultant, Knowledge Communities

Measure the Impact, Not the Influence

2009-12-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

I am delighted to see and hear an articulation of a relationship orientation as critical in the area of social impact. We who run CoP know this to be true from our own experience.

Thank you to Beth Kantor

"A lot of followers doesn't equal influence. As Stefano Maggi points out, there's more to influence besides numbers, there is also affinity. Geoff Livingston put it another way: relationships matter more than numbers with Twitter following. The bottom line is to focus on the results of your social media strategy, don't get distracted by meaningless metrics like the number of followers, and value the relationships."

Be sure to look at the graffic Beth includes in the blog-post.

Naava

How to weave a tighter community

2009-09-12T18:41:00.001-07:00

How to weave a tighter community

Posted using ShareThis

Empowerment and Self-reliance: Building a Sustainable Congregational Learning Model

2009-09-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Empowerment and Self-reliance: Building a Sustainable Congregational Learning Model (A White Paper Forthcoming from Knowledge Communities)
Knowledge Communities worked with Congregation Beth Israel (Charlottesville, VA) to build the grassroots-lead community learning program called Shabbat Connections.

Naava Frank of Knowledge Communities collaborated with Congregation Beth Israel (CBI), the only congregation in Charlottesville (VA), to build their award winning Shabbat Connections Program (SC). The collaboration reaped numerous insights, new ways of working and a program that exceeded everyone’s expectations for two-years, supported by funding from the Legacy Heritage Foundation.

KC facilitated monthly phone calls with congregational staff, Rabbi Dan Alexander, Ms. Ellen Dietrick and Rabbi Tom Gutherz. Their words attest to the effectiveness of KC’s role in the program.

Rabbi Dan: Naava is a good listener and synthesizer and asks provocative questions. We valued the way Naava's questions created a different perspective for us, so we could get outside of ourselves. Sometimes the perspective she brought was philosophical and helped us get beyond the mechanical mode of how to get the program done. There was value to having a person outside that we had to explain things to. It helped us think it through and explain it to ourselves.

Rabbi Tom: A useful trick that we learned was to ask “What goal do you want to accomplish” as opposed to “How do we get things done?” Then we planned starting at the end and met our goals.

Ellen Dietrick: Naava really listened to us and joined with us, understood our perspective and worked with us. A lot of pieces were new, including focusing on questions, the reflective component, evaluation afterwards. These gave us new frameworks and tools. We often “use her lines” e.g. Naava would say ..

Look for the white paper in the upcoming weeks. Sign up at our website: http://www.knowledgecommunities.org/

Incentives - Its a Whole New Ball Game

2009-09-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

The recent McKinsey article about "How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results notes the change in incentive structures for effective adoption.

"Many companies experiment with Web 2.0 technologies, but creating an environment with a critical mass of committed users is more difficult.3 The survey results confirm that successful adoption requires that the use of these tools be integrated into the flow of users’ work (Exhibit 5). Furthermore, encouraging continuing use requires approaches other than the traditional financial or performance incentives deployed as motivational tools. In the Web community, status is often built on a reputation for making meaningful contributions. Respondents say informal incentives incorporating the Web ethos, such as ratings by peers and online recognition of status, have been most effective in encouraging Web 2.0 adoption. They also say role modeling—active Web use by executives—has been important for encouraging adoption internally."

1. The kind of incentives that work are those that involve recognition rather financial incentives. In an era where time and attention are scarce resources, attention in the form of recognition is the highest accomplishment.

2. Peer ratings and online recognition require a community, network, or audience engaged with each other in an ongoing way in which one develops a reputation. The new incentives are contextual and connected as opposed to financial incentives which have often (though not always) rewarded individual accomplishment. The new incentives are usually less concrete and more intangible, collectively awarded as opposed to managed by those holding the most power and more individualized as opposed to standardized.

3. Role modeling requires a leader to "be the change you want to see."

What are the implication for leadership of this new "incentive" system? Is "incentive" the appropriate word or is this something different? I think that the new system values new leadership skills and values -- listening, integrity, ego contraction and an awareness of your interconnectivity with others. What do you think?

Is Branding Dead:

2009-09-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

Thank you Jeff Brooks, creative director at Merkle, for his blog post - Is Branding Dead

And Gary Wexler from Passionmarketing.com for his post to the Chronicle of Philanthropy about Jeff's Blog. (cited below)

"As soon as a client calls me and says,“We need to brand,” I know I have a potential client who has no clue what marketing is about. Branding has become the term de jour. Particularly in the nonprofit sector, branding is irrelevant. Nonprofit clients don’t need marketing to brand; they need marketing to help create three results—fundraising, advocacy, participation. That takes a lot more critical thinking, change and internal collaboration than branding. They say “branding”—-you better head for the hills. '

Although some disagree with Jeff and Gary I support their perspective. It is less important to focus on branding than it is on engaging your constituents and stakeholders in an authentic way. I thank Gary for calling us to focus on the core issues we need as non-profits (or as Hildy Gottlieb calls them - Community Benefit Organizations).

Facilitators of Communities of Practice are constantly refining their skills for authentically engaging stakeholders, advocating for their communities and stimulating participation. So lets substitute the word Branding with "Community Building." And next time you meet someone who tells you they are a 'community builder' stop and listen - you may have a lot to learn!

Naava

Rationale and Roles for collective intelligence

2009-08-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

I found myself going back and re-listening to a small segment of an interview with Henry Jenkins, a thought leader in the area of technology and its implications for education. So I decided to transcribe the bits of it I thought were important.

What I like is how he articulates the underlying rationale for collective intelligence (which is a foundation of Communities of Practice) and articulates the kinds of roles we each need to play in order for it to be successful.

“We assume everyone is an autonomous learner, everyone knows everything.” We know in a world of collective intelligence of social networks, everyone will know some things and what each member knows is available to the group as needed, that involves developing a new ethic of knowledge production, vetting, taking responsible for what you know, ensuring the accuracy of the information you communicate to others, having the responsibility to share what you know with others, taking accountability for people who share information that you know is wrong and correcting it. Then we have a self-correcting collaborative environment. It is different than the autonomous learning model that shapes more of our schools today. “ Henry Jenkins on Edutopia Click on the link called “shifting roles in the classroom” to hear the whole segment.

I wonder what the impact on a CoP would be of 'training' or 'reminding' Community of Practice (CoP) members what roles they need to play in order for the CoP to be successful? Anyone trying it?

Naava

Listen, Respect, Build Relationships

2009-08-28T06:42:00.001-07:00

Watching CNN this morning and the author of Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson, spoke about his time visiting rural villages in Afghanistan. When asked what he thought would bring about a solution to the conflicts in Afghanistan he shared that the US Army General had communicated to him three bullet points that were of central importance.

1. Listen - listen to people and understand what they think, what they want, what they think would help

2. Respect - treat everyone with respect, no matter how different they are from you and your values

3. Build Relationships - the key to change is building relationships. Why three cups of tea? Local Afghan folklore says after the first cup of tea you are no longer strangers, after the second cup of tea, you are friends, after the third cup of tea, you are family.

It takes time to have conversations that are deep enough to create a changed relationship and a changed reality but it is possible. It is not a quick fix but it can be a lasting tranformational cultural change.

As Meg Wheately articulates in her book: Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future "There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about."

“Good conversation connects us at a deeper level. As we share our different human experiences, we rediscover a sense of unity. We remember we are part of a greater whole. And as an added joy, we also discover our collective wisdom. We suddenly see how wise we can be together.” (page 28)

As community facilitators -- for community organizing, network weaving or community of practice facilitation for learning -- these same three bullet points apply. They are the core of our work.

Is it easy no? This is very hard and complex work. Is it worthwhile, always!

Naava

The importance of early scheduling for CoP

2009-08-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe the summer is already drawing to a close and we are looking at the upcoming year of work. I wanted to send a reminder to all of us working on scheduling Communities of Practice sessions (CoP) for the upcoming year about the importance of setting meetings dates as early as possible -- it cannot be underestimated.

The reality is that we all are pulled in many directions in both our personal and professional lives and are balancing a host of commitments. The earlier a group makes a commitment to a particular set of dates the more attendance will be maximized.

Unfortunately I have seen in my own work with CoP that some CoP have everything going for them but a scheduling conflict prevents an important member of the community from participating and is a loss for everyone. In some of my CoP it took a few years until the group experimented with and found the date and time that maximized participation.

It is frustrating to have something as trivial as scheduling be responsible for diminishing an important and promising initiative and yet it happens. So I encourage you to set the dates for your CoP meetings as soon as possible.

All the best for a productive year of learning.

Naava

Community Building - Gardening vs. Landscaping

2009-08-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

Amy Sample Ward has a wonderful opinion blog in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on how community building is more like gardening than landscaping. I think she captures succintly in this timely garden metaphor the art of community building and something I had been musing on recently as I watched the first, one and only tomato growing in my city garden.

http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/online_community_building_gardening_vs_landscaping/

"The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally. The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community. The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

The Landscaper creates an ecosystem that matches a preconceived design or pattern. The approach is focused on executing a preconceived environment, regardless of how natural or organic it may be for the larger area. The landscaper is there to ensure that everything stays just as planned.

The first question I always ask myself when considering a new tool or functionality online, a new project or campaign, or even new partnerships or members is: “Is this something the Community wants or something I want?” It doesn’t matter what I want, really. It matters what the Community wants. And how do you know if or what they are interested in? ASK!"

If I might add to the metaphor something I have been reflecting on as I have been checking my tomato every few days and noticing, with delight, it growing slowly in size and beginning to change color as it ripens. Gardening (and community building) invite you to pay attention to and celebrate small incremental changes. Over time these small changes add up to the whole complex and fascinating environment of a garden -- or a community.

Naava

P.S. Thank you to Lisa Colton of DarimOnline for sharing this with me.

Community on YouTube

2009-08-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU - Michael Wesch

Welsch articules the phenomenon of Cultural Inversion:
We express individualism, independance and commercialization
We value community, relationships and authenticity

According to M Scott Peck (who wrote in the 80's and 90's - source wikipedia ) the process of conscious community building involves:
1) building a shared story
2) consensual decision making
3) respect for all individuals
4) inclusivity of difference

What do these have in common with the kind of community Welsch talks about on You Tube? Below are some thoughts that just begin to address the complexity.

Shared Story: There is definitely a shared story as people are building on what they see when when they remix and imitate each other's videos.

Respect for Individuals: There seems to be an implicit respect for individuals and inclusivity of difference. A lot of shared values are expressed. Yet the trend toward hatred as public performance that comes from anonymity of you tube may fly in the face of the value of respect. Yet in an age of scarcity of attention, response is a form of respect.

Consensual Decision Making: "decisions are reached by seeking a consensus among active leaders and avoiding conflict where possible." Community traditionally involves mutual influence and a sense of commitment to what the community perceives as the greater good. In You Tube, decisions are made individually as people decide which videos they like and want to copy or pass on. You Tube decisions are neither consensual nor binding but rather individualistic and allow conflict to live side-by-side.

Inclusivity of Difference: Has the same tensions as 'respect.'

Summary: You Tube offers connection without constraints which is a new kind of freedom. Recognition, which I see as a key human need, is often fulfilled in community. Have people been living in isolation so long they have forgotten the mutuality of communties? Or, is the word 'community' being re-defined (or lost) like the word "friend' on facebook? Will the You Tube Community go through the traditional stages of group formation "Formin, Storming, Normin, Performin? Either way, the "You Tube Community," as Welsh articulates, is asking us to look again at what is possible for 'community.'

Naava

Tragedy "and Comedy" of the commons

2009-08-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting perspective on the classic formulation of the tragedy of the commons. I quoted the 2 paragraphs directly from ECommerce Times - link at the bottom.

"In its classic form, the tragedy of the commons is illustrated by a scenario in which a shared pasture is freely available to all citizens for grazing their livestock. When acting from their individual self-interests, each citizen logically concludes that they should increase their herd. The tragedy of this scenario is that it inevitably leads to too many animals grazing, depleting the resources of the shared pasture to the detriment of all. As Garrett Hardin wrote in Science magazine (December 1968), "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest."

Notions from the traditional world of physical property, however, do not always run parallel in the Internet-enabled, digitally-based world of intellectual property. For example, often the value of a digital resource can dramatically increase as the result of more individuals using it -- a scenario dubbed by Carol Rose as the comedy of the commons in the University of Chicago Law Review (1987). In other variants, especially those popularized by Stanford University professor Lawrence Lessig, each individual participant adds to the intellectual commons, thereby enriching the resources available to all.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/67725.html

Different Kinds of CoP Leaders

2009-08-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

As we move into a new phase of development within the Kehilliyot CoP that I facilitate, we are beginning to recognize each other, the talents and strengths of our colleagues. There are many ways to lead in a CoP and we are seeing many of these emerge. Below is a description of the different kinds of leadership within a CoP from an article by Etienne Wenger and I have tried to apply it to the leaders emerging within Kehilliyot.

Internal leadership in communities http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml

The inspirational leadership provided by thought leaders and recognized experts
The day-to-day leadership provided by those who organize activities
The classificatory leadership provided by those who collect and organize information in order to document practices
The interpersonal leadership provided by those who weave the community's social fabric
The boundary leadership provided by those who connect the community to other communities
The institutional leadership provided by those who maintain links with other organizational constituencies, in particular the official hierarchy
The cutting-edge leadership provided by those who shepherd "out-of-the-box" initiatives.

This summer: Hayim Herring is providing inspirational leadership, Esther Brown and Gayle Bloom are providing classification leadership, Rebecca Egolf and Phil Liff-Grief are providing cutting-edge leadership, Stefanie Zelkind is providing institutional leadership and Marci Eisen is providing interpersonal leadership. And there are many others who provided this kind of leadership in past months.

Who are the leaders in your community? Do you recognize them? Do they recognize themselves? Do others recognize them?

Thank you to the Covenant Foundation for supporting this CoP and to the WikiUniversity Course on Online Facilitation for renewing my acquintaince with this article by Etienne Wenger

Learning - Facilitating Online Communities

2009-08-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

My passion is learning. Facilitating the learning of others and my own learning. So I am jumping in headfirst - to the course on Facilitating Online Communities.

http://wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities

I have been working for the past 7 years facilitating Communities of Practice and coaching others in learning to do so. I believe profoundly in the power of f2f. But I cannot deny the importance of online learning and so, after tackling my own resistance, I am going to jump in and try to expand my skills and be able offer more to those I work with as well.

Naava

Geo Directorio on Communities of Practice

2005-07-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.geodirectorio.com/index.php/Reference/Knowledge_Management/Knowledge_Flow/Communities_of_Practice/

Welcome to Knowledge Communities Blog

2005-07-14T10:27:00.000-07:00