Within a couple months of my hiring and having gained a better appreciation of what the SOG is all about, it became clear to me that something was missing–online Communities of Practice (CoP). We were the great conveners–regularly bringing communities of practice together face-to-face to learn from us and from one another, and then they all went home…until we did it again. I know this doesn’t capture the ongoing phone and email support we provide our clients, nor the collective toe we’ve stuck in the water, or knee-depth wading we’ve done with our listservs. Some have even waded in quite deep with their wikis and blogs, but in my view, we’ve not yet realized the potential synergies of bridging the experience and expertise of our clients with that of our own in-house experts.
Last year we submitted a grant proposal (unsuccessful) to lay the technical foundation for a NC Land Use Planners Community of Practice–an open forum for government practitioners to learn from each other as well as providing a common platform to engage with School of Government faculty and resources. More than a portal where people come to find resources, a CoP is place where all can contribute resources, and at many different levels. More than a blog, with a single or few authors, a CoP can be “authored” by all subscribers. More than a wiki, A CoP is equally focused on the community and contributers as it is the content they contribute. I think this quote captures much of my thinking on CoP:
“People are the best conduits of information. Studies have shown that workers spend a third of their time looking for information and are five times more likely to turn to a coworker rather than an explicit source of information (book, manual, or database). Time is saved by conferring with members of a CoP. People have tacit knowledge which is not found in a book [or blog, webpage or wiki]. ” (Dalkir 2005).
Such a community space would allow our client groups to:
- Store communications sent through email (similar to our listservs)
- Upload and discuss documents
- Gather information from colleagues more rapidly (polls, email, forums)
- Rate, highlight, and retrieve useful messages (useful contributions stay visible, less useful ones get buried)
- Search and find documents and conversations more easily
- Categorize/tag information and resources more easily
- Manage subscriptions to various notifications (new resources, announcements, topics)
- Engage/participate at the level they choose (contribute, or just read; subscribe by email and/or visit website)
Recently, a few projects have emerged or gained renewed attention that point to growing SOG interest in the notion of online communities: Jeff Welty’s Criminal Law blog, Local Governmnet Law blog (stay tuned), Richard Whisnant’s Water Wiki, EFC blog (stay tuned), ITD’s adoption of Drupal. These are all attempts to reach out to communities, in many cases to also solicit a discussion and dialogue. The Community of Practice portal builds on these current efforts to pull together the collective knowledge of our clients and faculty…and pull together the functionality found in our listservs, blogs, wikis and resource pages.
I’ve not made an especially cogent case here, but I wanted to get some thoughts down as I consider with others how best to proceed. Now, more than ever, I think it’s time we took the plunge, and put in place ways to sustain and support our client’s ongoing learning and dialogue, thereby improving the lives of NC citizens through better state and local government. In today’s climate of pending state budget cuts for us and our clients, Carrie Holbert was quick to point out that such ventures are big and resource-intensive and need to look at sustaining themselves through grants, subscriptions or sponsorship. Doing so would keep costs down and ensure portal access to the greatest number of our clients.
Want to dive deeper (oxygen tank recommended)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communities_of_practice
Some very cool tools out there that could support this effort include: Tomoye, PBWorks, Drupal, Ning
Let me know how an online Community of Practice could affect your clients?
-Joel G.
