Case #1
My coleague just got his MBA. He told me the knowledge he gained was just part of the program. The greatest bonus was networking. For example, one of his classmates is a director in the company and he has 124 contacts. He has 23 classmates and they got to know each other so well throughout the two years of the masters program. Most of his classmates offered, "Hey, let me know when you need something." We are talking the possiblility 1000 to 3000 contacts.
Are they a community of Practice? A community of interest? Or a geographical community, or merely a network? Wenger (1998) wrote that members of a community are informally bound by what they do together–Although this group from an intitial look apears to be centered around networking, from the classmeates engaging in lunchtime discussions to solve difficult problems–and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities, I think my colleague's MBA classmates have become a community of practice.
Case #2
Our close friends in Vacouver Canada sent their son and daught to two very very very expensive private schools. Their kids are doing so well. They are more than good enough to go to a public funded outstanding student program. But the kid's grandfather who is a successfully retired businessman said no. Reason? Networking. He said the network is not only between the students but also includes the parents. The net will play a very important roll in the kid's future.
Are our friends kids (grade 5 and 8) in communities of Practice? Communites of interest? Or geographical communities? Wenger (1998) wrote communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. What kinds of things matter to those 2 smart kids? Based on the kid's motivation the school they are attending for future relationship are not communities of practice yet. Geographical communities? Yes, institutionalized communities. yes...
Case #3
The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England. They met for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1940s. The Mythopoeic Society described this group:
The Inklings were a gathering of friends – all of them British, male, and Christian, most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University, many of them creative writers and lovers of imaginative literature – who met usually on Thursday evenings in C.S. Lewis’s and J.R.R. Tolkien’s college rooms in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s for readings and criticism of their own work, and for general conversation. “Properly speaking,” wrote W.H. Lewis, one of their number, the Inklings “was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections.” An overlapping group gathered on Tuesday (later Monday) mornings in various Oxford pubs, usually but not always the Eagle and Child, better known as the Bird and Baby, between the 1940s and 1963. These were not strictly Inklings meetings, and contrary to popular legend the Inklings did not read their manuscripts in the pub.
I think without a doubt the Inklings were a model of a community of Practice; a community and intelectually driven group. I even think Dr. Etienne Wenger had Inklings in his mind when he formed the phrase Communities of Practice.
What Does it Mean to Me?
The Inklings needed to meet somewhere at the same time in order to discuss the issues they cared about and were interested in. We have enjoyed the fruits from this group of people for more than fifty years and their literature is going to inspire generations to come.
We are now in the midst of the convenience of the internet world so we can join or start one or several communities of practice without the limitation of time; via blog, Google docs, socical network websites and overcome the limitation of space to see each other and talk at the same time via iChat, Skype. We are just in the beginning stages of this new form of community of practice. Will we have some outstanding genius groups emerge like the Inklings in the future? Groups that flower without even seeing each other in real life! The fruit may well last for years and years... I hope I will live long enough to see it happen....
References:
Kilby, C., Mead, M, ( 1982), Brothers and friends: the diaries of major Warren Hamilton Lewis, p 230, Harper and Row
Mythopoeic Society, About the Inklings, from http://www.mythsoc.org/inklings/
Weger, E. (1998, June), Communities of practice: learning as a social system, System Thinker, retrieved from http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment