For a good number of years Communities (of Practice, of Interest, of Purpose, etc. etc.) inside of the corporate world weren’t viewed as important and crucial as they eventually are. For a good number of years, while working as a community builder for various different business units, I have been saying that the major driver of the adoption of social software within the Enterprise are actually communities themselves. Nowadays, it looks like things are finally changing and communities are back into the game, and therefore social software is bound to succeed within the corporate environment just because of those living organisms pushing forward their usage and adoption, now more than ever before!
Thus now that your business is, at long last!, looking into the task of setting up a community building program, so it can help further with the adoption of those social networking tools, you may be wondering what interesting resources are available out there, that you could reuse, right? Well, let me help out with that.
I thought I would share with you folks over here a superb presentation that my good friend Steve Dale put together and which he just shared very recently, both over at Slideshare and in a blog post titled: Communities of Practice: Conversations to Collaboration. You can check out the deck over here (Or flip through the embedded slides below) and in it you would be able to find the following topics covered:
- "What is a "Community of Practice" (CoP)?"
- Five steps to a successful CoP
- CoP Facilitation – the magic ingredient
- Case Study – IDeA CoP Project
- Case Study from the private sector"
It is one of those decks that makes for a very interestingly helpful and educational reading, including some real case studies!, if you are new to the topic of Community Building in general and would want to know how to get started with your communities programme inside / outside of the firewall.
Well done, Steve! Thanks much for sharing this lovely presentation with us and for helping pave the ground on how to successfully nurture and facilitate communities within the enterprise world by embracing social software. Excellent stuff!
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Communities of Practice, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, Networking, Social Networks, Social Networks, Networking, Productivity, CoP, CoPs, Community Building, Community Builders, Slideshare, Steve Dale, Case Studies
Hi Luis,
thanks for your very kind words (and blog link!). I’m happy to share any resource that will help people get a better understanding of the power and benefits of collaborative working, and particularly if they are just setting out on what may seem a daunting mission to embed this new way of working in their organisation. The good news is that it’s a very enjoyable and rewarding journey, and there’s lots of help and support available if things start to look complicated.
Thanks again for blogging about this. One day we’ll meet!
Hi Steve! You are most welcome, my friend! I am sure one day we will eventually be meeting up! No doubt! For now though I thought it was the least I could do in helping spread the message around and share with everyone out there the amazing resource you have put together out there for us to enjoy in the space of community building!
Covering almost every single aspect of it is a real winner and I am sure plenty of folks out there will benefit from it tremendously. And if they would need further help or assistance, then they know where to find you!
Thanks again for dropping by and for sharing such helpful resource! Appreciated!
Hello Steve,
Thank you for the insights in your presentation. And thank you for sharing. I am working in the Netherlands and starting up a community platform that is broader than described: evereyone (user, company, organization ) can contribute to specific topics or ideas. I am struggeling with how to get especially consumers enthousiastic and using the platform the first time…So your presentation is very welcome in giving me new ideas! If you have any suggestions, I am open for it.
Hi Chantal,
there’s no doubt that engagement is the biggest hurdle in nurturing and fostering a CoP. There are some excellent resources avilable in the Facilitators CoP at http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk that might be able to help you or give you some ideas on how to inspire your CoP members. You’ll need to register on the platform first.
I will be posting a blog shortly on measuring the value of CoPs ay http://steve-dale.net if this is of any interest to you.
Steve