Learning and Knowledge Community Catch-up">Learning and Knowledge Community Catch-up
Hi, I’m Aaron, and I’ve signed my organization up to do something that we don’t exactly know how to do. Sound familiar?
It’s not entirely true for us. Many people in my org, including myself, are part of all sorts of knowledge communities. Now that we’re going to try and do it all official like, I figured if I could use this information, maybe others could as well.
The whole idea is still relatively young in terms of facilitating and tacitly encouraging communities of practice, especially in non-tech organizations. People above me trust that we’ll figure it out. I feel comfortable heading into uncharted territory and trusting that we’ll figure it out. We start small and move fast.
But knowing what mistakes others have made might help me (and you) make fantastic new mistakes — or maybe, just maybe, find some early successes to build on. That’d be nice, too. Right?
So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve had a couple of get-togethers over WebEx with Michael Palko, Brian Dusablon and Craig (Ender) Wiggins this last year that set me, and my org, on the right path. Back in March of this year, Michael led a great initiative on Sharepoint in Corporate Learning (notes, btw, are here from that session).
I’d like to have another one with a slightly larger audience of people already doing communities in their org, and people who are thinking about doing it, to do some level setting on our various goals for communities, approaches as far as tool and people resources AND lessons learned so far.
I’ll share what I’m doing in this space and I hope you can share what you’re up to, also. If you want to make sure we cover something in the meeting, make sure you comment on this post so as this rapidly comes together, we don’t miss anything vital. Example: I’m interested in what kind of time commitment is needed to facilitate a community tied to an organizational curriculum, like developing leadership skills. I’m also interested in exercises that help the community become self-sustaining.
I’ll capture the session and share it with you afterwards. Please participate and select the best dates/times to participate using Doodle. We’ll go with the most popular time. NOTE: In the Doodle, I’m asking you for your email address when you sign up so that I can send out invites without having to hunt you down 
UPDATE: The majority elected Friday, December 18 at 2pm CST to participate. If you’re in the community-making mindset and you’d like to participate, we can accommodate 1-2 more people (we already have ~10). We’ll be moderating a back-channel before, during and after this session in Google Wave. Comment below if you’re interested in participating this week or, potentially in the future. And if you need a Google Wave account, comment below, also. We’ll get you hooked up.
Great idea, Aaron. Too many times I think about things like this, but don’t act on them. It’s already been a month since DevLearn, and I still have items on my To Do list for conference follow-ups, and I’ve had exactly ZERO conversations with any of the great people I met.
I look forward to more opportunities like this – maybe the gathering and facilitating of these collaborative efforts and share sessions is something we must lead? Let’s discuss more.
The first thing I thought of after I had the idea to pull this together was “this should be a Learning Ninjas activity.” #lrnchat is awesome because it surveys much, gets a lot of people involved and reveals the pattern around a given topic. For this topic, I have a need to do a deeper dive.
Ideally, we can start to cobble together a table where given the reason for having a community, we can share what tools we’re using, what kind of people resources we have facilitating it, how big/active the community is and what kind of costs and time commitments it takes to keep it going along different phases.
That’s the kind of information that benefits everyone, and it’s (for me) hard information to get without sharing among peers who are already doing it or are thinking about doing it.
That’s the sweet spot, I think. We have all the tools available to solve common tactical/operational concerns. We just need to connect our crafts (like BSS or Learning Ninjas) to the work.
In a conference proposal I submitted recently, I proposed the idea of a shift in Building Community methods – the original way (1.0 shall we say) – institutionally/organizationally-hosted, closed communities – instructor/trainer led and sustained by efforts of the leader. The “new” way (2.0) I defined as: A community established and growing with and then beyond the originating source (i.e. course or business) using social media. The community, ultimately, becomes another node of the learner’s larger personal learning network. This is further defined by characteristics of openness, sustainability, and the opportunities for professional growth.
In creating this proposal, some questions remain for the audience to ponder – perhaps they are worthy of our future discussion (if they fit where your agenda is going).
1)Should participation in Community 2.0 have some accountability? If so, how? If not, why not (since research shows participation increases cognitive presence in online classes/training).
2)What are the “use of social media” privacy concerns for institutions of learning (i.e. FERPA) and organizations with security clearance issues and how can we work around them?
3)If we determine students benefit from being involved in Community 2.0, both intellectually and affectively (affect not effect), what are concrete steps to encourage learner-learner interaction using the Community?
4)What are ways to encourage Community 2.0 among the more “social media resistant” learners?
Wow, that took a lot of explaining to get to those four topics…good thing I didn’t have to do this in 140 characters!
First off, that’s a helluva conference session. I’d love to be there.
1) I happen to agree that participation has some accountability, as it does in the physical world; I’d like to hear other perspectives on this. You mention that research shows participation increases cognitive presence — you got a link handy? Not doubting you, but I think it helps to be able to tack down what we’re all accepting on trust, right?
2) I think there is some overlap in the concerns, some real and some merely objections. Important that we distinguish what’s a trolling objection and what’s a legit concern. I hope I can snag some security ppl in this discussion or an ensuing one to help put context around stuff we as facilitators of learning might ignore or find cumbersome.
3) Methods to facilitate and encourage learner-learner interaction is a solid question I’m very interested in. Good pull.
4) This goes back to overcoming objections, and there are a lot of ppl we can pull in to help. I have some experience here and can share; again, the more people contributing to this thread, the better.
I’m hoping we build up a context arsenal that makes it easier for all of us to effectively build communities and keep them evergreen.
Resources:
A great starting place http://communitiesofinquiry.com/papers_cp
Cognitive presence and online learner engagement: a cluster analysis of the community of inquiry framework by Peter Shea http://www.springerlink.com/index/V218M6Q74501813P.pdf
ONLINE COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY REVIEW: SOCIAL, COGNITIVE, AND TEACHING PRESENCE ISSUES by Garrison
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nvaughan/coiissues.pdf
Building Sense of Community at a Distance – by Rovai
http://www.whateverproductions.net/Rovai-2.pdf
THE PROCESS OF COMMUNITY-BUILDING IN DISTANCE LEARNING CLASSES by Brown
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/pdf/v5n2_brown.pdf
There are tons of papers, but Shea et al include research, not just quoting of other thinkers.
Hi Aaron… lots of good questions and feedback appearing in this area. Our experience has been relatively short, say 3 years, with some successes and several failures. I will share a few pithy items from our knowledge community experience.
1. Get the team together first and talk over what the whole purpose might be and why they would even think of doing this. Why? In our work environment, one more place to go or one more thing to do, just won’t happen.
2. Discuss how they want to operate. Why would you contribute something? Why would you read someone’s contribution? What do we have to develop together that none of us can do alone?
3. Determine the first output that will provide value. Reference? Method? Tool? Opinion? Results?
4. Tell potential sponsors their role is to support and promote, not drive.
5. Keep it fresh. Always a good idea for anything digital or organic.
6. Check in regularly. Like daily. Fish and unused communities stink after 3 days. (apologies to Mark Twain)
7. Market your team. Viral is ok, but slow. Ensure people have enough imformation to attach. Ideas, and communities that attract people are often the best ones.
If you are a fan of “don’t do this” or Failblog, here are a few for you:
- don’t sign people up in the community and let them find out via email confirmation
- don’t lock down the community by requiring moderator approval of contributions. (you do have another job, right?)
- don’t respect worriers. Communities are self correcting. And, your corporate policies all apply to communities just like they do to email and phone conversations.
- don’t be autocratic. Communities are a team sport
- don’t try to drive communities with external reasons for being and doing.
- don’t let executives take over. Period.
- don’t erect elitist barriers or protocols. Your best idea may come from someone you least expected to contribute.
Thats a start.
There’s a lot of wisdom in how you’re enumerating your quick list, Art. I especially like #6 (“Fish and unused communities stink after 3 days.”). Thank you so much for weighing in!
Thanks for getting this started. I’m not going to be able to make the session on Friday but I’m definitely gonna watch the recording (if you have one) and am in for the rest of whatever course this discussion takes. Thanks again!
The capture is in Google Wave. I really think this was a very helpful conversation. The group agreed we’ll meet again in January. I’ll organize it right after the holidays and plan it enough in advance to make sure we have another great crowd.