cross-functional group spaces to learn about a topic (*usually* comprised of people across different teams). Stowe Boyd has more on this “ shift ” that may be a big cognitive reason that when it comes to individual learning on a topic, networked sharing is cutting into the ease of learning over CoPs: “Contrasting group forums with blogging is a good example in which to make the distinction between group- and individual-oriented social tools. A while back I blogged about the possibility of networks and blogospheres cutting into the need for communities.

Workers need to be able to assess new situations, learn in real time, and improvise solutions. That’s an entirely new learning agenda, for it means putting enough trust in workers to give them the wheel”” This rings a sympathetic vibration with the self organisation and autonomy that can result from a system where people are discovering, connecting, conversing, etc (a networked organisation). Here’s an excerpt from a one page flyer I’m doing for Communities of Practice at our work: “We like to think that people in our [firm] are more than their job title describes, we all have many talents, and we all have many needs to draw on each others talent.

learning organisation, information re-use, and corporate memory learning but the point here is that the content is blogs which are a social ecosystem where you have distributed conversations (trackbacks/linkbacks), and leave comments * you can now converse with your friends * Social search is resurfacing as a hot topic of late , due to how effective Twitter has become in helping you find information, and how it is close to how we source information in the offline world (via our network). Twitter is being differentiated by being called a “ Help Engine

That is a good summary of why I work so hard at teaching and hosting important conversations in organizations and communities.  Conversations are a very powerful simple systemic action, and serve to be a very important foundation for all manner of activities and capacities needed to tackle the increasing scale of issues in a system.  Collaboration, dialogue, visioning, possibility and choice creating, innovation, letting go of limiting beliefs, learning, Reading David Holmgren’s book on Permaculture right now, sitting on my front porch overlooking the garden that we have created using some of his principles. 

Next is to create conditions for people to use the community; you need interactions and conversation to grow the community. Design and Structure • People need to be a click or two away from what they need to do • If it’s too complex people won’t have the time to learn, they need to orient themselves with ease • Create a guide on how, and when to use each tool (better still incorporate it into the design) • Blank slates don’t help (people are used to structured tools that are designed for a specific purpose, and are not used to the idea of flexing unstructured

After posting my 4 Meta Skills for Learning Professionals in response to Tony’s July “Big Question,” he commented: was hoping that you would provide insight into the core skills and knowledge around communities and networks that learning professionals should have? What’s the 5 minute and 60 minute learning piece that all knowledge workers should have to go through so they will be better at this? It is hard to let some Tony Karrer disappointment persist. Nancy - I was super excited when I saw that you had posted on the topic.

In Deep Conversation" by Irish artist Pam O'Connell may also be the stuff that sparks great conversations . He drawing out the other participant(s) in the conversation, irresistably thinking, and what startlingly different learning and perspectives they derived BLOG Ten Powerful Questions Questions Artwork "In

promised to send them ideas on conversations they might consider early on. While many groups will have similar descriptions of their purpose (learning, tap into the organisation's knowledge in the domain, solve problems faster, standardise practices etc), each group needs to have this conversation. Knowledge Market : this process encourages participants to identify things they can offer (specific techniques, documents etc) and things they need to learn or need help with. On Tuesday I worked with three new communities of practice in a government agency. Each group

In the future I will be running a Facilitator’s community so I can keep community leaders in the loop of running and sustaining communities, and a place for them to learn off each other. also give them examples of community specific help guides and examples of instructional design to help their users orient and learn to use the community…it’s crucial they have a good experience, by their needs being fulfilled. This is a follow-up to my Community Lessons post, and Community paradox post. Top-Down community creation

For any brand using social media , an important first stage is to find out what people are saying about you online and then monitor these discussions and conversations. You can build on these, engage the people talking about you and learn from what they say. Today’s Required Reading at FreshNetworks looks not at how to respond but the types of conversations themselves. Image by FredArmitage via Flickr We’ve looked before at how to react if somebody writes about your brand online .