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Category: Facilitation

Tips for Building Successful Communities of Practice

Tips for Building Successful Communities of Practice

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This is a refresh of an earlier blog published here in 2016 My experience of knowledge sharing in organisations stems mainly from my involvement in setting up Communities of Practice (CoPs) for UK local government. This was part of a broader Knowledge Management strategy that I was commissioned to deliver for the Improvement and Development Agency and Local Government Agency. It has since migrated to the private sector and continues to thrive as the Knowledge Hub. When I left the…

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The Role of the Facilitator in Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice

The Role of the Facilitator in Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice

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I have the honour of being invited to present at the XIII Seminari Compartim L’e-moderador i altres nous agents de coneixement a les organitzacions on 21st September 2011. The event is sponsored by Generaliti de Cataluña, centre d’Estudis Juridics, I Formacio Especialitzada. This post is a brief preamble to my presentation. Background My experience of knowledge sharing in organizations stems mainly from my involvement in setting up Communities of Practice (CoPs) for UK local government. This was part of a…

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Building and Nurturing On-Line Communities – Batteries Not Included

Building and Nurturing On-Line Communities – Batteries Not Included

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Much has been written about best practice for developing and nurturing on-line communities , such as Communities of Practice (CoP), and the accepted wisdom is that technology by itself – no matter how good – will NOT deliver vibrant and successful communities. “Build it and they won’t come”  should be the mantra, as Google Wave so amply demonstrated (and I know this was not an on-line community in its purest sense before I get flamed!). I’ve previously tried to illustrate…

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Communities of Practice: Conversations to Collaboration

Communities of Practice: Conversations to Collaboration

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I’ve was pleased to be invited to do a keynote presentation at the NHS eSpace Coordinators conference earlier this month.  I wanted to emphasise the importance of the Coordinator’s role in building trust within a Community of Practice (CoP), and as a catalyst for turning conversations into active collaboration.  I should note that I’m more familiar the term ‘Community Facilitator’, for this role, and have used the term ‘facilitator’ and ‘coordinator’ to mean the same thing, i.e. the person or…

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Identifying Community of Practice Needs

Identifying Community of Practice Needs

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One of the things we have learnt from the development and use of the IDeA Community of Practice Platform is that a CoP can have different needs, dependent on the stage in their life cycle and their primary purpose. The role and importance of the facilitators (or moderators) in these communities cannot be overemphasised since they must ensure that the needs of the CoP are understood in order to create the appropriate environment for achieving their CoP’s goals and objectives….

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Community of Practice Facilitators Workshop

Community of Practice Facilitators Workshop

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We had a very good day at the IDeA Community of Practice Facilitator’s Workshop on Friday 11th April. These are regular (bi-annual) events where we get the CoP facilitators (and several guests) together to share knowledge and experience of facilitating one or more of the 300+ CoPs now active across local government. The day was organised and facilitated by a team from the IDeA, led by Michael Norton, who interestingly enough has just put his toe in the water and…

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Fostering a collaboration culture

Fostering a collaboration culture

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An excellent posting from Shawn over at Anecdote about fostering a collaboration culture. A good corollary to my recent postings about what I see as growing and misplaced belief that Web 2.0 is the solution to more effective knowledge sharing. They key point I was trying to make is that technical solutions (blogs, wikis, RSS) by themselves do not create, nurture or develop learning and sharing communities, or improve engagement between government and citizens. I emphasised the importance of people…

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Facilitation Toolkit

Facilitation Toolkit

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I am grateful to Hilary Messeter from the National College of School Leaders (NCSL) for agreeing to present at a recently Community of Practice workshop I co-hosted. The NCSL have created a Facilitation Toolkit for their community of over 100,000 members. This is primarily focused on communities within the education sector, but the toolkit is a great resource for anyone who is new to the world of on-line facilitation, or indeed for anyone who is currently supporting a community of…

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On-line interaction and fear of the unknown

On-line interaction and fear of the unknown

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An excellent commentary and explanation about on-line facilitation from Nancy White over at Full Circle. Very topical for me at the moment as I begin a new contract working as Interim Head of the Information Authority, a new Secretariat sponsored by the DfES and the LSC. One of the key responsibilities for this newly established body (the Information Authority) is to balance need against burden for all information and reporting requirements across the education sector. My initial thoughts were along…

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Facilitating Communities of Practice

Facilitating Communities of Practice

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An interesting item in Joitske Hulsebosch’s blog today about community facilitation. It refers to a research study undertaken by Halbana Tarmizi and Gert-Jan de Vreede on two key questions: 1. What are the most difficult tasks in CoP facilitation? 2. What are the most important tasks in CoP facilitation? The results are based on 45 people who took an online survey. The most difficult tasks were (according to facilitators with more than 5 years experience): 1. Encouraging new members to…

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