COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

"A group of people or groups who share a concern or passion about a topic who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an outgoing basis" (wenger at al,2002)
Groups or people having different goals,working in different platforms,adopting different strategies for the same goals can also form a CoP.

According to Etienne Wenger (c 2007), three elements are crucial in distinguishing a community of practice from other groups and communities:

The Domain:

A community of practice is is something more than a club of friends or a network of connections between people. 'It has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest. Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.

The Community:

In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.

The Practice:

Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources, experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.

THE REAL COLOR OF CoP's:
I have been reading a lot about CoP's now a days.First I thought CoP 's are a great platform to share and acquire knowledge.But whats is going on with CoP's in reality?

• Are they really as effective as they seem to be?

• Does a ideal CoP exist in reality?

I agree that CoP's are effective with in the organisations and there are success stories for intra-organisational CoP's.But what about the Inter-organisational CoP's?
While thinking about the CoP's my mind is flooded with a stream of questions that i cant answer neither the books nor the websites I referred answered me those questions.

• How can CoP's exist in IT field where every company is a competition to other?

• How can they exchange the knowledge that have been acquired through great effort?

• Will any organisation help other competitors so that they can perform better?

Let me make it clear to you by giving an example.

• The biggest software companies in the whole world are Microsoft,IBM and Oracle corporation.They are the biggest competitors.There is no way they share the knowledge they acquire or the one in their repositories.All the projects or information are highly secured.So,what is the point of a CoP here?

• The organisation that I'm presently working with is our KMS where we are assigned to do some research and present our ideas in a perspective.Our superiors told us to comment on others articles so that we can develop a CoP and share knowledge.But what exactly happening is some people din't even post anything on their blogs and there is no question of commenting on them.I din't even receive a single comment and I dint even get a reply for the comments I made.I dont know whats the reason.The reasons may be they dont want to present their idea for the fear of failing,they feel that others might copy from thier blogs,they want to surprise all of us.But I know that everyone will be having thier content on their blogs on thursday.Their might be other reasons involved such as culture,background or may be to show their superiority.I don't think the CoP in our organisation is working effectively.This is my idea but other people might think differently.
• LEARNING IS IN THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PEOPLE-McDermott(in Murphy 1997:17)

• The best example I can give is the CoP's in NGO's.

When I'm doing my B.Tech in INDIA,where child labor prevails,I took a boy who is a orphan and homeless to a NGO.But to my utter surprise they said they wont be admitting him as he is not suffering from any disability or disease.I asked them if they can take the responsibility of sending him to other homes which they can do easily.But they said they couldn't do that as they are not related to any other NGO.I went all around.Some said that the boy should be a Christian,some said that they treat only AIDS patients.But no NGO took the responsibility.
I have heard a lot about NGO's such as Oxfam, CARE, World Vision, Save the Children whose revenues exceed billions of dollars every year.But they only work in countries where they have their own networks.They are not associated with other NGO's.Some work for relief programs,some for tumor affected,some for old people but no organisation works for everyone.I know it is not possible to work for everyone.But they can form a CoP and serve the people in a better way.
The concept of CoP's are good but when they are put into real practice,they will be better.
"An ideal CoP should be a platform where everyone strive hard to develop their respective or chosen field."
REFERENCES:
Wenger,Etienne.(2007),Communities of Practise,http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm.Accessed febuary 11,2009.