The presentation looks at the phenomenon of Communities of Practice and how they can develop into effective knowledge sharing environments. Topics include: What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)? Moving from conversations to collaboration Community culture and behaviours What makes a successful community? Measuring success and the elusive ROI Lessons learnt from deployment of CoPs in local government.

1. Congreso
Internacional EDO
2010
Steve Dale
Director
Semantix (UK) Ltd

2. Who am I?
Stephen Dale (Steve)
An evangelist and practitioner in the use of Web
2.0 technologies and Social Media applications
to support personal self-development and
knowledge sharing.
Steve was the business lead and information
architect for the community of practice platform
currently deployed across the UK local
government sector, the largest professional
network of its type, and continues to play a key
role in the support of virtual communities of
practice for value creation in public services.
www.semantix.co.uk

3. What I will cover
 What is a „Community of Practice‟ (CoP)?
 Moving from conversations to
collaboration
 Community culture and behaviours
 What makes a successful community?
 CoPs in UK Local Government
 Measuring success and ROI
 Lessons Learnt
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4. What is a Community of Practice?
? What is a
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5. Communities of Practice
an environment
connecting people
and encouraging
the sharing of
ideas and
experiences
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6. A successful CoP needs
certain ingredients
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7. A community
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8. A domain of interest
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9. A place to meet
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10. www.semantix.co.uk

14. But what’s new about
Communities of Practice?

15. www.semantix.co.uk

16. Guild of Goldsmiths
Guild of St Luke (painters)
Royal Guild of Cloth makers
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17. Over 800 Worshipful Companies
www.wordle.net

18. Why have a Community of
Practice?
“CoPs are not about bringing
knowledge into the organisation
but about helping to grow the
knowledge that we need internally
within our organisations.”
www.semantix.co.uk

19. Communities of Practice
 puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and
peers
 allows you to share your experiences and learn from
others
 allows you to collaborate and achieve common
outcomes
 accelerates your learning
 validates and builds on existing knowledge and
good practice
 provides the opportunity to innovate and create new
ideas
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20. Evolving from What is a
conversations to
?
collaboration
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21. Degrees of Transparency and Trust
Join our list Join our forum Join our community
Increasing collaboration and transparency of process
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22. Collaborative Working – some distinctions
Purpose Members Adhesive Duration
Formal work To deliver a Employees who Job requirements Until
group product or reports to the and org organisational
service group‟s manager structure restructuring
Project team To accomplish a Employees Project Until project
task assigned by milestones and completion
senior goals
management
Social To collect and Friends and Mutual needs As long as
networks pass on acquaintances and interests people have a
information reason to
connect
Community To develop Members who Passion, As long as
of Practice members’ select commitment there is
capabilities; themselves and interest in
to build and identification maintaining
exchange with the the group
knowledge group’s
expertise
KIN, Warwick Business School

23. Why does a person engage with
a Community of Practice?
 Attractive purpose grabs and retains attention
 Perceived benefits:
 Socialisation
 Co-learning, knowledge sharing and co-production
 Each person chooses to be a member
 Volition
 Joining in – and leaving!
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24. Levels of engagement
Become an expert
Become a mentor
Level of engagement
Write a blog
Ask a question
(with attribution)
Comment
(with attribution)
Register
Comment
(Anonymously)
Browse, search, learn
(Anonymously)
Type of engagement
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25. Patterns of contribution
Ref: Jacob Nielson http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
Number of contributions
1% active contributors
9% occasional contributors
The 1-9-90 rule
90% readers (aka „lurkers‟)
Number of participants
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26. The “1% Rule”
 For every 100 people online only 1 person will create
content and 10 will “interact” with it. The other 89 will
just view it.
 Each day at YouTube there are 100 million downloads
and 65,000 uploads
 50% of all Wikipedia article edits are done by 0.7% of
users, and more than 70% of all articles have been
written by just 1.8% of all users
 In Yahoo Groups, 1% of the user population might
start a group; 10% of the user population might
participate actively. 100% of the user population
benefits from the activities of the above groups
Source: The Guardian
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27. The important message is: look after
your content creators!
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28. But have we forgotten how
to have conversations?

29. Is this what we
asked for or
what
managers
think we
need?

30. Group Collaboration
 Conversation is NOT:
 Discussion, deliberation, negotiation
 Committee, team, task or working group
 Majority wins, minority dominance, groupthink
 Conversation IS:
 Free-flowing exchange of ideas among equals
 All ideas are solicited and are considered
 Best ideas rise to the top
Cass R Sunstein, 2006
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31. Understanding your community:
Culture and Behaviours
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32. www.semantix.co.uk

33. Community Type
 Helping Communities provide a forum for community
members to help each other with everyday work needs.
 Best Practice Communities develop and disseminate
best practices, guidelines, and procedures for their
members use.
 Knowledge Stewarding Communities organise,
manage, and steward a body of knowledge from which
community members can draw.
 Innovation Communities create breakthrough ideas,
new knowledge, and new practices.
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34. Understanding your Community
Helping Best Practice Knowledge Innovation
Communities Communities Stewarding Communities
Communities
Drivers Lower cost through Lower cost through Professional Tracks shifting
reuse standardisation development marketing trends
Social responsibility Consistency of Regulation and
project legislation
Improves outcomes
Activities Connecting Collecting, Enlisting leading Decipher trends
members Vetting experts Share insights
Knowledge who‟s Publishing Manage content Development of
who Policy
Structure Problem solving Index and store Task force Domain experts
Sub committees Best practice Sub-committees
and roles Publishing
Reward for Sense of belonging Desire for Passion for the Job responsibility to
Assistance to daily improvement topic detect emerging
participation work Professional trends
development
Knowledge Tacit - high Low tacit Tacit to explicit Explicit to tacit.
socialisation Explicit to explore Tacit to tacit
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35. Community Roles and Responsibilities
 Champion/Sponsor is able to envision the services
of a CoP over time, and should have a sense of how
the CoP can interact across the organisation
 Facilitator/Coordinator consulting, connecting,
facilitating, helping, guiding.
 Leader serves an integral role in the community's
success by energising the sharing process and
providing continuous nourishment for the community
 Librarian organises information/data (may be part of
Facilitator/Coordinator role).
 Technical Steward understands business needs and
ensure the appropriate tools are available to meet
these needs.
 Experts are the subject matter specialists
 Members/Participants without these there is no
community; the essence of a community is its
members.

36. Members of an active community
transactional
lurkers
peripheral
occasional
experts
active
beginners
core group
leaders
facilitator outsiders

37. Your community‟s life-cycle
Sustain/Renew
Level of energy
Grow
and visibility
Start-up
Close
Plan
Discover/ Incubate/ Focus/ Ownership/ Let go/ Time
imagine deliver expand openness remember
value
From: Cultivating Communities of Practice by Wenger, McDermot and Snyder
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38. The community will go
through cycles of activity
Activity
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39. What makes a successful community?
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40. What makes a successful CoP?
 clear purpose – what will it be used to do?
 creating a safe and trusted environment
 committed core group of active participants
 being motivated
 knowing the needs of participants
 having a clear action plan with activities to meet
needs
 blending face-to-face and online activities
This can all be achieved by good, active
facilitation
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41. Facilitators‟ (Coordinators,
Moderators) responsibilities
Facilitation and Coordination of a CoP includes:
 monitoring activity
 encouraging participation (facilitation
techniques)
 producing an action plan
 reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations
 monitoring success criteria and impact
 managing CoP events
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42. A
Facilitator/Coordinator
cultivates the
community
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43. A Good Facilitator/Coordinator?
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44. Facilitating online - the
challenges
 designing the right mix of online and off-line activities
('blended learning')
 catering for different learning styles and needs
 learning to become a 'guide' or 'facilitator'
 dealing with administrative, technical issues and
support requirements, and issues of time
 avoiding the dangers of misinterpretation of text
 finding the right voice
 standing back, and allowing members to discover the
power
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45. Nine steps to a successful CoP
1. Provide significant funding for face-to-face events
2. Ensure community activities address business issues
3. Provide CoP facilitator training
4. Ensure CoP facilitators are given sufficient time for
their role
5. Ensure high levels of sponsor expectation
6. Engage members in developing good practice
7. Improve the usefulness of Tools provided
8. Ensure there are clearly stated goals
9. Promote CoPs ability to help employee‟s solve daily
work challenges
Source: Knowledge & Innovation Network, Warwick Business School

46. Communities of Practice in UK
Local Government
www.communities.idea.gov.uk
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47. There is a growing recognition but
not yet a consensus about
integrating Community of Practice
(CoP)-style working in the
everyday practice of public sector
programmes and services.

48. About UK Local Government
 Local government in England and Wales
employs a workforce of 2.1 million people
across 397 local authorities.
 Each authority is working to deliver the same
700 services to their residents.
 Has an annual operating budget of over £106
billion ($177 billion) for delivering services.
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49. For some it‟s a culture shock
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50. Building an environment to support
collaborative working
Find and connect with experts
Find and connect with your peers
Threaded discussion forums, wikis, blogs, document repository
Event calendar
News feeds
News and Newsletters
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51. www.semantix.co.uk

52. Evaluating success (and ROI)
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53. Metrics & Measurement
 Identify Business Objectives
 Decide on Priorities
 Choose What to Measure & Tools
 Quantitative
 Qualitative
 Benchmark
 Identifying Trends
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54. IDeA CoP Membership and
communities
 Over 57,000 registered members
 Over 1000 communities
 Average membership of a community is 50
 Highest membership of a community is
over 1800
 Over 2700 members are contributing.
 Average of over 16,000 visits per month.
 Average of over 1000 contributions per
month.
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55. Understanding the community
profile
Power
Contributors
Contributors
Observers
Inactive
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56. What to measure (everything!)
60000 Number of contributing CoP
Total registered CoP
Members
50000 members 10000
40000 9000
8000
30000 7000
6000
20000 5000
4000
10000 3000
2000
0
1000
0
Jan-08 May-08 Sep-08 Jan-09 May-09 Sep-09 Jan-10
Percentage of CoP members Average no. of contributions
17.00% who are contributors 6.3000
made per member
16.00% 5.3000
4.3000
15.00%
3.3000
14.00%
2.3000
13.00% 1.3000
12.00% 0.3000
11.00%
Jan-08 May-08 Sep-08 Jan-09 May-09 Sep-09 Jan-10

57. Network maps provide insight and
prompt questions
“I frequently or very frequently receive
information from this person that I need to
do my job.”
Hutchinson Associates 2005
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58. Successful CoPs – Measuring
Outcomes
 Mapping Services Agreement (535 members) –
joint procurement strategy on target for achieving
savings of over £100m over 4 years.
 NI14 Avoidable Contact (631 members) – highly
active online conferences
 Policy and Performance (1785 members) –
Producing joint policy briefings
 Projects and Programme Management (356
members)– Consistent contract templates developed
for all local authorities.
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59. Measuring Return on Investment
Cost of one face to face conference:
 100 people attending an event in London
 £5000/EUR 5,800 for rooms + lunch
 £30/EUR 58 per person return train travel from a
central England venue (Birmingham).
One face-to-face conference would cost
£8000/EUR 9,300
Cost of an on-line conference is virtually
£0/EUR 0. There have been over 15 on-
line conferences facilitated by IDeA so
far.
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60. What is the value to the individual
Ask the CoP members….
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61. Keeping up to date with
current thinking
“The site is a good way to check things being
released by government or to look up
something you may have missed, it‟s an extra
safety net. I always go on at least a couple of
times a week to keep my eyes open to the
issues and make sure we‟re pointing in the
right direction.”
TH - Policy Officer, Sandwell Borough Council
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62. Innovations
“Many of the online groups that we set up on
the site either reflected new projects or were
new groups working on a new priority that
wasn‟t covered under the business unit or
structure. So for our change groups for
example, it was a place for those new
projects and communities to have a home.”
NH, Projects and Research Lead, Innovation Unit, Kent County Council.
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63. Sharing Good Practice /
avoiding duplication of work
“I was scanning the website and I happened to
come across work by colleagues in Barnet on
diversity monitoring, which means you can
profile your users to make sure you‟re not
providing services that aren‟t needed.”
DB, Senior Policy Manager (equalities), London Borough of
Sutton.
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64. Relationship Building
“The thing about CoPs is the discussions
and ideas that go on,” he adds, “it‟s like
having an ongoing network of contacts,
and that was difficult to do before.”
PT, business architect, Wolverhampton City
Council
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65. Measuring value by productivity

66. Benchmarking (52 CoPs surveyed)
How do you compare with other CoPs?
Source: Knowledge & Innovation Network, Warwick Business School

67. Metrics
 Don‟t rely on metrics to claim your community is
successful.
 Use metrics and indicators to understand your
community better.
A chicken doesn’t get fatter the more you weigh it!
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68. Lessons Learnt

69. Top Tips.
Do….
 ..identify and look after your facilitators – they are
quite often the difference between successful and
unsuccessful communities
 ..let users drive their own experimentation and use of
tools.
 ..target and support areas that have a clear desire
and need.
 ..build trust and relationships face to face where
possible.
 ..condition your managers for failure – not every CoP
is going to be successful.
 ..use online conferences and „Hot Seats‟ to build
membership growth and encourage conversations.

70. Top Tips.
Don‟t....
 ..think you can force people to collaborate
 ..assume everyone understands how to use
Web2.0/social media tools.
 ..assume everyone knows how to contribute.
 ..worry about the „lurkers‟.
 ..let command, control or hierarchy hamper
or kill your community
 ..let managers turn indicators into targets

71. Know when
to let go!
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72. Recommended Reading
 Cluetrain Manifesto – David Weinberger
 Cultivating Communities of Practice –
Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermot, William Snyder.
 Community, Economic Creativity and
Organization – Ash Amin, Joanne Roberts
 Here Comes Everybody – Clay Shirky
 Groundswell – Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
 Tribes – Seth Godin
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73. Evolution of Knowledge
"If you always do what you always did,
you'll always get what you got."
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
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74. Thank you!
Steve.dale@semantix.co.uk http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevedalexxx
stephendale http://twitter.com/stephendale
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephendale/ http://steve-dale.net
http://friendfeed.com/dissident http://stephendale.net
http://www.delicious.com/stephendale
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