Dear Miguel,

only today (21.10) your answer popped into my e-mail account, dated 7.10. I
thank you so much for replying. I am sorry for not coming back any sooner. And
yes, I will let you know more about this initiative.

In the last couple of weeks I have been washed away by the things that needed to
be done/written.
The inivitation letter has been sent, 70 people have already joined the NING
community, tomorrow is a big event where all 220 participants will come
together, and after this meeting we will have a community-core team-meeting,
open to all who want to join, to decide on the next steps.

This network meeting is hosted by our minister of education, and has been
designed and will be chaired by Otto Scharmer. It will be something like a world
café.

Our community project is "hitch-hiking" on the back of this event and the
network meeting has been "a good enough excuse" for starting a social community
platform (in NING).

Currently I see three big challenges:
* It is not one CoP, it is a network of CoPs.
* This initiative has sprung from a highly dedicated man in the ministery, from
third level in the hierarchy. He would like to prove to the that communities
will help to innovate / transform. It has not come from top level. But the core
member people in the education sector want to see top level comittment before
they commit to - yet another CoP (they are part of many CoPs and hopelessly
overworked)
* The domain: the way I see it, it would have a lot to do with the ministery
itself. It would be: the ministery wants to open itself to the community out
there and together they would learn how to be innovative. But how to formulate
this? We are the .....innovation practitioners? Sounds awful..

But there are assets as well:
* The diversity of perspectives: there is no other way to get in touch with ALL
stakeholdes (teachers, students, parents, admin, universities, unions...who are
all highly committed to innovation) as easily as with the platform which we just
created.
* The event tomorrow will come up with results and a lot of energized people. If
we manage to transfer part of this in the virtual space, it will give us a good
kick off.
* There are people who have reacted very positively.
E.g. one lady, who saw in my profile that one topic of interest was CoP and CoT
(Community of Teachers) asked me if I had a link, and I could pass on a link to
an article, which I had just devoured, recommended by Patricia Arnold
http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/tenure-files/42-cot.pdf, and she
said: for her, that was already more value she could have expected from such a
community platform ;-).

I got carried away with details,
I will keep you posted

Lotte





--- In com-prac@yahoogroups.com, "Cornejo Castro, Miguel" <miguel.cornejo@...>
wrote:
>
> "Have a look at our content/guides/articles, ask any of your questions (about
work, your practice, the company), see what other people in your field are
saying".
>
> Could work :-). Indeed I hope so, I'm reccomending something similar, if
slightly more complex (we're explaining the incentives plan, after the gushing
enthusiasm part) for a pilot starting very soon.
>
> Please let us know how it goes so we can learn :-).
>
> Best regards,
>
> Miguel
>
> ________________________________
> De: com-prac@yahoogroups.com [mailto:com-prac@yahoogroups.com] En nombre de
lkrisper
> Enviado el: martes, 06 de octubre de 2009 21:25
> Para: com-prac@yahoogroups.com
> Asunto: [cp] Re: Fit between communities of practice and organizations
>
>
>
> Dear John,
>
> thinking about it I find Clay Shirky´s story quite frightening. It is like:
you got one chance, if you give the wrong message, you are out.
>
> This is what it basically comes down to when you start a sponsored CoP. At
some point you contact the list of potential members (after having spoken to
many of them, but still) by email and depending on what the people understand
from this they will be turned on or turned off.
>
> Of course my fears have to do with the fact that I am currently working on
such an email which we will send out next week or so to invite about 350 people
to participate - participate in what?
>
> That´s exactly the point. If you "imagine" too well all the things that could
happen and you describe too enthousiastically how the people could benefit -
"the contract could be overcomplete". If you leave it open - it is unclear what
this is all about.
>
> Do you have any good advice for me for this "first getting in touch", where
there is still such a strong "we" and "you" divide?
>
> Lotte