CPsquare

Notes from the After Action Review

(edited version of notes captured by Amy Kiel of the AAR led by Pete Kilner)

AAR Framework: What were your expectations? What did we do? Were our expectations… Met? Not met? Exceeded? What were the unexpected benefits? Next time…. do the same? do differently? add to the agenda?

Expectations:

• “Thought is would be “B” quality presentations.”
• “Came for both people/relationships and the content”
• “Came to see what type of problems people have and see how people solve them.”

Things we did:

• (Several full papers early in the week got us to the conference)
• Wednesday from 5-6 there was a SIG meeting. Mostly introductions and some conversation.
• People went out to dinner on Thursday night.
• After Etienne Wenger’s keynote, Friday was spent together in workshops and presentations.

Where our expectations met:

• Learned that it’s not the technology that drives a community—but it is the culture that emerges.
• Expectations were surpassed… had unexpected benefits. I met a rushing flow of people and ideas coming together. I’ve changed my thinking
• I got some ideas that I immediately implemented (I went on-line to my courses and set up three “clubs” for the students to meet. Changed some discussion questions to prompt interaction between the students)
• In the KM space these days there is a lot of labeling of things that have already been done – repackaging old ideas. This notion of CPs seems to break from the mold. Even though this is something that has been done in the past…there seems to be more substance here.
• I’ve been dying to meet Brownyn. And it’s been nice to connect with John and Etienne as well. I like to share my knowledge with others. I accomplished putting together an E-learn site where we can continue our conversation.
• Inspired by the companycommand presentation. I didn’t know what a big deal it is. This was way past my expectations.

What will we do next time?

• Have an online community space set up already so that the interaction can take place before, during and after
• Have some way of finding each other during the conference.
• Take responsibility and follow up on your ideas. Find other opportunities to come together.
• Would have like to have heard from other people who did not present. It would be good to hear what people’s biggest challenges are. Maybe we could have a “town meeting” of sorts.
• Make the idea of weaving our thread into the E-Learn conference more formal. We should fill out an evaluation for the conference and note our suggestions.
• One or two sessions on what’s out there in public domain software that can be used to enable these types of communities
• If we could possible have a virtual workshop, create subjects for the next time that we meet together.
• We could bring a problem to the table and see if get people in the group to help solve it. (e.g. tell us about freeware software)