CPsquare

Etienne Wenger’s proposal “Learning for a small planet; a research agenda” is available on Etienne’s website. About 60 members of CPsquare and their guests are discussing the document for the next 5 weeks.

A glimpse of one of the conversations within CPsquare… facilitated and then summarized by Nick Noakes:

Download a large version.

Ann Braun, from New Zealand, recently posted the following in a CPsquare discussion. It is such a great example of walking the talk that I asked her permission to post it here:

People have many different motivations for engaging with communities of practice — and their motivations change as a result their experiences. My initial motivation for joining, as a participant in a 2002 Foundations of CoP workshop, was to meet other community facilitators, to share experiences and to learn whatever I could to improve my own practice. I gained so much (concepts, inspirational ideas, new relationships, concrete process guidance….. to name a few) from participating in “Foundations” and in Nancy’s workshop on online facilitation that my motivation has gained at least one more dimension. Receiving benefits is tempered by a concern to contribute something in return.

Although we certainly can’t claim as a community to be fully living up to the ideas expressed in this document, we share it here with the idea that the only way to improve the practice of cultivating global literacies is to practice them. In that spirit, we share our thinking here.

CPsquare as a learning space for cultivating global literacies;

Initial Guidelines and Considerations

Summarizes a CPsquare discussion in July 2003 with: Beverly Trayner, Brian Foster, Bronwyn Stuckey, Nancy White, Ueli Schuermeier. Denham Grey, Erik Van Bekkum, Jim Palmer, John Smith, Martin Roulleaux Dugage, and Nick Noakes made contributions to the discussion.

For the three areas of culture, logistics and language, this report summarizes the discussions and issues raised. Then it offers a series of recommendations. It also includes “an example of good practice”.

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The document is intended to be the basis for practice and ongoing reflection and improvement. Comments and suggestions are invited from CPsquare practice groups and from individuals or groups who use and adapt them for their own purpose(s).

The spirit of these guidelines is that of social action for globally interconnected working and community life that is evolving in the context of newly discovered borders. Designing for and facilitating conversations that cross borders requires global literacies. Global literacies address substantive diversity of cultural, geographical and language differences as well as diverse modalities such as web based, asynchronous, synchronous, visual and paper.

We view CPsquare as a learning space for cultivating these global literacies.

These guidelines come in three parts, representing the discussions in the three folders: cultural, logistical and linguistic. A summary of the discussion that took place in each folder precedes recommendations that arose from each discussion. A summary checklist is included at the end of the document.

CPsquare continues to grow into a robust, though complex, community of practice on a global scale. These current statistics seemed interesting to me:

As of October 11, 2003

There’s a lot happening inside CPsquare, but you might not know about it. During the hectic months leading up to CPweek, the main site was updated by hand and only when absolutely necessary.

Thanks to some considerable hands-on help from John G

Highlights include

• Member growth
• CPsquare community launch
• Decreased dues for increased access
• Foundations workshop on communities of practice beginning May 26
• Building a community of communities: Launching practice groups
• Lesson learned: Cultivating practice groups as engines of CPsquare value
• How to join a practice group
• Practice Group News: Coordinator Practice Group hot topic event & update

(Note: Many of items below are hyperlinked to pages on the CPsquare Members’ Workspace; these are accessible only to registered members.  Publicly accessible items are italicized in green .  Feel free to share CPnews with colleagues.)

Membership growth:
CPsquare has achieved an initial base of about 85 members and has attracted a highly active core of members making significant contributions.  We are now building a solid base of productive practice groups as a platform for future growth.  Our aspiration is to cultivate a world-class community that includes active members across sectors, disciplines, and geographies.

CPsquare community launch: At the whole-community level we are focused now on organizing for CPweek—our community launch event taking place in Santa Cruz during the week of May 19-22.  We have published an updated schedule of activities on the CPsquare public website. We are organizing groups now to plan for various activities—including workshop modules, case clinics, and mini-projects.  A number of practice groups are beginning discussions about what issues attendees might address—and how to link with virtual participants.  Contact Etienne or Bill if you want to learn more about getting involved.

Decreased dues for increased access: Many experienced practitioners and interested academics have told us they would like to join but cannot afford the membership dues.  A critical mass of member-leaders in the field is crucial to CPsquare’s value proposition. After a number of small- and large-group conversations with members and non-members, we have decided to cut the dues by one-third.  Members strongly supported this change.  We have agreed to work together to provide the requisite social and technical infrastructure we need to succeed.

(We are sending out an email to all members and posting notes on the dues decision in the Members’ Workspace.  Meanwhile, we are working out the simplest way to handle the logistics of dealing with surplus amounts that current members have already paid.)

Foundations workshop on communities of practice: Etienne Wenger, John Smith, and Bronwyn Stuckey are convening the next introductory workshop on communities of practice—called the
HREF=”http://www.cpsquare.org/edu/foundations/index.htm”> Foundations
workshop on May 26 through July 7.

The workshop is held primarily on the Web as well as over the phone and email. The course simulates participation in an active community of practice but compresses the experience into a short period of time.  Most participants spend between 30 and 50 hours over the course of the 7 weeks reading, writing, and collaborating with others in the class. The overview of the workshop schedule describes the range of workshop activities. About one-third of CPsquare members have previously participated in the workshop.

Building a community of communities: Practice groups are CPsquare’s sub-communities where we work and learn together, build professional relationships, and generate tools, frameworks, case studies, projects, articles, etc.  Practice groups hold community events—such as teleconferences on hot topics—to promulgate what they are learning and to get feedback and ideas from the larger community.

• The practice groups that are most active now include: Community Coordinator, Technology, Social Process, and Health Care (see also:  HC public site).  Leaders are in discussion or already organizing
  a number of others, including Education, Support/Consulting, Customer Communities, Rural Innovations, Associations, and World Design.  (George Por and colleagues are also basing their European Collaborative on the CPsquare space.)
• For a more detailed update on the Community Coordinator Practice Group—contributed by Patti Anklam, one of its core-group leaders, see “Practice Group News” section at the end of this document.

Lesson learned highlight: Practice groups, as sub-communities of CPsquare, are the foundation of what we’re about.  Practice groups define the cluster of key issues in our domain, provide the personal context for building strong professional relationships, and are the engines of practice development. But it’s one thing to know this and another to act on it.  A key hurdle for us—as for any community leader or core group—has
been time!  The core group of CPsquare organizers has been swamped with establishing an initial strategy; building the public site as well as the Members’ Workspace; recruiting and orienting members; and organizing for CPweek.  (And Etienne and Bill are volunteers who have also had to keep up with research and client projects while leading these consuming start-up initiatives!  Perhaps you know the feeling!)

This is actually a lesson-learned-in-progress.  We have much more to learn about building momentum for a community that aspires to achieve a strategic, world-wide presence in a very short time—especially in a field that is just emerging (albeit at a rapid pace).  Some practical points about practice groups that have been reinforced from our experience:

• Strong core group of at least 2-4 leaders is crucial.  Given time constraints of volunteer leaders, it is very unlikely these groups will succeed with only one leader.  The Coordinator PG, for example, has four core-group leaders and several others in support roles.
• Logistics—both social and technical—need to be worked out.  We are experiencing a real opportunity to learn together about leading-edge technologies—with a number of experts in the field participating.  Even with all the insights along the way, however, the process has been frustrating
  (!) at times.  “Social” logistics include agreements about group norms and roles; methods for documenting and organizing conversations and contributions; and behavioral issues related to communication mechanisms (teleconferences, chat, asynchronous conversation, etc.)
• Getting from zero to thirty is the hardest part.  Once a core group has coalesced around a compelling domain of issues, they have a reservoir of social capital to build on and to sustain them during the lulls.  Getting started, however, requires finding your way through the underbrush of uncertainty on several dimensions—issues to address, members to engage, and where to start building the practice.  The CPsquare context helps: you know you’re not alone, there is an interested member
  base to draw on, and peer leaders are willing to help with both process tips and encouragement.  For an example of a typical PG launch plan see the Healthcare PG plan.  Also see a general description of what it takes to form a practice group .

How to join a practice group Here’s how members can connect to a current practice group: Go to the public CPsquare site and then click on “Members” – or go directly to the CPsquare Members’ Workspace .  (The CPsquare Members’ Workspace is accessible only for registered members.  To join CPsquare go to
How to Join.)  On the CPsquare Members’ Workspace homepage, click on “Practice Groups” in the folder list (aka “CPsquare explorer”) that appears in the top section of the left navigation bar.

You will then find yourself on the Practice Group overview homepage.  The folders that appear above the introduction text are links to specific Practice Group homepages.  Click on any about which you would like to learn more—each has an introduction and several have a number of resources published.  (For example, click on Coordinators to see their resources, discussions, events, members, etc.)  To keep up with the activities of the practice group (upcoming events or new discussions and resources) click on “subscribe to this page” on the right navigation bar.  If you want to learn more about core-group activities and ways to contribute, email any one of the PG leaders whose photographs appear at the top-right of thePractice Group homepage.If you would like to organize a new practice group, contact Etienne or Bill or John at
(For background on PG leadership, see the Practice Group leadership guide.)

Practice Group News – Coordinator Practice Group

Here are some lessons learned from our Coordinator PG experience thus far:

Getting to Launch has been a learning experience for the core team leaders of the practice group, who have experienced the “start up pains” associated with many COPs:

Collaborative leadership. With no one “in charge,” it takes time to be able to reach closure on decisions. The time is important, because dialogue is needed both to talk through possibilities and differing viewpoints and for the members to get to know each other. This leadership group has evolved to a leadership model where individual core team members are responsible for different aspects of the community life.

• Matthew Simpson will design, lead, and facilitate the practice group concalls and learning
  program. Erik Bekkum will design, lead, and facilitate the core team concalls
  and practice agenda work. Noel Dickover will design and manage the Coordinators
  PG workspace on the CPsquare web to ensure that it meets member’s needs
  with respect to engaging in dialogues and creating and maintaining the knowledge
  store. Patti Anklam is charged with communications about Coordinators PG activities
  and welcoming new members. She’ll also work with PG members Etienne, Bill Snyder,
  and John Smith to ensure that we aren’t overlooking topics in other PGs that we
  need to connect with and contribute to.

Mission. Clarity on what we are about, our value, and what we can produce. We’ll be creating a “knowledge store” (originally called a “toolkit”) in our CPsquare space, which will be open to all in CPsquare. This will enable members to post artifacts, experiences, and other knowledge types of value to people who are in the COP coordinator role, considering such a role, or who are finding themselves in the midst of a difficult coordination problem. Visit the Coordinators Practice Group home page to see the mission!

Rhythm and engagement. We’ve worked out how to engage prospective members and how we will keep members engaged on the practice calls — beginning with the first call, in which we invite CPsquares to come forward and state what is currently challenging them most.

Boundaries. We have agreed that we need to be sure to extend invitations to the PG calls to experts and coordinators outside of CPsquare to ensure that we are constantly refreshed by new insights and the experiences of others in the “real world.”

We’re still working on how we’ll be engaging the PG at CPweek, but meanwhile are open to comments, questions, and dialogues from all of CPsquare, now and in future.

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Well, that’s the news for now!  We’re enthusiastic about the number of leaders emerging in our community and the momentum building in several of the practice groups.  We look forward to seeing many of you in Santa Cruz!

All best,

Bill and Etienne for the
CPteam