From [[http://cpsquare.org CPsquare]], the community of practice on communities of practice.

CPsquare field trips -- visits to living communities quarterly excursions to online communities, open to CPsquare members and friends, organized and presented in cooperation with SCOPE Community Enthusiasts.

Project Participating Category

Contents 1 Who 2 Where 3 What 3.1 Community 3.1.1 Background 3.2 Framework 4 Why 5 Report

Who

• Community demographics:

Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) is a community of international development practitioners who are interested in knowledge management and knowledge sharing issues and approaches. KM4Dev has grown from about 500 members at the beginning of 2008 to over 1500 today.

Where

• Asynchronous discussion April 20 - May 3, 2011 in CP2 community
• Synchronous discussion April 27, 2011, 15:00 UTC
• AUDIO: CPsquare phone bridge Call 1-201-793-9022 - Conference room "9414582" or Skype to +9900827049414582 (include the "+", looks like Skype-out but it's free)
• VISUAL: CPsquare Elluminate room You can listen this way, but talking is more clumsy than with the phone bridge above.

What

Because KM4Dev is big and a bit sprawling, because there has been an overlap between CPsquare and KM4Dev membership, and because this is an interesting inflection point for KM4Dev, this field trip will have both synchronous and asynchronous components. The asynchronous part will begin on April 20 where we look at several different facets of KM4Dev. We will collect pointers to historical events such as face-to-face meetings or notable transitions as well as tools that have been developed, platforms or tools that have been tried.

Community

KM4Dev is notable for being very productive and quite informal community in a global sector that is both complex and with its share of command-and-control style organizations. Also, it seems like this is an inflection point in the life of KM4Dev.

Background

• The 'about' page on the community site gives some history and context

Framework

• Other perspectives?
• C4P (see description and references)

Viewing KM4Dev using the C4P model (some questions to get us started): Content: What explicit knowledge objects such as documents or video clips are created or shared in this community? Connections: What interpersonal contacts between community members (e.g., that facilitate relationship-building between community members) can you observe? Conversation: what face-to-face or online conversations are going on? Context: what context gives meaning to the content, connections and conversations in this community? Purpose: why do the members of this community come together in this community?

Why

• Why now?

For CPsquare:

• See KM4Dev through the eyes of its members

For KM4Dev

• KM4Dev members are are not usually focusing on their community as such but on specific issues of interest to their community. The field trip will involve explaining the community to others, and reporting on experiences, as a way to reflect and think about future directions.

• What questions the community faces now?

Question to get us started: Given KM4Dev's success and growth as a community, do you see a need for the community's agreements, organizational supports and technologies to evolve? If so, how?

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Report

We produced a report on the basis of this visit.