Social Media Tools for Work & Learning » cop consumer committee planning

Communities of Practice – a reflection on including “your consumers” in committee work

July 21st, 2009

2 comments

Collective works This post features a short video of Etienne Wenger who answers questions about low participation rates in a community of practice. Etienne Wenger is a world renowned theoretician – practitioner on communities of practice.

I sit on a number of committees that address pressing community concerns. My view is that committees are close cousins to communities of practice and we can learn from our cousins.

From poverty & homelessness to engaging youth at risk, these committees are attempting to bring about positive social change in my community. As long as I’ve been sitting on committees, usually coordinated by a lead non profit agency or a network of non profit organizations, I continually hear the wish that more “service users” be at the table to help determine the results of our planning.

The Social Non Profit – My Lens

A social non profit is attuned, responsive and adaptive to the complex factors affecting its constituents and communities. In a social non profit there is an alignment between staff, services, governance systems and online communications. Social non profits value learning and innovation and believe in working smarter by using social tech tools to enhance communication, collaboration and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users. These organizations believe that strategic use of social media empowers staff, improves services and strengthens governance practices.

Social Web Partners

I'm very pleased to have a number of very capable and talented consultants as friends and partners that work with me from time to time.

Alain Hurtubise (iAutomate.ca) designs and developments web 2. 0 platforms. Alain has over 20 years experience in web design and enterprise systems programming with large corporations. Alain's passion is paying it forward through his work with me in the non profit sector.

Peter Levesque's company, Knowledge Mobilization Works (based in Ottawa) is dedicated to building the capacity of people to create value through knowledge mobilization.

Mark Holmgren (Mark Holmgren Consulting - Edmonton AB) contributes his extensive organizational change expertise along with an array of social media integration expertise.