In this paper, I relate the conceptual framework of communities of practice to systems theory and I review the career of the concept of community of practice since its inception in my work with Jean Lave in 1987 :

• Part 1 : A social systems view on learning: communities of practice as social learning systems

- Learning as the production of social structure

- Learning as the production of identity

• Part 2 : A learning view on social systems: communities of practice in social learning systems

- Learning as the structuring of systems: landscapes of practice

- Modes of identification

- Identity in a landscape of practices

- Knowledgeability as the modulation of accountability

• Part 3 : Applications and critiques

- A powerless concept: what about power?

- An anachronistic concept: is it history?

- A co-opted concept: on the instrumental slippery slope?

• Part4 : Toward a social discipline of learning

- Practice: learning partnerships

- Learning governance: stewardship and emergence

- Power: vertical and horizontal accountability

- Identity: learning citizenship

The concept of community of practice was not born in the systems theory tradition. It has its roots in attempts to develop accounts of the social nature of human learning inspired by anthropology and social theory (Lave, 1988; Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1984; Foucault, 1980; Vygostsky, 1978). But the concept of community of practice is well aligned with the perspective of the systems tradition. A community of practice itself can be viewed as a simple social system. And a complex social system can be viewed as constituted by interrelated communities of practice. In this essay I first explore the systemic nature of the concept at these two levels. Then I use this foundation to look at the applications of the concept, some of its main critiques, and its potential for developing a social discipline of learning.

The concept of community of practice does not exist by itself. It is part of a broader conceptual framework for thinking about learning in its social dimensions.¹ It is a perspective that locates learning, not in the head or outside it, but in the relationship between the person and the world, which for human beings is a social person in a social world. In this relation of participation, the social and the individual constitute each other. When I refer to "the theory" in what follows, I refer to this version of social learning theory.

¹ Note that there are other dimensions of learning - biological, psychological, cognitive, as well as historical and political in the broad societal sense. The theory does not explicitly address these aspects, though it is, I hope, compatible with theories that do. It needs to be combined in a plug-and play fashion with theories that address these other dimensions to explain specific situations where they are salient.

Etienne Wenger-Trayner is a globally recognized thought leader in the field of social learning and communities of practice. He has authored and co-authored seminal articles and books on the topic, including Situated Learning, where the term "community of practice" was coined; Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity, where he lays out a theory of learning based on the concept; Cultivating Communities of Practice, addressed to practitioners in organizations who want to base their knowledge strategy on communities of practice; and Digital Habitats, which tackles issues of technology. His work is influencing a growing number of organizations in the private and public sectors. He helps these organizations apply these ideas through consulting, public speaking, and workshops.

In this series of three articles, i want to explore social learning from the perspective of the individual and the organisation in today’s workplace and then take a look to the future, to where social may take us. Yesterday we explored the experience of the individual, looking at how social capital is increasingly important: the ability to survive and thrive in online spaces and how this differs from the past. Today i want to explore the challenges for organisations.

An organisation is only as healthy as it’s messaging, it’s ability to communicate ideas and to shape, strengthen and influence it’s reputation in the marketplace. Much of this ability falls to it’s control of messages, it’s ability to define what the brand stands for and to influence how others perceive it by ensuring that messaging is ‘on brand’. In other words, every advert you see, every website, every letter or press release, the scripts used by the call centre handlers and every aspect of every shop or branch, from the colour of the marble floor to the type of door handle used is controlled.

Consistency, compliance and replicability of experience are the hallmarks of today’s global or aspirational business. Go to McDonalds in Peking or Portsmouth and the experience is controlled the same. HSBC is the world’s local bank because the promises they make in Shanghai are as valid as the ones they make in Surbiton.

Within this web of control, social learning sits like a warty toad. It’s not very welcome and nobody wants to kiss it. Historically, organisational learning has been about taking people and bringing them in line with the organisational view of the world, be that product knowledge, how to lead people or how to change a valve without blowing something up. There are many good reasons for this. The skills needed to be safe and successful are often well understood, organisational knowledge built up over time. If you work in an engineering business, nobody particularly wants you to contribute an original idea to how that valve gets changed.

Formal and traditional learning structures are often well suited to the development of of skills and behaviours that help strengthen this organisational view of the world. Social learning can sit comfortably alongside this, but it’s different. It’s less about the training for formal knowledge and more about the development of skills around using knowledge, applying it. Social learning is more collaborative and fluid, looking for emergent truth out of debate and discussion, challenge and exploration. I view it more as a mindset and a tool that can be deployed to support practice and embedding of knowledge.

Social is not about control, it’s about collaboration. For the organisation this can present all sorts of challenges: legal, ethical and around consistency. Take that problem with a valve: firstly, the organisation has a legal obligation to train you to change it safely. They have to discover the best way, then they have to have that way accredited and verified, then they have to train you, let you practice and sign you off as competent. Within this legal framework, there is little space for social learning, which would be more likely to ask why not try this other way?

You could include a space for more experienced engineers to contribute feedback and thoughts, although this can easily breach legal guidelines (if one of them says ‘just hit it with a hammer’).

Ethical challenges emerge especially in global social learning spaces where we need to take into account different cultural norms around gender and sexual equality, the role of the manager and what it means to learn. Some cultures are more comfortable with the free form collaborative approach that tends to typify social whilst others prefer there to be more structure. In some cultures it’s unusual for women to be engineers of managers and there is a risk that debate can start to make people uncomfortable. Do we have a duty to champion liberal values in social learning spaces, or is that simply rude to other cultures? Should we avoid these issues, or does that form a moral cowardice? These are significant organisational challenges that can prevent the utilisation or success of social learning. As we discussed yesterday, building social capital is important for individuals to gain benefit in social learning spaces, but there is a darker side to this too in the form of bullying or, in a lesser form, hustling in these spaces. Some people have strongly developed skills in putting their view across forcefully and the transition into the virtual world of social can reinforce the way they do this. It’s well known that people can tend to say things in emails or texts that they would never say in person. We tend to be less inhibited, giving greater potential for conflict or misunderstanding.

I sometimes think that legal and ethical concerns are more legitimate reasons not to take up social than the other main reason: control. Organisations like to control messaging and often for good reasons as we have seen above. They don’t want people blowing things up and they don’t want debate around whether women can be engineers. It’s all just a distraction. But beyond that, there is a fear that the messages can’t be moderated or controlled.

Lets just think about the range of ways that organisations communicate: websites, brochures, corporate literature, this all tends to be written in advance, heavily edited by legal, compliance, communication teams and MDs. It’s a heavily moderated and controlled message. Social media tend to fall at the other end of the spectrum: forums, Twitter, status updates, these all tend to be relatively unmoderated, more conversational, immediate and disposable. Or rather, we intend for them to be disposable. But things persist in the virtual world, meaning that posts in forums come back to haunt us later. Where so much organisational value and reputation is built upon control of messages, it’s understandable that there is a nervousness about introducing social spaces where messages can be unmoderated.

I guess moderation is the key to all of this: for organisations and the individuals that make them up to debate and decide upon what stance they want to take. What is the organisational tone of voice for engaging in social learning spaces and for moderating them?

This is something that needs to emerge, not that can be totally planned in advance. Because social media are so responsive, so conversational, we can’t codify how we react, but we can agree on a tone of voice. Take my blog, it’s run on principles of collaboration and positive tone of voice. If i can’t think of something positive to say on a subject, i won’t talk about it. I won’t write articles knocking other projects or sites, unless i have something constructive to say about it. Why? Because i find that social media postings that are just negative are depressing. If you don’t feel you can contribute towards building knowledge, sharing learning and understanding and building something better, you have to ask yourself if you should contribute at all. But that’s just my tone of voice. It’s ok to have a different one, but organisations should think what theirs is.

So we need to set out ground rules, maybe in collaboration with learners. For example, we could agree that we won’t discuss engineering solutions, or that debates around gender are off limits. Or, conversely, we may tackle these things head on and say ‘we are a global business operating in countries with different attitudes towards women, lets explore what these are and decide what our stance will be’ (although it would be a brave organisation that tackled that one head on!).

I see the role of the moderator as key for the successful implementation of social learning in organisations. The moderator is the person or team that control risk, but do so in a collaborative way. They also help us to draw the learning out of the debate.

So, for organisations, social learning presents both opportunity and challenge. The case for adopting it is never so clear cut as the risks are both widespread and obvious, but, with correct moderation and a flexible approach to management, social spaces can liberate great thinking and facilitate a real shift in organisational learning. Just because something is risky or hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it: the rewards may be all the greater.

Learning is social by nature

Without going all the way back to the theories of Vygotsky or Albert Bandura, the simplest way to explain social learning is perhaps to look at the work of Richard J. Legers (Harvard Graduate School of Education), who has shown that one of the most important factors for success in higher education is a student’s ability to form and/or participate in small study groups. In comparison to those who had worked alone, those students who had studied in a group, even only once a week, were more involved and better prepared. The students from these groups were able to ask questions to resolve uncertainties and improve their own understanding of the subject by hearing the answers to other students’ questions. The most powerful element was the ability to play the role of teacher to other students, as it has been shown that the best way to learn is to teach.

The philosophy of social learning is in contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of education. In the Cartesian model, knowledge is a kind of substance and learning is a way for teachers to transfer this substance to their students. Instead of basing itself on the Cartesian principle "I think, therefore I am", the social conception of learning holds that "We participate, therefore we are".

It is in society that we learn. Observation, discussion and collaboration are also opportunities to learn. The social aspect of learning is fundamental. Social learning is therefore not a novelty that has appeared alongside Web 2.0.

Learning is not an event

When we talk about learning, we immediately think about formal learning; in other words, about training and education. However, this kind of organized learning only represents about 20% of everything we learn in our lives (see the works of Cofer).

Solving problems, design, creativity, research, experimentation and innovation are full-fledged learning experiences. Sharing experiences, observations, discussion, helping one another and cooperation are also kinds of learning. 80% of our learning is therefore unexpected, unplanned and informal.

From this point of view, the emphasis is less on the content and more on the activities and the human interactions that take place around the content. Indeed, real learning can be found in all the nuances of our way of collaborating, sharing and working. Learning is not something that takes place outside of work. Learning and work are in fact part of a single stream; it’s a continuous process, a skill, an ability to act.

Enterprise 2.0 = Learning 2.0

In our businesses, we know that informal learning takes place all the time, most of the time however, the answers and the experts most capable of solving a problem are not connected with the person who is attempting to tackle it. Social learning networks can remedy this situation by giving everyone access to a much larger group of people who can help them.

2.0 technologies are enabling technologies that connect us with each other, facilitating communication and collaboration. But they are not only technologies; and social learning, by allowing us to capitalise on the ever-increasing streams of knowledge that have made the walls of our organisations porous, fills the empty barrels of 2.0.

4Cs for Enterprise 2.0

Because social learning necessitates design, training, support, leadership, oversight and highlighting successes both big and small, we have developed an innovative and pragmatic approach in order to support our clients throughout their projects, both internally (tools and collaborative learning) and externally (social media). This approach facilitates acquiring and diffusing knowledge within social networks via an iterative and fractal process that can be summarised in four steps: Comprehension, Conversation, Collaboration and Capitalization.

Our 4C method is based on two indirect consequences of 2.0, which are vital for the success of any Enterprise 2.0 project: visibility and transparency.

Making work visible and transparent

One unexpected and rarely-acknowledged consequence of the first generation of IT tools (email, word processing) which make up our day-to-day work environment is to render the work process less visible, precisely at the moment when we need it to be as visible as possible.

The end products of our work are highly refined abstractions. For example, this article tells you nothing about the initial idea or its evolution. Likewise, it doesn’t give you any information about the exchanges I may have had with my peers (via social networks or face-to-face), or about my own experiences that have shaped my thinking.

In business, the gains in personal productivity produced by these IT tools are often made at the detriment of organisational learning.

In the 1.0 world, I worked in an events management company. I was in charge of organizing a professional trade show, and for a beginner like myself, the sales targets seemed unreachable. The only way to meet them was to bring together all the stakeholders of the project whilst meeting their needs (explicit or otherwise). I couldn’t rely on the planning boards from previous years’ shows, or on the sales databases, and even less on the dry minutes of old meetings to help me understand.

I was lucky enough to have a managing director who gave me access to his office for several months. I was able to access all his notes, emails and his address book. I participated in all the formal and informal exchanges on the topic. Within a few months I was able to sketch a reasonably accurate map of the world of Florence that I had to navigate and proposed a strategy to make this trade show an unmissable event. By allowing me to observe his work, the director gave me an invaluable learning opportunity.

Transparency is the key to social learning and to Enterprise 2.0.

This transparency encourages access to the people and information that we may need to make good decisions. It is the consequence of the open and multidirectional communication made possible by social tools. It can’t be imposed or forced. Transparency in Enterprise 2.0 involves making our actions and decisions visible to others. It’s about sharing information and knowing who has provided it. We’re talking about accountability and recognition. By bringing people and their experiences and ideas together, social learning allows us to increase our confidence in the shared information and in those who created it.

Changing models: from "command & control" to "connect & animate"

It is transparency that is proving the greatest challenge to the classic "command and control" management model. Managers have to accept that information is created and spread more quickly over networks. They must also accept that this movement will most often happen outside of their control.

Lately, one of our clients told me that "the problem with your approach is that if you give everyone the right to speak, they might just take you up on it!" It’s precisely this commitment to openness and transparency, which goes hand in hand with Enterprise 2.0, which must pressure management to innovate and adopt a "connect and animate" model.

Your IT department and in-house lawyers will tell you that it’s risky. But these risks can be managed. The value created by greater transparency in business is much greater than the potential cost. On the contrary, the real risks are attached to a lack of transparency, to bad decision-making, to making the same mistakes again or redoing the same work, to an inability to innovate or to understand and satisfy client needs.

Until now competitive advantages have been built on information asymmetry. In the future, we will be mistaken if we think that exclusive access to information is an advantage. In today's complex environment, real competitive advantages are created by people who can find relevant information, transform it into practical knowledge and use it to create value. The challenge is to find, attract and hold on to these people; the challenge is to create an environment in which their talent can be developed and used to its fullest; and transparency is essential in such an environment.

Find this article in the "Enterprise 2.0 - French Touch" White Paper, a collective and collaborative work.

Frédéric Domon has spent most of his career leading marketing and communication departments in sectors such as yachting, luxury real estate sectors, PR and business press.   Co-founder of Socialearning, a collaborative organization and strategy consulting agency. Socialearning assist organizations, from the development of collaborative work and learning practices (Enterprise 2.0 and social learning) to the set up of innovative interaction frameworks with customers (social media and social business).   He shares the Socialearning spirit with our clients: leveraging social media (social earning) and learning through them (social learning).

The change towards the creative economy has major implications for the nature of what we have called assets. In the industrial age, the assets were physical resources, plant and equipment. Most of the resources were traded in markets and could thus be valued. Taking care of the value of an organization could be understood as managing physical assets and resources.

Now knowledge and people are seen as the major assets. But since neither of them are efficiently traded in markets, their value cannot easily be measured. Knowledge can neither be understood as an asset that can be managed like a physical asset. This is what many people within the Knowledge Management community learned the hard way. Knowledge is not a thing! Thus it cannot be stored, measured or shared.

From a more modern point of view, knowledge creation is understood as an active process of communication between people. Knowledge cannot be stored but is all the time constructed and re-constructed in interaction. Knowledge cannot be shared but arises in action. Knowledge is the process of relating.

The assumption was that learning and knowledge management involve processes that transmit content. This notion derived from the information theory/model of communication developed by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver. Their theory created a sender receiver model of communication according to which person A sends a signal (message/content) to person B, who receives it and then perhaps sends a responding feedback signal back to A. From this perspective, learning and knowledge creation are processes that resemble transmission or sharing of content. This is why schools and other educational institutions still look the way they are.

But the Shannon & Weaver concept was meant to be purely technical. They were interested whether a byte sent was a byte received in a technical sense. They said nothing about the meaning of the bytes. For a human being a message can evoke a very wide range of associations and interpretations depending on the experience and emotional state of the individual. One person's interpretation is never quite the same as another person's interpretation. There is no linear causality in the world of human beings.

If learning was understood from a more modern relational perspective it would resemble a process of many voices interacting at the same time. In this way, each comes to know the context in which the other makes meaning. The progression of B's understanding of A's story constitutes also a change for A's story creating new meaning, learning, for both.

Social media are most meaningful when giving voice to multiple perspectives, making it possible to seek out, recognize and respect differences as different but equal.

All stories continue, meaning that learning takes place, as participants create a more shared understanding of what the other means. Knowledge that used to be regarded as independently existing in people and things becomes viewed as co-constructed in communication.

Communication does not represent things in the world. It brings people and things into being in constantly surprising ways.

Supportive, energizing and enabling patterns of interaction are the most important "assets" of a modern organization. That is what should be nurtured and taken care of. Communication either accelerates and opens up possibilities or slows down and limits what would be possible. Communication either creates value or creates waste. Communication either creates energy and inspiration or demeans and demotivates.

Information theory is not only unhelpful but harmful, when trying to understand communication between human beings. Communication is not about sharing information but a process of formation.

This article was originally published in eskokilpi.blogging.fi

"The real genius of organizations is the informal, impromptu, often inspired ways that real people solve real problems in ways that formal processes can’t anticipate. When you’re competing on knowledge, the name of the game is improvisation, not rote standardization."

John Seeley Brown

Throughout the last decade there have been numerous debates (see from the dates in the bibliography) and discussions on the future of learning.

The development of social technology has changed the way we think about the world and is also shaking up the way we approach learning. I am still dumbstruck to learn, however, that rarely have businesses really integrated all of these recent changes into their operations. How would you react if your R&D invested 80% of its budget into developing products or services that only reached a tiny part of the market?

Would you sign off on a marketing strategy that only went after 10% of your target market?

I don't think I need to wait for an answer to these sorts of questions. And yet, it doesn't surprise anyone to learn that there is a sector vital to the future of your company that applies these ratios.

The 70/20/10 model

After years of research, study and validation, Morgan McCall, Robert W. Eichinger and Michael M. Lombardo at Princeton's Center for Creative Leadership have developed a very sound learning model; the 70/20/10 model.

What does it say? That skill development and learning happens:

- 70% "on the job", meaning activity and experience;

- 20% through contact and interaction with others;

- 10% through formal training; be it classes, workshops or e-learning.

This will no doubt remind teachers somewhat of the well-known theme: Listen/Read/Do.

The Princeton team also showed that 90% of our knowledge is the result of informal learning.

Charles Jennings, who helped popularize the model, often asks his audience to think about their learning experiences and where they took place. He uses the simple example of a riding a bike. How did you learn? By reading a manual and taking an e-learning course, by practicing on an internet simulator? No. Like me, you learned through experience, by trying and failing and trying again.

Classic training that is separated from work leads to a marked forgetting curve. A large part of formal learning is heavy on content but light on interaction. Generally, we learn to know but not really to do. So in a changing environment, addressing interactions is crucial because it prepares us to face complex emerging problems. So rather than structuring the learning around the content, it needs to be structured around the creation of learning experiences.

Most of our knowledge comes from informal learning; a situation of permanent learning that requires being open to new situations and deep interaction with others. In a world where the employee's actual knowledge only solves 10% of their problems in the workplace (R. Kelley, Carnegie Mellon University, 2006), it's more efficient to develop learning environments that prioritize action and connection rather than content.

The Paradox of Investment

The Princeton model invites Training Departments to turn more towards informal learning; although there is an obvious paradox today as large portions of their budgets are still dedicated to formal training.

For a lot of years, many people said they wanted to see formal training disappear, which would have to include LMS, responsible for much of the bloat.

Still, the majority of business training professionals are likely to embrace these changes even though they are unsure of their new role in the informal training environment. For many, it represents chaos: no pedagogy, no golden rule on how to manage it or how to validate the skills or knowledge acquired. This results in a cautious wait-and-see approach.

And while they wait?

The arrival of Generation Y, long-since announced, is flooding businesses and boardrooms; "young turks" with immediacy in their DNA who will seek out information rather than wait for it to be brought to them on a platter.

Clients, those funny creatures, have become over informed, unreliable. Count on the fact that they use the same community loudspeaker as soon as they feel that they aren't being listened to or answered quickly enough.

Meanwhile, marketing, client services, R&D... divisions that don't trouble themselves with knowing if their approaches can make it into the training budget, are more or less happy to go the 2.0 route. Their goal is to prioritize contacts and openness, to let go of cumbersome hierarchies, become more reactive, more receptive to their environment and, in the best cases, to improve the flow of knowledge. Enterprise Social Networks are thriving, often from the naive hope of spontaneously creating a learning organisation.

And the training department? It has decided to try e-learning. Too heavy? Not interactive enough? Blended-learning then. Too costly for fragmented structures? Always a step behind on your colleague’s problems? Not trendy enough? Ok, so add a slice of social to LMS, always the road to trendy. Or maybe gamify some traditional PowerPoint presentations and voila! Rather than create informal learning environments, training departments are making concrete situations virtual; while they make the creative process longer, explode production costs and are ever-increasing formality. Am I going too far? Barely...

What can be learned from the 70/20/10 model?

Rather than think of these three forms of antagonistic professionalism, rather than leave the informal to other aspects of the company, the model should be thought of as the cornerstone of organizational development. As the Princeton group advises, imagine a holistic approach integrating both formal and informal. An approach that enables strong development of that 70% of experience learning, that takes advantage of the relational 20% and that designs using the yardstick of the 90% informal and 10% formal training.

We have a term for this at Socialearning: Iterative learning; or how the informal feeds the formal and fills the well of Enterprise 2.0.

But that is a topic for the next article...

References:

Billet, Stephen Critiquing workplace learning discourses 2001

Boud, David & Middleton,Heather  Learning from others at work: communities of practice and informal learning 2003

Carré & Charbonnier Les apprentissages professionnels informels 2004

Cofer Informal workplace learning 2000

Dale & Bell  Informal working in the workplace 1999

Dominice, Pierre  Les apprentissages informels font partie de la formation 2000

Fuller, Alison The Impact of Informal Learning at Work on Business Productivity 2003

Lior, Karen   Tacit Skills, Informal Knowledge and Reflective Practice 2001

Livingstone, D  Exploring the Icebergs of Adult Learning 1999

Loogma, Kirsta The Meaning of Learning at Work in Adaptation to Work Changes 2004

Svensoon, Lennart & Ellstr_m, Per-Erik Integrating formal and informal learning at work 2004

Frédéric Domon has spent most of his career leading marketing and communication departments in sectors such as yachting, luxury real estate sectors, PR and business press.   Co-founder of Socialearning, a collaborative organization and strategy consulting agency. Socialearning assist organizations, from the development of collaborative work and learning practices (Enterprise 2.0 and social learning) to the set up of innovative interaction frameworks with customers (social media and social business).   He shares the Socialearning spirit with our clients: leveraging social media (social earning) and learning through them (social learning).