The Book Club for Business Impact looks at “Communities of Practice” Wed-Jul-13 from Noon to 1pm PDT. I think the key difference between social networks, communities of interest, and communities of practice is that a community of practice has a focus on shared learning. Entrepreneurs of all sorts should consider taking part in communities of practice devoted to entrepreneurship like the Bootstrappers Breakfast.
B2B entrepreneurs will often find that early adopters for their product are often members of the same community of practice or that there is an informal community of practice overlaid on the formal hierarchy of a prospect business, and they they need to take part in that community to be effective at customer discovery, customer validation, or customer creation depending upon where their startup is in its life cycle.
“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”
Etienne Wenger
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We will be discussing “Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice” (an excerpt from the book “Cultivating Communities of Practice“) with the following panel:
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Background reading
- Community of Practice Theory by Etienne Wenger
- Communities of Practice, The Organizational Frontier (PDF)
- Knowledge Management as a Doughnut at Knowledge Board
I think it will be an interesting discussion; I hope you can take part.
Update July 14: We covered a number of useful tips for entrepreneurs. Dave Horner made the most memorable point for me, reminding entrepreneurs of with a quote from Bill Joy that “the smartest people work somewhere else” that you need to join and become active in the right communities if you want to take advantage of their knowledge and insights for your startup.
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