Community of Practice

The rise of public discussions in the digital sphere is a steadily increasing phenomenon. Weblog-writers are the key drivers of this development. Companies begin to utilize the investigative power of these multiplyers: market and consumer insights are drawn out of these networks. The digital arena is becoming a trend laboratory and opinion market place as well as a field for competitive strategies. The innovative Social Network Analysis-method is able to identify relevant patterns and weak signals in these areas. Being formerly only applied within organizations, Social Network Analysis can therefore generate very valuable information out of the World Wide Web.

Communities of Practice are an important instrument of knowledge management, as they allow transferring expertise to remote business problems. Focussing on community facilitation and IT, this article assembles necessary requirements for community software and proposes a better support of social processes of knowledge work.

Knowledge Management has become one of the most recognized management concepts in the last decade. Knowledge is the critical success factor to sustain the competitive ability in companies but changes rapidly in today’s dynamic business environment. Therefore, companies are obliged to foster the knowledge transfer and development. “Community of Practice” is a team-building method to support the efficient use, communication and creation of knowledge in industrial and manufacturing enterprises.