What is a 'community of practice' (CoP)?

How does a CoP differ from Social Networking?

How can I encourage collaborative behaviour in my organisation?

What are the benefits of a CoP and what's in it for me?

What skills do I need to facilitate a CoP?

What are the technology options and how much does it cost to develop a CoP?

1) For an answer to all these questions and more, can I recommend a simply fabulous resource across at the 'We are Media' project - it's basically an evolving CoP around the topic of 'non-profits' (we'd probably call this 'the voluntary sector' though I suppose it might shade into public sector too) and social media.

It has content, a contributing community, a thought-out development plan, and Beth Kanter is doing a superb job commenting and shaping, and 'network weaving' as it all goes along.

We can learn loads from all this, I think.

Thanks for pointing to this resource ; a number of people may already follow Beth, or have video-conferenced with her. She has certainly been referred to in some attendee's blogs over the last few years.

Where might the organisation you represent be using these tools ?

2) There are also a number of very helpful e-mail lists to follow in the space

One example is here

Group home for UK and Ireland E-Democracy Exchange:

http://groups.dowire.org/groups/ukie

There has been a recent post about on-line campaigning, and there are normally a number of quick replies from UK or US with tools and tips.

3) There is also a Communities of Practice site used across local and central government with over 16,000 members and 540 CoPs ranging from equality and diversity to healthy communities. Steve Dale is technical steward for the CoP platform and is attending the Scotland Barcmap event.