We offer six comprehensive solutions for the implementation of communities of practice.

1. The Book: “Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage”

Order the book online

This book, written by two of our principals, is lauded as a “best-of-breed primer for people who want to get results from communities of practice”... Today, an enterprise's intangible assets are key to its ability to create a competitive advantage and to grow at an accelerated pace. As a result, organizations are implementing initiatives that create value through leveraging knowledge. One approach is to encourage the development of communities of practice within the organization as a vehicle for increasing intellectual capital through knowledge creation and sharing. By acknowledging the value of communities (e.g., recognition of membership contribution, support for time commitment) and providing communities with an infrastructure (e.g., communication platform, facilitation, information resources), organizations can increase the speed at which communities innovate, extend the reach of the community's knowledge sharing, and provide an opportunity to make the community's knowledge persistent. www.knowinc.com/cop-book/index.html

2. The CoP Toolkit

www.coptoolkit.com

This Toolkit, based on the book "Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage," is a hands-on operational guide that helps organizations develop their own communities of practice. While the book unveils how an organization can approach the creation and support of communities of practice (through the real life example of Clarica Life Insurance Company), the Toolkit acts as an interactive platform that supports the theory and framework outlined. It provides a step-by-step community development approach that can be adapted to the specific needs and environment of your organization. Rich media video clips deliver a rich learning experience. The French version of this Toolkit will be available in the second quarter 2004. Subscription Fee: $200US for three months of online access

3. Enroll in an Online Certification Course for Communities of Practice

This course focuses upon understanding communities of practice and established tools and is delivered fully online to groups of up to ten participants. The course focuses on providing insights into the fundamental issues of communities of practice as a preparation for the development of a shared-value proposal for the organization of each participant. The integrated learning tracks ensure that you gain knowledge about communities of practice issues which can be directly applied to your own environment. This allows you to move into the phase of learning by doing.
 

	3 week Certification Course Introduction to Communities of Practice [Download Download pdf] Course Fee: US$600 plus resources and connectivity
	8 week Certification Course Building Communities of Practice [Download pdf] Course Fee: US$1500 plus resources and connectivity

4. Introduce CoPs to Your Organization through a Workshop

Deb Wallace: Workshop Leader, Communities of Practice

As co-author of the book “Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage” (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003) Debra Wallace is a frequent speaker and workshop facilitator. Dr. Wallace consults in a wide range of private and public sector organizations, helping them to develop knowledge and learning strategies to maximize their performance. Most recently, she was responsible for developing and guiding the implementation of the organization-wide knowledge and learning strategy for the newly combined Sun Life Financial and Clarica Life Insurance organizations.  In addition to her own book on communities of practice, Dr. Wallace has recently co-authored a chapter on communities of practice in “In Action: Measuring Intellectual Capital” (ASTD, 2002). What is a COP [ Download ppt.] Workshop: Energizing CoPs for Competitive Advantage through Brand Building and Innovation Practice Situation: You have successfully launched several Communities of Practice (CoPs) in your organization. The CoP Toolkit was a great primer for both self-organizing informal CoPs and formally sponsored CoPs. You are now ready to move to the next level i.e. leveraging these communities of practice for strategic advantage. To do this, you want to: empower senior managers to foster innovation in each CoP ; develop in senior managers an “outside in” perspective and mechanisms for sharing this with the CoP membership; energize senior managers to facilitate internal brand-building through their active participation in the CoPs. In this two day workshop, we develop, together with the participating senior managers, a strategy for integrating brand building into the CoPs. Brand Building CoP[ Download pdf.]

5. Launch an Online Community of Practice

To ensure a successful launch, Oliver Schwabe will work with your in-house facilitator.
 
Oliver Schwabe: Online Facilitator, Communities of Practice

Oliver Schwabe is a globally recognized virtual community builder and coach. Dr. Schwabe supports the delivery of organizational change programs in collaboration with third parties and has authored numerous executive seminars and coaching programs for virtual delivery. He delivers a number of MEd and MBA courses for Jones International University, Capella University, the UNDP Virtual Development Academy and the Open University Business School.

6. Technology Infrastructure Consulting

We are full services technology consulting firm. [ Download pdf.]

We will recommend a full spectrum range of technology solutions that will address the requirements of a platform for information exchange and information capture.

Step 1.	Technology Audit
Step 2.	Determination of Requirements
Step 3.	Short list of software solutions
Step 4.	(Optional) We deliver the selected technology solution to your organization, fully integrated at all levels (technical, cultural and strategic).

Eric Zhelka, M.A. Sc., P. Eng., Director, Collaborative Systems

Eric Zhelka is the senior technical project manager at <konvergeandknow>. His first hand experience in using and customizing document management systems and collaborative online work environments has established him as a leading subject matter expert on technology infrastructure issues. An engineer by training, his years of project management experience, coupled with a solid background in software design, make him ideally suited for an engagement with your technical project team.

For further information on any of the above, contact Margaret.Logan (at) knowinc.com