What is a Community of Practice?
A Community of Practice (CofP), as Wenger states, is a group of people you feel most comfortable with to share concerns and difficulties, to figure them out and reslove them through day to day interactions (Wenger, 2003). These communities can be developed in businesses, schools, sports teams and bands etc. One CofP i belong to (as i have mentioned on the forum) is the local football team i play for at home, Inkberrow FC. It is a very close nit team, and socially it is brilliant. All the team members get on very well and we all get together after the game and interact off the field, usually by going to the pub! It has become a valuble commodity for me as it takes up my whole weekend, playing on a saturday and sunday and then socialising with everyone in the evenings. i believe it has made me mature as a person, because i am constantly communicating with people far older than me, and it has also provided me with some of my best memories.
Wenger states "These 'communities of practice' are mostly informal and distinct from organizational units" What do you think Wenger means by an "organizational unit"?
An "organisational unit" is the group or business surrounding the CofP(s), as they provide the opportunity for CofP's to be created, but they do not interlink with eachother. CofP's are much more personal and there are not any boundaries that exist and no one in charge. CofP's are "defined by knowledge, not by tasks" (Wenger, 2003) so it is people who come together that have things in common. Wenger puts it into a very simple format:
"People belong to communities of practice at the same time as they belong to other organizational structures. In their business units, they shape the organization. In their teams, they take care of projects. In their networks, they form relationships. And in their communities of practice, they develop the knowledge that lets them do these other tasks."
Therefore it is a process that creates these CofP allowing relationships to develop.
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I like the way you have pointed out which CofP's you are in. I think that because Wenger often keeps the concept of CofP's quite close to 'organizational units' people can assume that CofP's are only found in business environments. So the fact that your example is football helps people to understand that they can relate to anything.
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