The kinds of problems society faces today require collaborative wisdom and collective action. The mission of Knowledge Communities is to create environments that optimize:
- Trust building
- Collaboration
- Synergy
- Knowledge Sharing
- Generative Behaviors
- Harness the productive dimensions of power and competition in the service of improving lives and bettering the world we live in.
Knowledge Communities is dedicated to promoting knowledge sharing, innovation and systemic change by helping organizations build their capacity to launch and sustain learning communities.
Underlying our practice is the idea that knowledge and insight are created and acquired when humans interact with each other and their environment. Members of learning communities learn through a diverse range of social interactions, such as one-on-one conversations, storytelling and group discussion, as well as research projects and presentations.
Much of our work is dedicated to the development and implementation of networks and communities of practice (CoPs). CoPs are a way that professionals who have a shared practice can work together on improving that practice.
Communities of practice are not new; they often exist naturally within or across organizations and have shown their face throughout history (in the form of guilds, for example). Relatively new is the growing knowledge base of ways that we can create and develop learning communities if they do not exist, or build upon and make purposeful those that do.
Private companies and corporations have utilized CoPs with documented positive results. Knowledge Communities would like to help non profit organizations and foundations benefit from CoP methodology and from other knowledge sharing strategies.