This page contains links to talks, podcasts, books and accademic papers about communities of practice. Inspired by Lorin's reading lists e.g. Messiness reading list
Communities are fun, amazing, very powerful and are not obvious or easy to understand. These resources can help you with that.
Communities of Practice, the Missing Piece of Your Agile Organisation by Emily Webber
For more checkout the insightful Building Successful Communities of Practice book also by Emily. This is specifically for creating Communities of Practice in the workplace.
If you need a courage boost, something to help you get started in the first place, checkout Tribes by Seth Godin.
Learn from expert community builders like:
| Name | Social Media | Books | Papers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emily Webber | books | ||
| Jean Lave | books | papers | |
| Etienne & Beverly Wenger-Trayner | books | papers | |
| Cormac Russell | books and publications |
Building Successful Communities of Practice by Emily Webber
Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Etienne Wenger
Learning to Make a Difference: Value Creation in Social Learning Spaces by Etienne & Beverly Wenger-Trayner
Get Together: How to build a community with your people by Stripe Press. Learn from many different stories of various community builders, not specifically for the workplace but lots of inspiration.
Where Good Ideas Come From not specifically about communities, but you get some ideas of the magic that can happen in communities. Get some different ways to think about CoPs like liquid networks, serendipitous discoveries from from shared spaces like MIT’s building 20 and Microsoft’s building 99.
Situated Learning the original book by Wenger and Lave where CoPs first came up. A must-read.
Stil on my reading list:
Asset-Based Community Development: An Incomplete Guide by Cormac Russell
Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice
Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block
Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger, Richard A McDermott and William Snyder
Communities of practice within and across organizations: a guidebook by Etienne Wenger-Trayner, Beverly Wenger-Trayner, Phil Reid, Claude Bruderlein
Communities of Practice, the Missing Piece of Your Agile Organisation by Emily Webber
Embracing Uncertainty - Rhizomatic learning
Communities of Practice Keynote ACPE 2018 Conference Etienne & Beverly Wenger-Trayner
Communities of Practice 2017 Etienne & Beverly Wenger-Trayner
Communities of Practice Keynote at Walls Optional 2015 by Beverly Wenger-Trayner
Social learning theory webinar 2022 by Etienne Wenger-Trayner
The Origins of Opera and the Future of Programming by Jessica Kerr. Get a better idea on the magic that can happen in communities. Learn about London Coffeehouse, Florentine Camerata and Symmathesy (contextual mutual learning through interaction) an idea by Nora Bateson.
from studying apprenticeships in africa to the concept of communities of practice
Everyday Life and Learning with Jean Lave
Communities of Practice: Theories and Current Thinking 2014
Communities of practice and social learning systems: the career of a concept by Etienne Wenger
The Strength of Weak Ties by Mark S. Granovetter + Strong and Weak Ties learn about the power of weak ties and why we need them. Diversity, access to different information, skills, relationships and perspectives. Reaching harder and more distant parts of the network.
The Seven Habits of Highly Connected People” Hindsight Magazine (32) by Cormac Russell
Evolution of Wenger's concept of community of practice
Structural and Epistemic Parameters in Communities of Practice talks about how organisations can support CoPs without constraining them by controlling them in a way that disrupts the dynamics that make the community work in the first place. It differentiates between different structures and the delicate balance between seeding structures and controlling structures. A few teasers:
- CoPs need seeding structure to grow
- Summarises some of the original material from Wenger of what is a CoP and how do you know one has formed.
- importance of artifacts as points of focus for people to identify and interact
- incentives and how they changed over time with a change of the structure
- danger of becoming too introspective losing touch with the wider organisation context
The fractal structure of communities of practice: Implications for business organization by Emily Webber and Robin Dunbar. What size community can benefit from a leadership team structure?
Collaborative Processes and Knowledge Creation in Communities-of-Practice (paywall)
Making Tech Better podcast episode Communities of Practice, with Emily Webber
Applying Social Learning Theory to Learning Design with Etienne & Beverly Wenger-Trayner
Learning from Communities: A Conversation with Cormac Russell by Steven Shorrock
Legitimate peripheral participation: the book and the idea by Brian Marick from Oddly Influenced podcast