The mechanics are in place, now for the fun part. I’ve been working on setting up a feed for CPsquare members’ blogs. I just checked it to see whether the feed was working correctly, and it was really spectacular! What an amazing bunch of people and work going on! Of course for the feed to […]

A participant from a recent Foundations of Communities of Practice workshop, who works in a university, writes: I am spending more and more time reading and learning about CoP’s and am finding the amount of information to be monumental. As a relative newbie to CoP’s, I’m wondering if you have a recommendation for how to […]

I’ve always thought that technology can boost communities of practice, but almost every tool also creates new boundaries around a community and more complexity for community members. Learning to manage those boundaries is a really important topic for community members, leaders, and sponsors. I’ve been learning a lot about how to create a wider periphery […]

Often a tool’s utility for a community of practice is affected by how it works with other tools as much as how it works by itself. I used to think of phone bridges as free-standing tools, but I’ve come to think of them as a key community resources that needs to fit into a constellation […]

Tags: skype

I listened to Jerry Michalski‘s Yi-Tan call (http://www.yi-tan.com) yesterday. It’s a weekly call about technology and its social consequences. People on the call wouldn’t call it a community of practice, but if you notice, a lot of people on the call are “regulars” that know each other, share in-jokes, can often finish each other’s sentences, […]

Recently I’ve been using a phone bridge that connects both Skype and regular phone users. It’s called High Speed Conferencing and it’s free. There are many free phone bridges out there these days, but having Skype and regular phone users on the same call is very helpful, especially for international communities. In general, the sound […]

At 4:37 AM Sydney time, Shawn sends me a message on Skype chat: Shawn: Hi John Shawn: When I call the Skype conf call number there are people talking in another language. Is this a timeshare arrangement? John: yikes! Somehow, I imagine the worst! We have vandals taking over our telephone bridge! Is the new […]