Quest for Collective Intelligence

Research associate K. R. Bruna at the Ames Center for Human Development has been following our progress here at the Center. In a recent communique she observed that the Fremont Street Center for Healthy Aging's focus on close collaboration embodies the principles sociologist Etienne Wenger finds in a "community of practice".

I asked her what that meant.

Here's her reply.

Here's what Etienne Wenger, one of the originators of COP theory, says

Defining Communities of Practice
Communities of practice are everywhere. We all belong to a number of them-at work, at school, at home, in our hobbies. Some have a name, some don't. We are core members of some and we belong to others more peripherally. You may be a member of a band, or you may just come to rehearsals to hang around with the group. You may lead a group of consultants who specialize in telecommunication strategies, or you may just stay in touch to keep informed about developments in the field. Or you may have just joined a community and are still trying to find your place in it. Whatever form our participation takes, most of us are familiar with the experience of belonging to a community of practice.
Members of a community are informally bound by what they do together-from engaging in lunchtime discussions to solving difficult problems-and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities. A community of practice is thus different from a community of interest or a geographical community, neither of which implies a shared practice. A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:
* What it is about - its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members
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* How it functionsmutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity
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* What capability it has produced - the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.
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Communities of practice also move through various stages of development characterized by different levels of interaction among the members and different kinds of activities (see "Stages of Development").

Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. Obviously, outside constraints or directives can influence this understanding, but even then, members develop practices that are their own response to these external influences. Even when a community's actions conform to an external mandate, it is the community-not the mandate-that produces the practice. In this sense, communities of practice are fundamentally self-organizing systems.

The shared repertoire of communal resources here at the Fremont Street Center for Healthy Aging includes the front yard garden, tilled by Dennis and planted by Marcie, and the kitchen bulletin board & calendar,  a joint effort by both Marcie and Margaret. The contents of the refrigerator, curated by Marcie, with input from virtually all adult research staff, is a definite communal resource, as is our increased appreciation and understanding of the role of Mother's "folding art" , which comes to us courtesy of Margaret.