Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage PDF
Preview Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage
What people are saying about Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage “Practical, focused, specific, detailed. It doesn’t get any better than this! If you are looking for a case study in supporting and leveraging communi- ties of practice for business success, this is it. Saint-Onge and Wallace have created an indispensable guide for increasing knowledge sharing and learning across the organization.” —Verna Allee, author, The Knowledge Evolutionand The Future of Knowledge “Clarica Life Insurance is one of the most admired knowledge enterprises in the world. Here is the inside scoop on how Clarica is creating business value by sharing knowledge through its online communities. Hubert Saint-Onge, Canada’s best known KM strategist, and Deb Wallace, com- munity builder par excellence, have written an engaging practitioner’s guide on how to develop communities of practice as forums for learning and knowledge sharing.” —Chun Wei Choo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Faculty of Informa- tion Studies, University of Toronto; co-author, Strategic Manage- ment of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge, author, The Knowing Organization “This book is so valuable because it is intellectually stimulating, and at the same time, it’s chock full of practical advice. Through their success at Clarica, Hubert Saint-Onge and Deb Wallace have risen above all of the chatter about collaboration and have given us a best-of-breed primer for people who want to get results from communities of practice.” —Diane Hessan, President & CEO of Communispace Corpora- tion; author, Customer-Centered Growth: 5 Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage “With a wealth of practical experience to augment their insightful case study analyses, Saint-Onge and Wallace compellingly demonstrate how communities of practice foster learning and facilitate knowledge sharing to add value to an organization and enhance its competitive advantage.” —Lynne C. Howarth, Ph.D., Associate Professor & Dean, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto “Hubert Saint-Onge and Deb Wallace point us to the undeniable core foundation of knowledge management—that it is, first and foremost, a collaborative and uniquely human activity. Their book goes beyond a sim- ple focus on technology to provide a wealth of strategies and tools for the more challenging, and ultimately more valuable, work of engaging people directly in the creation and use of knowledge.” —Marc J. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Senior Director, Diamond Cluster International; author, E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowl- edge in the Digital Age “Many people talk about communities of practice, but few actually know how to make them thrive and grow! In this book, Hubert Saint-Onge and Deb Wallace generously share their years of experience, from the strategic conceptual plane to the tactical implementation process. It is an essential companion to anyone seriously considering communities in an organiza- tional setting.” —Eric E. Vogt, Founder and Director, Communispace Corpora- tion; CEO, the Interclass Network “In spite of the billions of dollars we spend on training every year, we now know that most adult learning happens person-to-person and by actively applying new ideas. Communities of practice stimulate and support the type of learning that leads to innovation and better results. This book is a gold mine for understanding how to stimulate and support communities of practice.” —Joyce Wycoff, Co-Founder, InnovationNetwork L C EVERAGING OMMUNITIES OF P S A RACTICE FOR TRATEGIC DVANTAGE This Page Intentionally Left Blank L EVERAGING C OMMUNITIES OF P S RACTICE FOR TRATEGIC A DVANTAGE H S -O UBERT AINT NGE D W EBRA ALLACE An imprint of Elsevier Science Amsterdam • Boston • London • New York • Oxford • Paris • San Diego San Francisco • Singapore • Sydney • Tokyo Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Science. Copyright © 2003 by Hubert Saint-Onge and Debra Wallace. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other- wise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, Elsevier-Science prints its books on acid-free paper whenever possible. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 0-7506-7458-X British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The publisher offers special discounts on bulk orders of this book. For information, please contact: Manager of Special Sales Elsevier Science 200 Wheeler Road Burlington, MA 01803 Tel: 781-313-4700 Fax: 781-313-4880 For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications available, contact our World Wide Web home page at: http://www.bh.com 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America To Norma and our kids, Danielle, Jacqueline, David, and Alain —HSO To Ian —DW This Page Intentionally Left Blank T C ABLE OF ONTENTS A , CKNOWLEDGMENTS XV I , NTRODUCTION XIX Part I: Setting the Context for Communities of Practice 1 C 1–I C HAPTER NCREASING APABILITIES IN THE K -D O 3 NOWLEDGE RIVEN RGANIZATION Creating Value: Assets in the Knowledge Era, 3 Managing Intangible Assets—The Knowledge Capital Model, 9 New Strategies: Communities of Practice, 12 The Knowledge Capital Initiative: Clarica’s Knowledge Management Strategy, 13 Clarica’s Knowledge Strategy, 14 Goals of The Knowledge Capital Initiative, 19 The Strategic Capabilities Unit: Clarica’s Organizational Structure in Support of Knowledge Strategies, 21 ix
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