Connected futures - April-May 2008

Connected futures: New social strategies and tools for communities of practice

CPsquare is proud to add a  new learning event to its educational offerings. “Connected futures: New social strategies and tools for communities of practice” is a workshop for community managers, designers and conveners to explore social strategies and  tools to support them (referred to by some as Web2.0). This five week online workshop is a hands-on, mind-open, deep-dive into using technology to meet community needs. The workshop is designed to generate productive and lasting social connections between participants, leaders and community conveners while supporting participants in imagining, designing, innovating and sourcing the technology and supporting processes to suit a specific community’s needs. New technology stewards are especially encouraged to join.

The workshop includes virtual field trips to successful communities and deep dives into new tool use. We will explore many freely available technologies, including web conferencing, teleconferences, blogging, RSS syndication, microblogging, social bookmarking and tagging, wikis, mashups, and social networking.  Each aspect has the support of experts and leaders in areas such as organizational, educational, government and enterprise Communities. Participants will work through a process of developing plans to implement new social strategies and technologies into the ongoing life of their respective communities of practice. Participants will also receive an advance electronic copy (PDF) of the forthcoming book “Technology Stewardship for Communities of Practice” (Wenger, White, and Smith 2008).

Requirements:
While this workshop is designed to be challenging (not for beginners nor the faint-hearted) it is grounded in today’s reality for communities of practice, social strategies and new tools. Our aim is to support practitioners: participants should be in a leadership role or intending to take one on, or be convening an existing communities of practice.

• Participants are expected to be conversant with basic notions such as domain, community and practice and have had experience participating in or organizing online events and learning activities (like the Foundations of Communities of Practice workshop).
• Participants should be willing to install, run and experiment with an array of tools (such as Skype) on their computers.
• Participants should be confident to converse in English
• Participants commit to 20 to 40 hours of engagement over the 5 weeks. Since several phases and phase changes are designed into the workshop structure (we change technologies, modes of connecting, and frameworks), participants need to be attentive enough to make those changes with us when they are scheduled.