Author Archive for Joost Robben

Dimensions of a community of practice

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Joost Robben
on August 30, 2010
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In their book “Digital Habitats“, Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John Smith bring forward a model of three dimensions of a community of practice. I’ve found these dimensions very usefull in consulting about communities, exploring its value for the organization.

The three dimensions are:

  1. Domain
  2. Community
  3. Practice

(In their book, the authors have put the “practice” dimension at 2nd, but i prefer to talk about community and domain dimension first).

The domain dimension entails the subject of the community, the “domain of interest”. What is actually that the community is about? What are we going to talk about? More important: what are we not going to talk about? Deciding what the domain is of a community is often a proces of negotiation among its (potential) members. Possibly, there are also members leaving the community while its borders become more clear. Yet, this proces will also attract new members joining the community as its value has become visible.

The community dimension is about the people that actually members of the CoP. When talking about this dimension, i like to look at organizations from a networked perspective. It is important to no longer only look at organizations as hierarchy, more as a networks of people. Jon Husband calls this a wirearchy and points to the changes in power and authority. Looking at organizations from a networked perspective often shows you that the manager is no longer the central person, there appear to be other important hubs in the organization. The work of Valdis Krebs also helps a lot in this. These hubs are people that have great influence in the organization for their connections. When starting up communities, these people are really important.

The practice dimension is about “the way we do things”. A really interesting dimension and often also deeply grounded in the “culture” of a community that allready excists for longer time. Do you recognize coming into a new community (work, or city or football team) and really needing time to adapt, learn and understand how these people do their jobs, how they do their trainings. It is about tools, but i think it certainly is also about language and is definately also a dimension that is under negotiation all the time. Reflection is important to also be able to improve the practice of the community.

From all the dimensions above, it is important to realize that they are always subject to change. Forming and facilitating communities of practice is foremost a proces of learning in itself. Communities cannot be fully designed and standardized as products to be implemented. L&D departments need to facilitate a proces of change as they want to use CoPs in their organizations. Its a proces of learning by doing.

Learning Architecture

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Joost Robben
on July 14, 2010
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Yesterday I’ve met with Marc Coenders at the beautifull Media Centre in Hilversum. Marc is also a member of the CPSquare community and his doctoral thesis “Learning Architecture: an exploratory study of space and learning in work settings and close-to-practice learning” is the focus in this week’s “Research and Dissertation Series” of the CPsquare community.

CP2 Research and Dissertation Series
The research series is a regularly recurring activity in the community in which a specific research of one of the members is being topic of discourse for a single week. Research is being shared and in a discussion forum, members are able to ask questions to Marc. The week ends with an synchronous conversation through skype/ webex. John Smith (facilitator of the community) always asks two other members to join the discussion as being session hosts. This time, Christina Merl and I were asked to participate. I must say, it is pretty good technique to get some people joining in the discussion.

Marc’s research on facilitation and space
The main question in his doctoral thesis was: “What is the relationship between space and learning in work settings and how can this relation be influenced and utilized by learning facilitators?”.

While reading the summary of the thesis, i’ve been tweeting some lines. It was very interesting to read about the relationship between space and learning. Marc’s attention was brough to it by people using sentences like “i’m not that far” “i will never reach that point”. Based on a theretical exploration and through 4 case studies, the study presents a model of developmental space. The model consists of 4 dimensions that can help faciliators in understanding and creating spaces for learning.

Marc uses the metaphor of Learning Architecture as a new discipline of facilitation. Learning Architecture is not just the execution or implementation of a prescribed design. It is also a result of a process of negotiation about the meaning of the design. Marc argues in his thesis to view work as learning, focus on cultivating spaces for learning and learning friendships. The learning architect contributes to learning ecologies.

“Facilitation has become a way of participating, focussing on questioning ways of working and cherishing what has been accomplished”

Mindmap of NLC 2010

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Joost Robben
on May 3, 2010
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I’m Live mindmapping the Networked Learning Conference. Ur invited to put your insights in here as well!!!

# Update 6th may 2010:
- Mindmap has been freezed after the conference, so it is an artifact for later review.
- I also added my paper based notes
- Here you can download a transcript doc for printing
- Here you can download the twitter transcript for the hashtag #NLC2010

Presenting at Networked Learning Conference, Aalborg

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Joost Robben
on May 3, 2010
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I’m now at the Networked Learning Conference in Aalborg, Denmark. Today I will be presenting the paper that I wrote with Robin Yap. On leveraging social technologies in corporate environments.

So here are the slides in advance, and also the paper for download.

Yap robben networked learning may 2010 v4

View more presentations from joostrobben.

Some scrapbook thinking on social learning

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Joost Robben
on April 15, 2010
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Last week I was sitting in my backyard garden, enjoying the spring sun. I suddenly felt the inspiration of combining two models that i lately have been using a lot with the framework from my social learning study with Robin Yap.

I was taking notes in a scrapbook and i drawed the two models such as the figure below. The one on the left is model that I’ve come to use a couple of weeks ago that addresses differences in organizations on strategic, tactic and operational level. This is a sort of upstanding pyramid with on the top the value that you want to create, in the middle there are the solutions that you have found to create this value and on the bottom the products that you need for this. The one on the right is a totally different one, it displays the 4 phases from the appreciative inquiry process, a model for facilitating change in organizations. Normally these phases are drawn in a circle, but I’ve now put them in an upside pyramid that tells you that during discovery and dream you can be very broad in your discussion, there is a broad horizon. But the further you come to your destiny, you have to make choices in what you do in order to stay focused in the pursuit of your dreams. Displaying the models like this, i could see that the different levels have some connections in them as well. What you do in the discovery and dream phase is that your values and try to work toward a shared vision of all individual values. In the design phase you create the (boundaries) of the solutions and with the products you are your destiny.

How does this interrelate with the social learning model?

Value (discover & dream):

  • Improve and innovate business
  • creating a culture for learning, with trust as a dominant factor
  • Building the organizations social capital in order to become knowledge productive

Solutions (design):

  • learning in general, networked learning.
  • more specific: building communities of practice
    • profile - connect - share

Products (destiny):

  • community/ social web technology
  • (community) activities
  • tools such as elgg - twitter - blogs - forums - discussions

I’m aware that combining these in such a strict matter is a rather blunt exercise, but it helped me in defining what comes first in the chain. Using the two models helps to see things in a broader perspective and not to get to the tools right away. Ask yourself the value question first. Why are we doing this, what do we think is valuable in our work? What is my passion? How can we relate all this to the goals of the organization as a whole.

Communities of Practice Foundations #cp2

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Joost Robben
on March 31, 2010
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Last week I’ve started to participate in a course on the foundations of Communities of Practice. This foundations workshop as it is called is facilitated by the CP Square community with among others John Smith and Etienne Wenger. I’m doing the course together with my colleague Stanley Portier and i think it is a great opportunity to get emerged in the concept for 6 weeks and to learn a lot about theory as well as practice. Above all i think it is great to have the opportunity to connect with the founder of the concept - Etienne Wenger - and to get more involved in the community/ field of community of practice research and practice.  For research, as I will be going to the Aalborg conference on Networked Learning. For practice, as i see major opportunities in consulting on communities of practice to leverage the use of social technology for knowledge productivity in organizations.

Organizational Constellations

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Joost Robben
on March 19, 2010
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Two weeks ago, I asked my coach to help me with my thinking about a situation where I got stuck in a organizational change process. After a initial introduction in the situation he immediately started to move the furniture in the room, trying to make a open space in the middle.

“Lets make an organizational constellation”, he said.

I was introduced to the use of constellations in a change management course i’ve done two years ago and have had 3 other experiences with the method since then. Yet, this was truly the first time I was absolutely stunned with what happened during the process. Rationally speaking, I cannot explain what happened there, but I immediately knew it was a very profound and intense learning experience.

This made me feel so curious to learn more about this method of organizational constellations. I wondered, are there studies that could explain me what it was, where the intense feeling of connectedness with the system being represented came from.

First, a little intro on what you do with organizational constellations. Basically what you do is that you make a visual representation of a living system, placing all actors of that system in relation with one another. This can be done just on paper (just like you would visualize the arrangement of the players from a football team) or with the use of cups. Every single cup is then representing an actor of the system. This time we used sheets of paper that were to be laid out on the floor. Trough standing on one of the papers we now didn’t use cups but our own bodies, representing one of the actors. You sort of step into the system, looking and feeling it from the perspective of the actor you are representing. And thats exactly where it became amazing. While representing an actor I could feel what the presence of other actors did to me. To give some examples, I felt my body actually being pushed forward, or pulled backwards. I could feel a strong pain in my right shoulder directly hitting me when another actor was added to the constellation, but also disappear when I stepped out of it. Emotions of joy, power but also pain and wanting to cry went through me. To be honest, at one time this all drived me crazy: where did this all came from? Why in earth was it possible to feel all these emotions and physical “things”??

An article of Gunthard Weber (2000) gives a good introduction into organizational constellations, introducing it “as an autonomous consulting method for initiating useful changes in organizations.” The method is grounded in a systemic and phenomenological view often referred by Bert Hellinger who introduced the use family constellations for therapy. The phenomelogical view refers to the opening of our perception, “the ability to perceive and be sensitive to our relationships (Weber, 2000)”. Weber also cites Hellinger when comparing the scientific with the phenomenological  quest for knowledge as the latter “unfolds when we pause within the movement of grasping and we direct our glance not so much on tangible specifics, but instead we direct our glance upon the whole, and the glance is therefore ready to absorb everything at once”.

The phenomenological attitude requires we be poised for action, and yet not act. Through this tension we become highly able and ready to perceive. He who can withstand this tension knows after a while how the fullness within the horizon settles around a center, and he suddenly discovers a connection, an order, a truth or a step that leads further. This insight comes, as it were, from outside. It is received as a gift and is, as a rule, limited.” (Bert Hellinger in Weber, 2000)

This reminded me of the stories described by Otto Scharmer in the book Presence when he talks about Theory U and the ability to see the whole. Perhaps, in doing the organizational constellation I was a times able to pause and get to “the bottom of the U”, in Scharmer’s terms. I’m still not sure what it was that I learned in those moments, but I know it was special. I hope it was another step in the quest for the ability to see the whole. Discover patterns not yet recognized in order to come to new and better understanding.

If you have had similar experiences, please let me know. I very curious about your stories!

Personal Knowledge Management

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Joost Robben
on February 12, 2010
in Uncategorized
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Lilia Efimova has done her Phd on the blogging practices of knowledge workers. As part of that, she has developed a framework for knowledge work. See the picture below.

Yesterday (thursday 12 feb) I spoke a little at a CSTD workshop in Ontario (Canada) on the topic of personal knowledge management. Robin Yap invited me and Jeffrey Keefer for a short intermezzo via webcam (we used Adobe Connect). The question Robin asked me was: how do you make use of web technologies to get from idea to a blogpost?

I have found Lilia’s model very useful. I explained how I came to the idea of the concept of “serendipty” and how i used webtools to explore this further. The steps i showed in the workshop are summarized in the presentation below. Many thanks to Robin for inviting me and Jeffrey to participate in this workshop, it was a great experience.Using Web Tools For Personal Knowledge Management

View more presentations from joostrobben.

CP Square: the community of practice about communities of practice

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Joost Robben
on February 9, 2010
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After being “a friend” and lurking for a while, i became a full (paying) member of the CP Square (CP2) community. CP Square is a community of practice about communities of practice.

Ever since i started my studies in HRD i’m interested in social forms of learning, communities of practice are one of them. Especially with the growing attention towards the use of networked technologies like elgg, mahara, twitter and yammer for facilitating learning processes i felt the need to emerge myself deeper in the theory of community of practice (CoP). My customers at Stoas Learning, often come to me from a technological perspective. They ask what the technology could do and how they could use it in their organization. For social technologies like elgg to work in an organization, i believe you need to look beyond the technology and develop a clear concept of the organization’s knowledge processes and how you would think the technology could support those processes. I believe that if we are talking about social learning processes, the theory of communities of practice could often help us to gain insight how these processes work. Thats the reason why i’m expanding my professional services towards consulting on CoP in relation to the use of technolgies. I became a member of CP2 to further develop myself in these practices and moreover to become part of a network of people who already have long years of experience in this field beyond using any technology.

So far it resulted already in a great (Skype) meeting with John Smith, co-author of the book“Digital Habitats”.  Today i’ve met with Joitske Hulsebosch, she’s a Dutch consultant in this field and an active member of CP2. I’m looking forward to all other learning experiences that are yet to come!

Paper accepted for #NLC2010

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Joost Robben
on January 28, 2010
in Uncategorized
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Yesterday i got the big news:

“I am pleased to inform you that your paper “A model for leveraging social learning technologies in corporate environments”, reference 0053 has been accepted for NLC2010. “

I’m so glad that this paper, which i wrote with Robin Yap, got accepted! It is the first time I will be attending an academic conference after my graduation. In 2007 I presented a working paper as part of my master thesis together with Ida Wognum on the AHRD Int. Conference on HRD Research and Practice across Europe in Oxford, UK. At the time I was used to go to conferences for commercial purposes and I was really attracted by the constructive feedback and atmosphere among all participants in the academic conference. In Oxford I also met Jeffrey Keefer and Robin Yap for the first time, I’m glad we kept in touch online since then.

After my studies (HRD at University of Twente) I kept looking for new possibilities to keep researching aside my job as consultant. In my opinion being a consultant is a highly knowledge intense job. To keep ahead of the competition you need to be able to create new knowledge from patterns of changes you see in the field of expertise and to be able to use that knowledge effectively in your job as a consultant. In else, -to be knowledge productive. In order to be knowledge productive I believe it is important to keep questioning what you see in the world and reflect on that what it means for your work practices. Also, i believe that at times you need to be able to get in “a step further”. Take the time to really study a specific topic and see what the changes mean for practice in relation to the current body of knowledge. So I’m really glad to be having this opportunity now with support from my employer and with the ability to do this research with a great friend who also works from this practice oriented perspective.

The Networked Learning Conference will be held in Aalborg, Denmark at the 3th and 4th of May 2010. It features Etienne Wenger and Yrjö Engeström in the keynotes.