The big buzzword these days is "social network" .Nowadays everywhere like on TV channels, in groups etc., you can hear about this buzzword-- but what is a social network?
Figure 4.1 Social networks
(Source: http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/)
Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups. Although social networking is possible in person, especially in schools, colleges or in the workplace, it is most popular online. This is because the internet has millions of individuals who are looking to meet other internet users and develop friendships and business relationships, too which are not seen in schools, colleges or in workplaces as compare to internet. .
Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users. Many of these online community members share a common interest such as hobbies, religion, or politics like MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, flickr, myBigz etc.
Bebo's Sarah Gavin(2006) says: "It's really powerful. I think it's the first time that individuals have got the power. We've got authors up there publicizing their books. If they're just starting out as a film producer they have the opportunity to get their content up on the site and go out to the general public to see what they actually think about it. It's a hugely powerful medium and people are just starting to grasp how effective that can be."(Source: Rise of the web's social network By Marc Cieslak Reporter, BBC Click Saturday, 30 September 2006, 21:47 GMT 22:47 UK ) Yes I also agree with Sarah that an organization’s ability to realize its full operational potential is dependent on the strength of the relationships between its employees. Social-network analysis can be used to collate and analyze the patterns of relationships that exist at business level and also achieve its goals.
For example, Social network like MyBigz helps you find new perspective clients as well as helping you keep connected with current clients all though their social networking site. Because you and your clients are members of this network, so you can instantly connect with them to let them know about sales, upcoming events, new products, product upgrades. To find new clients and to be in contact with all clients is not easy.
Another social-network like MySpace,which is a very popular social network site. Besides offering user blogs and message boards, MySpace has a specific section where nonprofits can place job listings for free and also announcing upcoming events, you can also post videos and through this make a good platform for exposing your nonprofits film which attracts to larger audience.
I found one more definition from my colleague's blog about social network. According to him, A social network focuses on establishing and online communities for people who share interests and activities. The social network will introduce people who are interested in exploring the interests and activity of others. My point of view, it's not necessary that social network establishes only online. It can be possible between persons in schools, colleges and at workplaces, but yes it's very popular online.
Community Of Practice
Communities of Practice are formed by people who are engaged in collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor. These people share a concern or a passion for something they do and lean how to do it better as they interact on a regular basis.
According to Gurteen,“A Community of Practice (CoP) is defined as an informal network of people engaged in a particular profession, occupation, or job function who actively seek to work more effectively and to understand their work more fully. “ (Source: gurteen website)
Because of Community of practice members of organization enable to learn from other members through sharing of different issues, lessons learned, problems and their solutions, innovative things and also about their interest and even quickly. Individual knowledge and collective knowledge should support each other which helps to improve performance goals, increase of understanding, better management. And that is also the fact that knowledge is expanded through discussion (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). It also helps to generate tangible,measurable and benefits to the organization.
For example, computer engineering students working at a company as interns, with community of practice the interns manipulated and interacted with knowledge before completely understanding the processes involved and increased their knowledge via experience.
According to my one colleague, Community of Practice is one group whose members regularly engage in sharing and learning, based on their common interests or goals, to share what they know from one another regarding some aspects of their work and experience. As I mentioned earlier this same concept about Community of Practice.
References
http://personalweb.about.com/od/myspacecom/a/whatismyspace.htm
InsideKnowledge(the original knowledge-management publication) posted 8 May 2003 in Volume 6 Issue 8
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page5504.cfm
http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/
Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (1999). Learning communities in classrooms: a reconceptualization of educational practice. In: C. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models. A new paradigm of instructional theory, (vol. 2, pp. 269–292). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wick, C. (2000). Knowledge management and leadership opportunities for technical communicators. Technical Communication, 47 (4), 515–529.
Winsor, D. (2001). Learning to do knowledge work in systems of distributed cognition. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15 (1), 5–28.
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