Further thoughts arising from my day in Brussels…
Miguel Cornejo gave an interesting and touching presentation on his experiences with Communities of Practise (CoPs). These are big in the world of Knowledge Management but may be jargon to others. Miguel is a quietly-spoken but powerful advocate of CoPs.
He explained how he created these online communities to support, for instance, HIV and AIDs sufferers. He creates different levels of access and anonymity so that sufferers can express their feelings freely whilst its also possible to maintain the standards of advice given and appropriate professional credentials are needed in some areas.
One of the most powerful ways in which this works for people is in acknowledgement. (Something I’ve blogged on before here.) Simply having a space to share experience, to speak and be heard in confidence, has a powerful positive impact for community members.
There’s plenty of talk in Knowledge Management about knowledge as something to be transferred, but I loved Miguel’s valuing of ackknowledgement. There was a lot more to his presentation than this – I’ll link to it when the conference papers are published.
