It’s hardly a new concept — people with whom we share professional interests who may or may not work in our company or even our sector. It’s just a handy-dandy way of describing it.

Personally I like the expression. ‘Community’ makes me think of groups of people, not brick and mortar neighbhourhoods: communities can (and should) exist within neighbourhoods, but they’re not the same thing. Just like a home can be in a house, but they’re not the same thing.

And ‘practice’ always reminded me of a doctor’s practice, rather than piano practice.

But you can’t argue with blank faces. The people have spoken.

Really the only time you need to use the phrase “community of practice” is when you’re talking in the abstract. Otherwise you can just say, “the Canadian stamp-collecting community” or “the Ottawa church-organist community”.

For that reason I don’t use the term until people are ready for it, before that I talk about groupwork, and networks as these terms are more accessible. This is loose, academically dodgy perhaps, especially as there is a risk of conflating groups and networks, but from a practical point of view it is an effective way in. We work towards the heavier theory.

I like that object lesson in the difficulties of filters. It is probably because of the sentence “their clothes disappear” in the original post. Or maybe the buzzword “community” has reached the porn industry too!!!

Nick, in Denver this October, quizzical faces peered at me when I used the term Communities of Practice. There were only thirty to forty people in my audience. I asked “How many of you are familiar with the term Community of Practice?” No one raised a hand.

I don’t buy your argument that “any really useful concept should be initially opaque.” Instead, a new concept should at least relate to its origins. Horseless carriage, wireless phone.

Writing “your wish to change the name: dynamic guild” misconstrues what I meant. I wrote that “we didn’t find what we were looking for.” The best we could do was not good enough. I’m still searching.

CoP are too important to be stuck with a label that takes time to understand. Let’s not permit semantic conservatism to block progress. This is not the first time this has come up nor will it be the last. See “How about an Order of Slimehead?” at http://internettime.com/?p=693

Why do you want to change the term “communities of practice”? I agree entirely with you that that the associations of the constituent words are distracting, but the whole is a term that is hard to mistake. I like that because it is not an easy idea, its fragile and doesnt happen as often as some would have us believe. It is esoteric. That means it is hard to sell to people. I have that struggle, and I must say I talk about learning groups initially, (and that is hard enough!!!). I only talk about CoPs when they are really interested in the background.

But I am still worried by your wish to change the name: “dynamic guild” doesnt help at all, to me it sounds like a bunch of hyped-up mediaeval artesans, and sounds to me like a hijack of a useful concept.

Any really useful concept should be initially opaque, if it is a new idea it must be opaque initially, because what is new is not initially easy to grasp, and consultants will have to deal with that.

If it is transparent, if it is easy, then it is probably new skin for the old ceremony. New ideas need new terms. both are difficult at first. And the “small town” (community) and “repetitive” (practice) interpretations seem to me to be narrow, and arguably US focussed associations.

Communities of practice grows on you, it is a “right” description when you think about it, takes time though. Also it fits nicely into a taxonomy of communities,(and it is time distinctions were made)

All the best

Nick