When reading about communities of practice, I kept thinking about how the United States as a community functions. "People's sense of connection to an organization comes through their relationship with their manager and peers." No wonder no one votes in this country. The disconnect between the government and the people is obvious. "The politicians will do what they want no matter who I vote for." I mean, why would anyone except the hyper-politically conscious bother to vote for the President if the guy they vote for wins the popular vote but the Presidency goes to the other guy? There are so many different religions, races, and attitudes in this country that the connections among everyone need to be very strong, but they're very weak.

Wenger's book is interesting to me because it seems a more scientific and technical study of the age-old adage, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Although that phrase was coined to refer mostly to business, getting jobs, etc., it can also extend to the idea of this book -- companies need to encourage the informal interaction of a community of practice. Networking is what so much of business is anyway. You meet people, you exchange information about things, things improve. The internet makes these communities possible. You see them everywhere, from Star Trek fandoms to the Freelancer's Union. Blogs are a great example. A pundit's blog is updated every day, increasing and evolving the domain of knowledge; the readership and commenters are the community; and the practice they are developing is sort of like the domain, just developing knowledge about issues and the world. Some businesses are now using blogs and incorporating open source technology to expand their communities of practice to the benefit of everyone. This is a great way businesses can be practical about it, but they also need to encourage face-to-face interaction. Like office Christmas parties. ;)

"In an age that emphasizes individual freedoms, institutions are often portrayed merely as constraints on this freedom."

This statement intrigued me because of the overwhelming influence on the country of big business. If anything, big business contracts our freedoms, constricting our choices in music, television, etc., and influencing Congress to vote certain ways on issues. So far, this agrees with Brown's statement, except Americans themselves are the ones perpetrating big business, trying to get jobs there, buying the products, etc. We have "freedom," yes, freedom to choose between NBC and ABC.

I was really interested in the discussion of how paper validates knowledge. With the advent of blogs and online publishing sites, any information can be passed off as legitimate. In contrast, paper sources are often more legitmate. Most publishers are in the business to make money and they know blatant misrepresentation of facts will get them fewer viewers. (Although some businesses get around this by feeding misinformation to an already voracious audience.) Newspapers have fact-checkers.

I also found interesting their point that shared documents can create a sense of community among an otherwise diverse population. They mention documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I never thought about it like that, but it's so true. I would like to point out that legal documents must provide for the well-being of everyone before they can unite everyone. It's the same thing with television shows and music. You can overhear a stranger in the grocery store talking about Desperate Housewives and all of a sudden, you have a new best friend.

Let's all freak out about technology!

In chapter 3, Brown and Duguid talk about the evils of forcefully splitting people apart and forcing them to work alone, namely the Chiat/Day anecdote. They also talked about how all the predictions that everyone will be working from home have proven false.

Chiat/Day's experiment failed and people still work in offices for one very basic and obvious reason: human beings are social animals. We will always form groups, we will always help each other out, and we won't dehumanize ourselves.

With the proliferation of every new technology, from telegraphs to television to Blackberries, people argue that society is dying and that everything is going downhill. It's not. If we can survive the Industrial Revolution, which upended everything, then we can survive the Internet.

Brown also talks about how crappy technology is and how it hampers work. Very true - then. Now the tools are much better and problems happen much less often. (Although I hear horrible things about Dell laptops. My friend has had to have his hard drive replaced four times, each time under warranty.) But tools are better now, and will continue to improve.

Incidentally, I find it hilarious that these guys worked for Xerox for so long because both my parents worked for Xerox, my dad for 25 years and my mom for two years or so. I didn't understand it then, but now I get that they constantly complained about how ill-organized the company is. It's really funny to me to know exactly where these guys are coming from.

I was somewhat relieved when I read Brown and Duguid's arguments about the need for human interaction. Bots will not replace humans because they lack the judgment and social skills that humans use constantly. All the little behaviors we do, like walking on the right side of the sidewalk, we do for a reason, like to not impede the flow of pedestrian traffic. Things we don't even realize we do have a purpose. It would be impossible to catalogue them all. Bots can never learn these interactions, and even if we tried to program bots to follow those patterns, there are too many for a bot to ever really replace a human. They used the example of how if bots ran the stock market, it would go haywire. This applies pretty much to all businesses. The best salespeople, for instance, are the people who can make an audience like them, who can read social cues and respond expertly. Bots can't do that! And they never will be able to.Bots can be a wonderful tool for humans to use, but they can't replace humans.

I was somewhat relieved when I read Brown and Duguid's arguments about the need for human interaction. Bots will not replace humans because they lack the judgment and social skills that humans use constantly. All the little behaviors we do, like walking on the right side of the sidewalk, we do for a reason, like to not impede the flow of pedestrian traffic. Things we don't even realize we do have a purpose. It would be impossible to catalogue them all. Bots can never learn these interactions, and even if we tried to program bots to follow those patterns, there are too many for a bot to ever really replace a human.

They used the example of how if bots ran the stock market, it would go haywire. This applies pretty much to all businesses. The best salespeople, for instance, are the people who can make an audience like them, who can read social cues and respond expertly. Bots can't do that! And they never will be able to.

Bots can be a wonderful tool for humans to use, but they can't replace humans.

I was somewhat relieved when I read Brown and Duguid's arguments about the need for human interaction. Bots will not replace humans because they lack the judgment and social skills that humans use constantly. All the little behaviors we do, like walking on the right side of the sidewalk, we do for a reason, like to not impede the flow of pedestrian traffic. Things we don't even realize we do have a purpose. It would be impossible to catalogue them all. Bots can never learn these interactions, and even if we tried to program bots to follow those patterns, there are too many for a bot to ever really replace a human.

They used the example of how if bots ran the stock market, it would go haywire. This applies pretty much to all businesses. The best salespeople, for instance, are the people who can make an audience like them, who can read social cues and respond expertly. Bots can't do that! And they never will be able to.

Bots can be a wonderful tool for humans to use, but they can't replace humans.

dschonew