Community of Practice

Consider the concept of a “community of practice.” How can such a community offer opportunities for learning?

In an earlier post I mentioned how important I thought the principal off efficiency was. I explained that using an online database with a scholarly journal saved time over going to the library, hunting for the book and then finally reading it.  I think the same thing can apply to "community of practice" as long as we dont turn off our own inquisitive brains.

In the past as Shirky mentioned, a photographer might have no idea how his photo actually looked.  But now with flickr and other file sharing programs, people can comments "lame" or "great framing" etc..  But one service I find myself using ALOT is the Creative Cow Forum. In working with Final Cut Pro or and other design software, it is easy to get confused and not be up to snuff on everything. Soemtimes you need a little help. So a lot of times, I find help from other people with the same questions at the Creative Cow.  In turn, they may ask a question that I know the answer to and I will answer it.

The only danger is that there are people who sit back and rely on others and perfectly content to turn off their own brain and search for the answer themselves before immediately turning to get help.  If we remember to keep our brain turned on and pay it forward with the knowledge we do have to help others, then I think we can only benefit learning new things in little ways form everyone.  We don't have to totally rely on top-down hierarchy of experts to give us the knowlege and slowly climb the latter to expert. If we use the knowledge given to us and share it when we can, then theoretically everyone should be able to prosper. (This is starting to sound like a political rant about taxes! Not going there!)