Actors and Factors: Virtual Communities for Social Innovation
February 2007
Susan Restler and Diana D. Woolis
Actors and Factors Actors y Factores
ABSTRACT
Virtual communities of practice (COPs) are fast becoming a basic work unit in a networked world. The relationship between COPs, Knowledge Management, and the Learning Organisation is a question of priority for social sector leaders, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners as they seek to establish ways to maintain relevance and effectiveness in the volatile environments in which they work (Thomas et al, 2005). When well executed, virtual COPs produce results because the knowledge is stewarded: organised for learning, poised for action, and planned for sustainability. In this paper, we document and analyse the actors and factors that, in our experience, contribute to success: Enlightened Leadership, Compelling Work, Appropriate Technology and Knowledge Sustainability.
The Revolution Is Online: Two Polilogue Case Studies
October 2005
Susan Restler
The Revolution Is Online
ABSTRACT
Over the past two years we have worked with new online communities of practice in the public and non-profit sectors. Some communities took off, exceeding the goals they set out to achieve. Several didn't -- but the process still had beneficial effects on the organization and the team. And for many, it was somewhere in between. "The Revolution Is Online" explores how the successes prove the power of this approach to knowledge management, and what the underperformers suggest about setting the parameters for investment.
Human Services Dot Net
Policy & Practice, December 2003
Diana D. Woolis and Susan Restler
Human Services Dot Net Servicios Humanos Dot Net
ABSTRACT
The human services field is fueled by knowledge. Insights into how human service programs work and why practices succeed or fail rests in the experience of exceptional practitioners. Systematically organizing agency staff to leverage knowledge remains a challenge, though. How can an agency make the best use of knowledge that its employees possess?
Between a Rock and Cyber Space
Nonprofits, Knowledge, and Technology
Diana D. Woolis
Between a Rock and Cyber Space Entre una Roca y el Ciberespacio
ABSTRACT
Technology is moving beyond the mere crunching of data to connecting people and what they know. Survival is increasingly determined by the successful development of organizational knowledge assets --the facts, experience, and insights garnered from work. These public knowledge assets are at risk of being privatized, colonized or cannibalized.
This paper is a call to action. In it we provide definitions of knowledge and lay out some key challenges and opportunities for the nonprofit sector. We call for the building of a nonprofit knowledge system and suggest prerequisites for such a system.
A Near-Term, Human-Based Approach to Capturing and Disseminating Program Knowledge in the Nonprofit Community
Gary G. Hendrix
Download as PDF Document
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the near-term feasibility of providing technological and organizational support for the use of knowledge assets that result from service delivery and policy implementation in the nonprofit sector. It posits that the key to near-term progress is not to invent new artificial intelligence technology for the public sector. Rather, the key is to apply existing technology and human resources in a new way. In particular, progress can be made using the new generation of collaborative workspace tools now entering the market in conjunction with a new type of knowledge worker, a worker who aids nonprofit practitioners in gathering, organizing and distilling content.
