Community Overload

This post was written by Jacob McNulty

Is it me or is building a community the big buzz in the field of learning and development today?  It seems that every organization I’ve gotten involved with for my own personal development is offering a membership in their own community to go along with it.

This includes Masie’s Learning 2006, the CLO Institute’s CLOinfo, TrainingOutsourcing.com’s Forums and many, many others.

This is not to sound cynical - I think the idea of having communities that can support each other’s on-going learning in a particular area is a fantastic idea.  I just think that there is a possibility for this approach to be diluted within the field of learning and development to the point that there are just too many.  I know I cannot physically keep up regular involvement with this many different communities. 

A major driver in people’s continuing participation in a community of practice is that they get value from their involvement.  It will be challenging to keep all of these communities thriving to the extent that members get enough value to participate in all of them.  I’m sure that some readers would advise me to pick a manageable number and go with those.  That’s tough because I’m the person that doesn’t want to miss any nuggets - don’t make me choose.  If there are relevant ramblings happening in many dispersed communities - might I not be the only one that finds value in a many of them?

At some point I think that people in the field of learning and development may need to consolidate these communities and perhaps one front-runner will emerge.  I am hoping so - I don’t want to miss a thing.

Tags: business training, collective intelligence, Communities of Practice, CoP, corporate training, development, learning, learning strategies, organizational learning, professional development, social networking, workforce development