"People in communities of practice share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems."
- Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, HBR
A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
Participating in a professional community is how we can structuralize values within the systems we create. There are patterns of unlearning and learning inherent in change. As we shift from ways of operating that have been architected on mechanistic and extractive norms, into generative modes of collaboration and cooperation, community becomes essential as a pillar of accountability and support. CoPs are valuable to share knowledge, to innovate, to solve problems, and to strengthen capacity building.
As we develop new systems, work within existing systems, and experiment with innovative systems, it is essential to practice together and support the growth towards a values-based ecosystem.