It truly is a small world sometimes. This Friday I was browsing around in the local Wholefoods here in Palo Alto (CA), when I bumped into Etienne Wenger and his family - what a pleasant surprise!
Etiennes Book from 1998 Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity remains one of the most important books I have read, as it provides an extremely important understanding of the role of and none the least the importance of identity in organizational practice. And most importantly, it provides for a domain of knowledge to become the locus of identity contruction and negotiation, and thereby also a great framework for the study of mechanisms of homogenuity and diversity in organisations.
I met Etienne for the first time at a Community of Practice conference San Diego in 2000, and have met both him and his family again on several occasions, last time in Copenhagen, where we had a great couple of days discussing Communities of Practice, and browsing around Copenhagen!
But the biggest learning experience around all of this was definately the week I was fortunate enough to spend in Portugal in the summer of 2002, where 20 community of practice affacinados - including Etienne - from all of the world, gathered in Setubal, Portugal. We spend five intense day in a circle, talking about learning, meaning, and identity in Communities of Practice. A truly amazing and very intense experience, and I learned so much in those five days....
Needless to say therefore, the Etienne and his work has had an incredible influence on my research, and I really look forward to his next visit in Denmark, where I am hoping that I can pick his brains a bit, and discuss my research with him once again!
But, bumping into him at Wholefoods, was truly a coincidence, they were heading back north (the live app. 3 hours away from here), so what are the chances of that? And the truly great thing about this was, that Etienne told me that his research project "Learning for a small planet" has now been granted the official non-profit status, which is an important first step in this truly amazing and very ambitius research project.
THE LEARNING FOR A SMALL PLANET RESEARCH PROJECT
Quoting from the project description: "Learning for a small planet is a unique project to
develop new learning models for the 21st century. Many of the
challenges we face today can be understood as learning challenges: economic
development, the creation of a world culture that is both global and diverse,
the environment, health, regional conflicts—to name a few. Increasing our
learning capability is therefore an urgent imperative. But in order to do so, we
need new models about how to proceed and new visions of what is possible"
Learn more at Etiennes website
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