| Building Internal Communities | |
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Overview |
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Once internal communities are identified, how does the organization support activities that allow those communities to flourish and contribute the maximum benefit to the overall goals of the organization? To some extent, communities already exist in every organization, either informally or even formally. But leading organizations have learned to maximize community activities to realize a competitive advantage. A Community provides opportunities for sharing knowledge and information within a specific knowledge domain. Its members are practitioners of a profession or function, with common business goals. Communities are for sharing as well as creating new knowledge and therefore, a community can provide thought leadership and technical direction for specific business areas or initiatives. Close alignment of a community’s work products with business initiatives is essential. As communities become more structured (formalized) they have opportunities to contribute more to themselves and the overall organization. Community membership can grow and change quickly and the scope of the community becomes more agile and dynamic as business issues change. However, this requires funding and sustainable sponsorship. Communities generally form across two maturity paths:
Key community components include: Sponsorship, Roles and Responsibilities, Membership, Meaning, Organizational Memory, Technology Path, Social Capital Path, Activities, Funding, Value Proposition, Measurement, Incentives/Rewards, and Vision/Mission/Goals/Objectives. Most successful communities seek to define many of these components in their respective community charters. As communities grow, they can expect to reach increasing levels of maturity: Potential; Formation; Building/Evolving; Operationalized/Activated; and Adaptive. To understand more about Vitesse and our services, please return to the Vitesse Solutions homepage or e-mail us at info@vitso.com.
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Why Building Internal Communities is so Important |
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As communities develop, they become focal points for energizing and enabling affinity groupings that can do more collectively than they could ever do as disconnected individuals or smaller groupings. The communities' representation in the organization's standard portal is a key enabler for a community. Interestingly, implementing communities is often misinterpreted as a technology-based solution. While technology is a vital part of community -- technology should be viewed primarily as an enabler for communities. The "build it and they will come" adage rarely applies. |
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Why it is important to hire the right consultant |
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when investing in major
changes or initiatives, such as building internal communities,
organizations are making a large investment in people processes and
technologies. Without the proper expertise, organizations run the
risk of severe sub-optimization. Your organization's intellectual
capital, or knowledge, is the lifeblood that sets it apart from its
competitors and ads value to customers. Improving that flow is a
critical step that should not be trusted to the inexperienced.
Vitesse offers the high-level expertise that can make a difference. Our approach has been developed with the understanding of many successful implementations. Therefore, our clients achieve the direct benefits of that expertise. |
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Contact information Vitesse Solutions, LLC Telephone: (216) 524-1726 e-mail: info@vitso.com |
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