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The following is a thought provoking comment on my earlier post "Knowledge Creation and Multiple Communities"

I have been working in the UK health care sector
with functional teams who are being driven by a policy agenda to become
networked with clinical collegues from other organisations. The drivers for
this iniative are many and include learning , quality enhancement, resource
effectiveness and work force shortages. Within the subcultures of health care
we have witnessed a number of professional groups who find mulitple
membership a difficult thing to live with at a formal level. Our people tell
stories of how they find the conflicting agendas within the groups difficult
to understand and cope with.

As somebody that has made a career out of belonging to multiple communities, even multiple worlds, I sometimes envy those that have indwelt a single tradition or practice. There is an integrity and depth that comes from such a community of practice. I can quite imagine the difficulty of embracing foreign agendas and cultures.

For better or worse, we are in an environment in which change, the need to learn, and pressure on resources, demand that more of us cross the boundaries, and not only that, but also establish membership outside our natural home. That is not at all a comfortable experience. Sometimes it is also frustrating. Often it reduces efficiencies gained through specialisation.

A concern I have is how we preserve the value and strength of professional groups whilst also incorporating change and learning that is alien. My own opinion is that the latter should be a function of a minority who are able to connect different worlds. Maybe this calls for an explicit recognition of an organisational role that functions as a node, interfacing and translating between different professional and functional cultures.

It certainly calls for special skills, and it requires effort that draws away from the central focus of any specific professional group. For that reason alone it should be a specific role. I think that this is what should be meant by knowledge management, the realm of those that are professionals in recognising and catalysing the emerging knowledge in diverse but interconnected communities of practice.