This chapter of Wenger was a little more difficult for me to relate to any old online community than the previous one.  Here are some things I got out of it:

• Diversity of perspectives (input from outsiders) can be good, as is the reuse of knowledge in different domains.  
• Perhaps "brokering" could be applied as a concept within a single community, as someone who coordinates between different subgroups.  Or a broker could be someone who's connected to the real world part of the community (say, the staff running the site) who represents the interests of both users and maintainers.
• Boundary objects in the context of online communities can be documentation that helps bridge the gap between users and maintainers, or other subgroups with different perspectives.

John Blair

Wenger defines many of the terms for the week rather well through the use of case study examples.  For instance: 

boundary objects: the claims forms connect the practice of claims processing with the outside world.

for me though, I felt the entire reading was summarized in one of the opening paragraphs "Communities of practice cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the world, or understood independently of other practices. Their various enterprises are closely interconnected. Their members and their artifacts are not theirs alone. Their histories are not just internal; they are histories of articulation with the rest of the world."

Though this doesn't define any of the terms for the week, it does express the basic concept that nothing operates in isolation in a group setting, that their are always connections to others, to artifacts, ideas, historical data, etc. 

From a design consideration, the concepts presented here, while somewhat difficult to decipher, could be very useful in establishing appropriate connections between groups (so that they each remain a group, yet share and grow from each other's knowledge), that boundaries are defined (making sure that the group remains true to it's purpose - Kim chapter 4), and that while sub groups may develop, they all still belong to the same community of practice and have something to gain from the community as a whole.

This chapter is basically stressing the idea that all kinds of community practics of both inside and cross-boundary are naturally embdded in an organic context. It is important to think about the implications. For example, the "landscape of practice" in the later part of the chapter says that it does depend on the institutional structures or reducible to them. So community can happen in an institutional environment, but they have different structures and thus they are not identical. I was thinking what we could do with this difference: can we use community theory to reconstruct institutional structures? Will it make the institution more efficient? for example, given a particular practice there would be a proper size and participation level of community, si can we redesign the institution as this proper size and level: if the origial one was too big then we just resize it?

Another thought was how to manipulate boundary. It seems like we were mainly talking about how to make online community as popular as possible; however, I think not every community wants many participants. Actually many community had strict admittance, for exaple, some "secrete" clubs for which people need to take great expense to get in. However, this implies the admirable benifit of being a member. I am wondering about those cases in online settings.

admittance

This reading was more abstract than others. Specifically I didn't fully understand the term “reificaiton”. I got a better grasp after I read the previous chapter (in Amazon) where the author introduced and explained the term. But the author's frequent usage of the term confused me. I hope one of you can describe the term.
The main design alternative I picked is using “practice as connections”. Maintaining connections with the outside world requires skills and has its own idiosyncrasies. Therefore having a practice for connecting practices will help us achieve the goal of sustained interaction between the community insiders and outsiders. Three types of practices can exist for connecting other practices: boundary practices, overlap and periphery.
The second design alternative I identified is - using boundary objects to achieve the goal of social order and increased participation. Not all artifacts are boundary objects. Boundary objects should be modular, abstract, flexible and standard. A wiki maintained by a team of application developers will be a boundary object between the developers, users and other communities that may exist around the application. The control over such an artifact should not be limited one community. If users can't rewrite the ambiguous sections, the wiki will continue to irrelevant for the user community.

Why do we need boundary objects or brokers? Communities are not their alone, and histories are not just internal. Since community of practices not only involve in internal activities but also activities with the rest of the world, participations and reification are needed to connect the community of practices to the rest of the world.

There are several types of connections:

• Boundary objects: are objects to describe objects that serve to coordinate the perspectives of various constituencies for some purpose.

• Brokering: Connections provided by people who can introduce elements of one practice into another.

• Practice can also become a form of connections. Three ways the practice itself can become a connection: boundary practices, overlaps and peripheries.

  • Boundary practices: a form of collective brokering to deal with boundaries and sustain a connection between a number of other practices, such as cross-functional teams.

  • Overlaps: It’s not an boundary enterprise, but a direct and sustained overlap between two practices. For example, Claim processors do claims, and clams technicians take care of special claims, which processors cannot or are not allowed to deal with. There are some overlaps between their tasks.

  • Peripheries: communities of practices can connect with the rest of the world by providing peripheral experiences to people who are not on a trajectory to become full members.

While Kim talks about sub-groups, and Wenger et al point out new comers join the community may dilute the conversation, the concept of boundary may be helpful to think about how to integrate different perspectives and identify their own characteristics as well. I just wonder if all forms of connections are adopted by online communities and how they have been used.

Wenger talks about boundry in this chapter. Some of the main take-aways I have got are: joining a community involves both internal configuration and its connection with the rest of the world; as source of social discontinuity and as connections, participation and reification can create continuities across boundries. Boundry objects and brokering are two types of connections Wenger has mentioned. He also mentioned that boundry encounters (single or diecrete events that provide connections) can take various forms and each may serve a different purpose and in terms of negotiation of meaning, the connecting effect of boundry encounters depends on the distribution of internal and boundry relations among those involved. He also introduced the idea of boundry practice, but pointed out that it only works when the process does not become completely self-involved. Personally, the reading is not as simple and clear as Kim's charpter and I feel the same that the use of reification confused me a bit.

Wenger may sum up the importance of reifying boundary objects  in the page 106 example about a claims processor transforming information into something other departments can understand.  Since brokers need to consider what connections between two communities of practice may exist in order to best translate information, I'll consider what enables artifacts to act as boundary objects in three examples.

Car (artifact)
- Modularity:  a car is a collection of parts that serves a different purpose for builders, mechanics, racers, drivers, etc.
- Abstraction:  the view from the driver's seat abstracts only certain features needed to operate it
- Accommodation:  the car can accommodate the various practices of builders, mechanics, racers, drivers.
- Standardization:  cars may have different designs, but each person who interacts with it knows how to deal with it locally

Time (concept)
- Modularity:  time is an indefinite period that a serves a different purpose depending on culture, emotion, etc.
- Abstraction:  time abstracts only the current moment
- Accomodation:  time can accommodate all activities
- Standardization:  time can be converted from one set of standard units into another

Communities of Practice (Wenger's book)
- Modularity:  Wenger's book is a collection of theories, principles, and terms that serve a different purpose for each reader
- Abstraction:  Only one letter can exist in each place (I'm reaching… any suggestions)
- Accomodation:  Wenger's book can accommodate the various practices of academics, community designers, and book sellers

Standardization:  documents can be interpreted locally

I think it's a bit ironic that Wenger uses jargon as an example of a boundary to outsiders, then goes and uses the word "reification" a whole bunch of times.

Luckily I took notes when Paul said that reification = participation.

HA! Take that, Wenger! 

When reading this chapter, I couldn't help but reflect back on my own education.  My undergraduate degree is in computer science, and as with any engineering discipline, the culture of computer scientists is one of jargon and disdain for other academic programs.  The various engineering programs I've witnessed maintain a high degree of community and camaraderie, with strong boundaries... perhaps its the shared events and rituals, the long nights in the lab, poking fun at the business students enjoying themselves uptown, but I digress...  Isolated communities like this tend to foster strong internal relationships, but their boundaries don't allow them to play nicely with others.

Enter the School of Information.  Among the most challenging aspects of the School of Information is explaining what we do and why we exist.  Indeed, the foundation classes seem to exist solely to justify putting librarians, economists, computer scientists, etc in the same academic program.  The foundations lack cohesiveness.  I think that's alright, because the purpose of SI, at least for me, is to foster brokering between disciplines.  SI graduates will almost certainly have a high tolerance for jargon and ambiguity, and I think that i-schools are developing in response to the realization that enhanced brokering, via interdisciplinary studies, will better serve communities of practice, whether corporate or academic.

This reading helped me wrestle with some of my impressions of the community dynamics in the SI Community Information Corps.  These are the insights that stuck out to me, some could potentially be translated into design goals:

1. Build in a change management strategy for community growth and maintenance beyond the initial group formation and development period 

2. In the domain selection process, try to establish a scope that involves both the needs of members and the goals of the organization

3. Attempt to establish a balance between taking stock of and making use of current existing networks whose members are likely to be early commiters, while maintaining an eye of potential avenues for bringing in new ideas and pushing boundaries.

4. Clarifying a small primay community intent as part of your norming strategy in the group formation process can prevent new members from being overwhelmed by a wide range of available roles

5. Anticipate a lulling period after the spike of group activities.  This is often due to people looking for measurable value in their participation from the get go.  Build in ways to acknowledge strong contributors and build trust.  

6. Engage managers in the process of building group legitimacy and protecting the validity of newly formed vulnerable communities

7. Focus initially on developing the core group and don't worry too much about building membership right off the bat.  A strong core group will attract members

This list could have been longer

I omitted insights I thought were well covered in others' posts. 

Lisa McLaughlin

Very interesting and useful Wenger chapter this week.

First, we are introduced to themes of participation and reification (reification occurs when someone says something like "social structure causes X"). Next, we get two terms: boundary objects and brokering. Later we see a list of boundary object characteristics: modularity, abstraction, accomodation, and standardization. And eventually, we get a discussion of boundary practices, overlaps, and peripheries.

Some key thoughts:
Brokering brings to mind transactions, costs, etc. and is, I think, a poor term for what Wenger describes. I prefer a term from social networks "affiliation networks" which is used to describe the routes of transmission for ideas made possible by membership in multiple networks.

Boundary players definitely occupy a zone of uprootedness, "neither in nor out." Just ask me sometime about trying to do work on panarchy, which hybridizes many disciplines.

It is significant that co-practice creates a boundary itself (this is also reification). But p119 is wrong to suggest that institutional boundaries are different from practice boundaries. All boundaries are constantly negotiated. Also boundaries are porous, semi-permeable. Moreover, they are reified by an ongoing distinction-making act that is reproduced through participation.

On p120 there is a definition of boundaries and peripheries. Boundaries demarcate, but because they can overlap, we can get peripheries. However there is a third topographical possibility when boundaries exist, that is ignored by Wenger, namely, when boundaries do NOT overlap, but also do NOT coincide. When boundaries coincide, as in mutually constituted zones, you can be in one group or the other. But when boundaries do not coincide, there is a third place that is created BETWEEN them. Understanding this place is absolutely essential to theorizing. T. S. Eliot called it "The Wasteland," and in ecoliterature it is simply "wilderness."

I wonder about the breakdown of boundary objects, as boundaries become more permeable and multiple affiliation becomes more prevalent. By way of example, consider a map of elements (such as on google maps) that are chosen at the time of viewing by the viewer. Such an on-demand representation does not serve the functions listed in Wenger, i.e. does not create a set of shared understandings. The social consequences of living in a world where such shared understandings are not regularly created and sustained has been explored in detail by political scholars like Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, William Connolly, and Hardt and Negri in their masterful book "Multitude."

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PHartzog@umich.edu
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The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser

One prerequiste to understand this chapter is to understand the meaning of "participation" and "reification". Previous comments by my classmates are very good indeed. I'd like to add one more comment. It seems to me that:

• "participation": concrete things/actions => abstract experience/ideas
•  "reification": abstract experience/ideas => concrete things/actions

Both "participation" and "reification" can be used in the negotiation of meaning (sense-making), and they are complementary to each other.

Then, the main topic of this chapter is about "boundary" of CoP. The author talks about:

• The duality of boundary relations: they provide both continuities and discontinuities.
• Two types of connections: boundary objects (as "reification") and brokering (as "participation")
  • The two types of connections are complementary
• Three types of boundary enconters: one-on-one, immersion, and delegations.
• Three types of connection provided by practice: boundary practices, overlaps, and peripheries.
• Two final points:
  • the duality of continuities and discontinuities is defined by practice, not by institutional affiliation.
  • boundaries and peripheries are woven together.

Maybe it's just that identify with this type of behavior, but I was drawn to the discussion of brokering within communities. This comes, perhaps, from my elementary/middle school years where I never fit in any particular social group, but rather found great satisfaction engaging in "import-export" on the boundary.
Kim seems to ignore this type of behavior (at least in ch. 5 she does). In her descriptions, subgroups form without much intercourse between them. Certainly, this happens in many online communities. The groups form and are essentially isolated from other subgroups within the larger community. This is where, I believe, the brokering role is so important.

For example, political blogs that allow comments can provide a community experience where people come and share their feelings about their favorite candidates/policy issues. Very often, these communities form silos around a very narrow topics, ignoring other, potentially, important topics. While hyperlinks may be formed to other communities, this is not a substitute for a broker – an actual participant that bridges the boundary between communities.

Brokering provides a way to connect a "community of practice with the outside. (p. 109)" Furthermore, Wenger explains that brokering "requires enough legitimacy to influence the development of a practice, mobilize attention, and address conflicting interests. (p. 109). In my opinion, the role of brokers and the willingness of communities to allow brokers to exchange ideas between the boundaries are essential when building vibrant communities.

I found this article both interesting and difficult to understand.  I couldn't help but draw a strong parallel to my own career in "management".

i got  areal kick out of this article when reading about practice as connection (pp.113) where Wenger distills practice as its on boundary by way of 3 dimensions, namely:

1)Participants form close relationships, outsiders cannot easily enter

2) Participants have their own lexicon (complex understanding of their enterprise as they define it)

3)They have developed a repertoire(technologies, language used to enhance community or isolate) for which outsiders miss shared references. 

In reading the above i couldn't do anything else but point the finger at the higher echelons of management. Isn't this what they do to exist?  Isn't their existence not directly correlated to the above 3 points.  If that weren't enough, i found it even more hilarious to find brokering fitting in nicely with my view of management ("brokering plays a prominent role in making new connections, essentially enhancing a community" pp.109).

However, the broker can easily find himself at odds on both sides given that they are inherintly tasked with being members of 2 teams who may find themselves at odds with each other while the broker sits right in the middle.  

I certainly had the joy of experiencing all of the above while managing an international division based in the US.  i was the broker, and the evangelist always working to bring light to the fact that the international component of our business was actually worth spending time and money into.  The Pres.,VP and Directors ran their own little clique and would have nothing of it or anyone trying to enter into their little "community". That is, until the parent company changed the rules of engagement and made International a part of their bottomline.  given that their necks were now on the line they wanted to include me in their meetings, not as a broker but as an "equal". the difficult part now was not convincing them of the importance and viability of International but negotiating meaning!

I found the most interesting part of this reading to be the discussion of boundaries between communities. Wenger discusses these boundaries, saying they can be defined by explicit markers of membership - titles, dress, degrees, initiation rites - but the degree that these boundaries actually matter depend on their effect on participation.

Boundaries can also be unmarked but sharp - with a good example being cliques at a school. They are boundaries that are unspoken but understood. Then, there is also the glass ceiling - a boundary that is hard to prove that is there, but exists in the subconscious.

How these boundaries apply to communities, especially the online ones we are studying, I am not sure. Wenger's discussion is not meant to tell us how to do this. Kim, however, is more clear - create these boundaries, she says, by giving badges or profile markers to those in different groups or different levels of membership. This helps show who those in leadership are and are a matter of pride for members to show off their participation. My question - are there drawbacks to explicitly creating these boundaries?

The idea of communities of practice as shared histories of learning provided me with a different perspective of looking at communities. The connection
between the origin and need for boundary objects - objects to describe objects that serve to coordinate the perspectives of various constituencies for some purposes- and brokers - Connections provided by people who can introduce elements of one practice into another - now becomes evident since as communities of practice form with the introduction of new boundaries there arise ways to connect with the 'others' outside the boundary. Thus this need of communication
gives rise to objects and processes that can best facilitate it.

We can begin to see glimpses of a possible design idea we can reuse. Since we now know that the formation of communities of practice will entail the formation of boundaries which will enventually define the community but at the same time prove to be a gap for those not in the community, we can see that one way for us to effectively manage the knowledge in the community and outside of it is to control the flow of information across this boundary. For example in the other Wenger reading we learnt that one of the important challenges was to maintain the tension between openness and ownership in a community. Thus if we take that to be our design goal, we now need a effective method to have some degree of control over how we want our community to evolve at the macro level.

Thus :
Design Goal: To effectively manage tension between ownership and openness in a community.
Method : One way to do this could be to control the flow of information by the design of the boundary objects. Also we could provides varying levels of incentives for brokers depending on how important they are for the evolution of our community - how important is it for our practices to spread to other communities and how important is it for our comunity to learn other culture.

So we can formulate our design claim as :

The design of boundary objects and incentives for brokers can control the flow of information between the community and other communities thus providing a way to manage the issue of openness and ownership.

The same concept of boundary objects and brokers as controlling the flow of information between the community and others can lead to various other interesting design solutions. For example we know that "the status of outsiders can be reified without a reification of the boundary itself through subtle barriers to participation". We also know that these barriers can be created by varying the difference in knowledge between the community and the outside world which leads to discontinuities in the shared learning.

Thus if our goal is: Clearly outline the status of outsiders and insiders

one alternate could be to use "tribal badges" and other such explict means. However another alternate could be to create subtle barriers to participation by creating degrees of discontinuities in learning which can again be achieved through the clever design of boundary objects which control how much and what informtion is shared with the 'outside world'.

Thus we could make a design claim :
The design of boundary objects can reify the status of outsiders without reifying the boundary.

We could verify these design claims by experimenting them in communities and can thus create value guidelines for designers of communities.

Wengers story of overlaps on p116 rings true with something happened in my own organization over the past several years.  When I started our department was only 3 people, and issues between the support person and engineers were negotiated verbally and expectations and priorities were simply understood as a factor of working closely together.

As the teams grew and both support and engineering were staffed by several new persons, we started relying on a trouble ticket system identical to ones used in most IT industries.  These tickets were boundary objects -- but using the system to process overlap ended up replacing face to face contact.

As a result, many of the ticket reports contained incomplete information, were of a trivial nature but mis-prioritized, or were simply impossible to process.  Because the overlap had gone from a conversation to a one way flow of objects, the quality of service had suffered, and both teams felt that the others were constantly shirking.

I would definitely reinforce Wenger's idea that learning occurs at overlap, so when structuring relationships between groups and boundary objects it's important that access between the groups is not restricted, so what should be a "partnership" doesn't simply become a "master/slave" relationship.

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oostendo@umich.edu

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Barriers to Entry have a somewhat different meaning in the context
of Web2.0. The business model of the Internet has changed after the
arrival of Google Adsense/Adwords on the scene. Most 2.0 sites are
yearning for eyeballs. More the merrier. I believe that in the context
of 2.0, the barriers to entry are coming down (or in some cases
non-existent by design). Yes, once a critical mass is achieved, then
the companies/websites put some "barriers to entry" to maintain the
sanctity of the place.  Myspace, Facebook etc fall in the same
category.

Interesting aspect is that in these sitations, Barriers to Entry no
longer works as the barriers to entry. Rather, it works as a ritual
that you have to do to enter the elite club. For example: In its
childhood, Facebook had some barriers to entry (only students could
join the site). Now, anyone can join it...just follow some ritual
(registration page).

Point: If people want to follow the Barrier to Entry procedures,
then they are no longer the barriers. Rather, they become rituals.

Question: Can we consider a registration page for Facebook as
barrier to entry? I would consider it more like a ritual (which people
are willing to do) rather than a barrier.