On COINs and CoPs

Been wandering around exploring the distinction between COINs (collaborative innovation networks) and CoPs (communities of practice).

COllaborative Innovation Networks - COINs are:

"...self-organizing groups of highly motivated individuals working together towards a common goal not because of orders from their superiors, but because members of a COIN share the same goal and are convinced of their common cause. People in COINs usually assemble around a new idea outside of organizational boundaries and across conventional hierarchies"

Source:

Key reference work: (large download)

Communities of Practice - CoPs are:

"A group of practitioners involved in a common activity, albeit performing different roles. Essential characteristics of communities of practice are: 1) they are not defined by organizational mandate (e.g., the "org chart"), but rather by the ways people actually work together, 2) they involve many different roles, as opposed to a flat structure, and 3) they experience an ongoing flux of community members, who enter the community from the periphery and gain status as knowledgeable members through participation in the community of practice."

Source:

Key reference book:

As I now understand things, a COIN is a specialized form of CoP, an informal network that spans business boundaries and has a prime focus on innovation rather than individual participant identity, awareness and learning.

COINs follow examples of the open source ethos, participants are early adopters and they adhere to principles of collaborative knowledge networking. This seems to a fusion of social networks, enabled by web technology and knowledge sharing.

Thanks to Patti Anklam for the lead

Comments

[David Locke]

One of the things I have to do as a marketer of disruptive technologies is to create a COIN for my technical enthusiasts.

This statement is false:
"Their prime focus on innovation rather than individual participant identity, awareness and learning."

They organize aroung an innovation to adopt it, which requires identity, awareness, learning, co-evolution, culture. Being first makes the participants valuable. Being last makes the participants normed, as unemployable. In technology, you are either ahead of the curve or lost.

Further, nobody is ascribing to any principles. The principles of collaborative knowledge networking is an after the face finding. No technical enthusiasts know that they practice these things. None of them learn the principles first and then participate. The principles are a finding from someone in the KM domain. The particpants are not usually KMers.

Do KMers really believe that the managed knowledge workers are just like us?

KM is an externally applied system. The participants of CoPs and COINs do not know that they are doing that. For the most part they are doing their job or maintaining their value as employees in disciplines that erode their knoweldge base on an ongoing basis. Innovation is the gateway to more knowledge, so a knowledge worker must go there. They know that. They should never get enthralled with a technology. That is a certain recipe for finacial disaster.