• Purchasing/acquisition communities of practice linking all those engaged in purchasing decisions, providing decision support and development, with linkages to cooperative buying and other resources not available at all enterprises.

However they accumulate knowledge, they become informally bound by the value they find in learning together. The value is not merely instrumental for their work. It also accrues in the personal satisfaction of knowing colleagues who understand each other’s perspectives and of belonging to an interesting group of people. Over time, they develop a unique perspective on their topic as well as a body of knowledge, practices, and approaches. They also develop personal relationships and established ways of interacting. They may even develop a common sense of identity. They become a community of practice.

Etienne Wenger, 2002

The list of communities of practice could go on and on. These communities will multiply the impact of the social and technical networks that will be an essential element of the new enterprise application infrastructure. These communities of practice and collaborative interactions will be a key element of both process reinvention and changing the knowledge ecology of the institution to enable new levels of knowledge sharing.

Increase Individual and
Organizational Competencies

Twenty-first century colleges and universities need to develop a wide range of new competencies, both as enterprises and for the individuals associated with them: