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    In the COP book, we learn about the stages of community development.  We are even presented with a picture chart of these five stages on page 69.  We learn that communities form an informal social network from which the core group of the community is formed.  These people generally take the initiative to ”pull it all together.”  Even so, we learn that if enough common ground is covered between members of the communities then suddenly members feel connected..in my own mind, I like to think of this as momentum.  The chapter goes on to report that the more passion people feel about those concerns, the more drive the community is likely to have.

     I like how the text reads when it says, communities are not born in their final state, but go through a natural cycle of birth, growth, and death.  I wondered what it might be like for a church or a congregation.  I like this particular example because it illustrates what the author says communities go through: birth, growth and death.  And, realistically, a congregation gives birth to a new community of practice.  In other words, a congregation gives birth to an establishment: the church.  Similarly, a church then experiences growth.  In the beginning, select members of the congregation pull it all together so that there is an abundance of networking and momentum from which the greater number of the congregation can become connected.  For purposes of a thought provoking question: Does a community of practice such as a church experience death due to the original select members of that church experiencing death?

     In my opinion, the eventual death of select founding members of the congregation does not mean the same will be true of the church.  In other words, the spirit formed through the connectivity of the congregation will keep alive the ever-changing community of practice, the church.  In fact, page 75 points out the communities of practice such as a church can (1) focus of dimensions of the domain that are particularly important to the business, or in this case, church.  This could be, for example, biblical scripture and interpretation. (2) Focus on aspects of the domain community members will be passionate about.  An example of this could be shared values and beliefs. (3) Define the scope wide enough to bring in new people and new ideas, but narrow enough that most members will be interested in the topics of discussions.  In this case, the example would be the connection between the pastor and the congregation.  

The article, “Unintended Consequences of IT in Healthcare,” goes on to say that PCISs, or patient care information systems, will ultimately be a necessary component of health care system of high quality.  However, in the mean time, there is enough complications that brings suspicions of fostering errors rather than reducing them.  Furthermore, in some international situations PCIC applications actually weakens rather than strengthens health care quality.

The book goes on to suggest that this is brought on by transactions in an international environment.  For example, the book points out that transactions across countries would make it easier for smaller organizations to reach out.  Instead, organizations were caught up in lawful boundaries which seemingly proved to foster limitation errors rather than promote connectivity. 

So, as time goes on, will PCICs become more developed and sophisticated such that they create solutions without creating errors, simultaneously? 

Chapter twelve deals with systems development.  In the chapter we learn about and examine two key roles impacted by systems.  For example, the first role deals with business managers.  On page 443, the text points out that as a business manager, you will probably not become a systems developer.  On the other hand, you will have to interact with developers to ensure that you get the systems you need.  In my mind, this then identifies another key role, developers.  Developers of computer applications face fundamental dilemmas.  The good news is that most larger dilemmas can be split into smaller pieces.  Then, as a developer, the difficulty lies in combining the pieces back into a complete solution.  As for the business manager, systems bring managers the challenge of understanding costs and management issues as they apply to various MIS departments.

 Question:  Does system development fail mostly due to the costs involved, or do they fail mostly due to a lack of collaboration on behalf of the developer and the business manager?  

Resource: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep05/1685

In chapter six we learn about the challenges of distributed communities.  Chapter six puts forth the definition of a distributed community very early: for the purpose of this chapter, we will call distributed any community of practice that cannot rely on face-to-face meetings and interactions as its primary vehicle for connecting members.  We then learn several key issues relating to distributed communities: distance, size, affiliation, culture and domain.  But, it is affiliation that most stands out to me.Copyright compliance is central to the core of my responsibilities in my current position.  Being that I work for a college and that we offer many distance learning courses via the internet, my position is essentially hinged on copyright compliance.  In my mind, the staff and faculty who participate in facilitating these courses are communities of practice which in turn make the literacy owners/creators a community of practice of their own.  It is the case that I stand the middle ground acting as a means for the information to be passed for instructional purpose from the instructors to the students.  In most cases, I digitize much of the content and then post online.  Now, chapter six goes on to ask if one group holds greater proper rights over the other.  In Shell’s case, it is definitely harder to keep from crossing organizational boundaries.  But, in my case, I operate under Fair Use and Copyright Law, which allows for a means to avoid one of the downsides to distributed community.  This is talked about in chapter seven under the temptations of ownership whereby the owner/creator of the works may try to pursue full ownership with complete disregard to other communities.  So, Fair Use makes it possible for the owner/creator of the works to be protected while extending the benefit of use to students for instructional purpose.