EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Startup Community Way

Download or read book The Startup Community Way written by Brad Feld and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Way Forward for Entrepreneurship Around the World We are in the midst of a startup revolution. The growth and proliferation of innovation-driven startup activity is profound, unprecedented, and global in scope. Today, it is understood that communities of support and knowledge-sharing go along with other resources. The importance of collaboration and a long-term commitment has gained wider acceptance. These principles are adopted in many startup communities throughout the world. And yet, much more work is needed. Startup activity is highly concentrated in large cities. Governments and other actors such as large corporations and universities are not collaborating with each other nor with entrepreneurs as well as they could. Too often, these actors try to control activity or impose their view from the top-down, rather than supporting an environment that is led from the bottom-up. We continue to see a disconnect between an entrepreneurial mindset and that of many actors who wish to engage with and support entrepreneurship. There are structural reasons for this, but we can overcome many of these obstacles with appropriate focus and sustained practice. No one tells this story better than Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway. The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem explores what makes startup communities thrive and how to improve collaboration in these rapidly evolving, complex environments. The Startup Community Way is an explanatory guide for startup communities. Rooted in the theory of complex systems, this book establishes the systemic properties of entrepreneurial ecosystems and explains why their complex nature leads people to make predictable mistakes. As complex systems, value creation occurs in startup communities primarily through the interaction of the "parts" - the people, organizations, resources, and conditions involved - not the parts themselves. This continual process of bottom-up interactions unfolds naturally, producing value in novel and unexpected ways. Through these complex, emergent processes, the whole becomes greater and substantially different than what the parts alone could produce. Because of this, participants must take a fundamentally different approach than is common in much of our civic and professional lives. Participants must take a whole-system view, rather than simply trying to optimize their individual part. They must prioritize experimentation and learning over planning and execution. Complex systems are uncertain and unpredictable. They cannot be controlled, only guided and influenced. Each startup community is unique. Replication is enticing but impossible. The race to become "The Next Silicon Valley" is futile - even Silicon Valley couldn't recreate itself. This book: Offers practical advice for entrepreneurs, community builders, government officials, and other stakeholders who want to harness the power of entrepreneurship in their city Describes the core components of startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems, as well as an explanation of the differences between these two related, but distinct concepts Advances a new framework for effective startup community building based on the theory of complex systems and insights from systems thinking Includes contributions from leading entrepreneurial voices Is a must-have resource for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, executives, business and community leaders, economic development authorities, policymakers, university officials, and anyone wishing to understand how startup communities work anywhere in the world

Book Neighbor Power

Download or read book Neighbor Power written by Jim Diers and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing concrete examples for citizens and government officials, Diers describes a successful program to support community self-help projects and a community-driven planning process that involved 30,000 people.

Book Small Schools and Strong Communities

Download or read book Small Schools and Strong Communities written by Kenneth A. Strike and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2010-04-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this insightful book, Kenneth Strike develops a new vision of school reform. Arguing that good schools are first and foremost strong communities, Strike maintains that the small schools movement is the best hope to create such schools. He shows how the core assumptions that characterize the “community paradigm” are preferable to those of standards-based reform and choice. Part I examines student disengagement as an issue largely unaddressed by current views of school reform; demonstrates that belonging is essential to authentic learning; and argues that good schools create a sense that “we are all in this together.” Good schools have a “shared educational project” and exhibit the four Cs of community: coherence, cohesion, care, and connectivity. Part II discusses the small schools movement. The author shows that small size is not sufficient to create strong communities or good schools—we cannot just downsize and hope that something good will happen. Strike looks at the educational practices and policies required to create successful small schools, and develops a view of accountability appropriate for building successful educational communities. He argues that if we expect small schools to be successful we cannot view them as simply a strategy for succeeding on standards-based reform, but rather we must see the creation of strong communities as a distinct paradigm for school reform.

Book Right of Way

    Book Details:
  • Author : Angie Schmitt
  • Publisher : Island Press
  • Release : 2020-08-27
  • ISBN : 1642830836
  • Pages : 247 pages

Download or read book Right of Way written by Angie Schmitt and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The face of the pedestrian safety crisis looks a lot like Ignacio Duarte-Rodriguez. The 77-year old grandfather was struck in a hit-and-run crash while trying to cross a high-speed, six-lane road without crosswalks near his son’s home in Phoenix, Arizona. He was one of the more than 6,000 people killed while walking in America in 2018. In the last ten years, there has been a 50 percent increase in pedestrian deaths. The tragedy of traffic violence has barely registered with the media and wider culture. Disproportionately the victims are like Duarte-Rodriguez—immigrants, the poor, and people of color. They have largely been blamed and forgotten. In Right of Way, journalist Angie Schmitt shows us that deaths like Duarte-Rodriguez’s are not unavoidable “accidents.” They don’t happen because of jaywalking or distracted walking. They are predictable, occurring in stark geographic patterns that tell a story about systemic inequality. These deaths are the forgotten faces of an increasingly urgent public-health crisis that we have the tools, but not the will, to solve. Schmitt examines the possible causes of the increase in pedestrian deaths as well as programs and movements that are beginning to respond to the epidemic. Her investigation unveils why pedestrians are dying—and she demands action. Right of Way is a call to reframe the problem, acknowledge the role of racism and classism in the public response to these deaths, and energize advocacy around road safety. Ultimately, Schmitt argues that we need improvements in infrastructure and changes to policy to save lives. Right of Way unveils a crisis that is rooted in both inequality and the undeterred reign of the automobile in our cities. It challenges us to imagine and demand safer and more equitable cities, where no one is expendable.

Book Pocket Neighborhoods

Download or read book Pocket Neighborhoods written by Ross Chapin and published by Taunton Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Architect and author Chapin describes existing pocket neighborhoods and co-housing communities while providing inspiration for creating new ones.

Book Startup Communities

Download or read book Startup Communities written by Brad Feld and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential guide to building supportive entrepreneurial communities "Startup communities" are popping up everywhere, from cities like Boulder to Boston and even in countries such as Iceland. These types of entrepreneurial ecosystems are driving innovation and small business energy. Startup Communities documents the buzz, strategy, long-term perspective, and dynamics of building communities of entrepreneurs who can feed off of each other's talent, creativity, and support. Based on more than twenty years of Boulder-based entrepreneur turned-venture capitalist Brad Feld's experience in the field?as well as contributions from other innovative startup communities?this reliable resource skillfully explores what it takes to create an entrepreneurial community in any city, at any time. Along the way, it offers valuable insights into increasing the breadth and depth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by multiplying connections among entrepreneurs and mentors, improving access to entrepreneurial education, and much more. Details the four critical principles needed to form a sustainable startup community Perfect for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking fresh ideas and new opportunities Written by Brad Feld, a thought-leader in this field who has been an early-stage investor and successful entrepreneur for more than twenty years Engaging and informative, this practical guide not only shows you how startup communities work, but it also shows you how to make them work anywhere in the world.

Book The Way of the Rose

    Book Details:
  • Author : Clark Strand
  • Publisher : Random House
  • Release : 2019-11-05
  • ISBN : 0812988957
  • Pages : 321 pages

Download or read book The Way of the Rose written by Clark Strand and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when a former Zen Buddhist monk and his feminist wife experience an apparition of the Virgin Mary? “This book could not have come at a more auspicious time, and the message is mystical perfection, not to mention a courageous one. I adore this book.”—Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit Before a vision of a mysterious “Lady” invited Clark Strand and Perdita Finn to pray the rosary, they were not only uninterested in becoming Catholic but finished with institutional religion altogether. Their main spiritual concerns were the fate of the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren in an age of ecological collapse. But this Lady barely even referred to the Church and its proscriptions. Instead, she spoke of the miraculous power of the rosary to transform lives and heal the planet, and revealed the secrets she had hidden within the rosary’s prayers and mysteries—secrets of a past age when forests were the only cathedrals and people wove rose garlands for a Mother whose loving presence was as close as the ground beneath their feet. She told Strand and Finn: The rosary is My body, and My body is the body of the world. Your body is one with that body. What cause could there be for fear? Weaving together their own remarkable story of how they came to the rosary, their discoveries about the eco-feminist wisdom at the heart of this ancient devotion, and the life-changing revelations of the Lady herself, the authors reveal an ancestral path—available to everyone, religious or not—that returns us to the powerful healing rhythms of the natural world.

Book Unexpected Gifts

    Book Details:
  • Author : Christopher L Heuertz
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2013-01-08
  • ISBN : 1451652267
  • Pages : 235 pages

Download or read book Unexpected Gifts written by Christopher L Heuertz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heartfelt and thoughtful book, Christopher Heuertz writes of the dangers of isolation, the challenges we face when we join together and the struggles and joys that emerge from genuine community bonding. “Ironically, as much as we yearn for deep friendships and meaningful communities, many of us seem to be unable to find our way into them. Even if we know we’re made for community, finding one and staying there seems almost impossible. Though we hate to admit it, if we stay long enough in any relationship or set of friendships, we will experience failure, doubt, burnout, loneliness, transitions, a loss of self, betrayal, frustration, a sense of entitlement, grief, and weariness. Yet it’s these painful community experiences, these tensions we struggle to navigate, that hold surprising gifts.” —FROM THE PREFACE IN A STRIKINGLY confessional tone and vividly illustrated through story, Unexpected Gifts names eleven inevitable challenges that all friendships, relationships, and communities experience if they stay together long enough. Rather than allowing these challenges to become excuses to leave, Chris Heuertz suggests that things like betrayal, transitions, failure, loss of identity, entitlement, and doubt may actually be invitations to stay. And if we stay, these challenges can become unexpected gifts. *** Betrayal, failure, loss of identity, doubt. If your relationships have suffered from any of these pitfalls, this book will show you that staying together can create something more—even something beautiful. IN THIS HEARTFELT and thoughtful book, Christopher Heuertz writes of the dangers of isolation, the challenges we face when we join together, and the struggles and joys that emerge from genuine community bonding. Whether readers are forming a new community, searching for deeper community, or participating in a longtime community, they will find inspiration, caution, guidance, and encouragement as they discover the beauty of pressing in to the ambiguities of growing relationships in this tender and honest testimony about how we are woven together by grace.

Book People on the Way

Download or read book People on the Way written by David Ng and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shares the experiences of Asian North American Christians as they claim their identity and are shaped by their rich Asian religious and cultural heritage.

Book Building a People Oriented Security Community the ASEAN way

Download or read book Building a People Oriented Security Community the ASEAN way written by Alan Collins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ASEAN has declared its intention to create a security community in Southeast Asia that is people-orientated. This book evaluates ASEAN’s progress, and in doing so examines three matters of concern. The book firstly looks at the importance of constitutive norms to the workings of security communities, by identifying ASEAN’s constitutive norms and the extent to which they act as a help of hindrance in establishing a security community. It then moves on to how ASEAN has interpreted people-orientated as empowering civil society organisations to be community stakeholders. The book discusses the uncertainty between how ASEAN envisages their role, and the role they themselves expect to have. Civil society actors are seeking to influence what sort of community evolves and their ability to interact with the state elite is evaluated to determine what interpretation of people-oriented is likely to emerge. Thirdly, in order to make progress ASEAN has sought to achieve cooperation among its member states in functional areas. The book examines this interest in functional cooperation through case studies on human rights, HIV/AIDS and disaster management. By discussing the notion of ASEAN being people-orientated, and how it engages with ‘the people’, the book provides important insights into what type of community ASEAN in building, as well as furthering our understanding on security communities more broadly.

Book The Ohana Way Book

    Book Details:
  • Author : Scot Conway
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2016-05-01
  • ISBN : 9781533470300
  • Pages : 196 pages

Download or read book The Ohana Way Book written by Scot Conway and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "People leave people." In jobs, more than 7 in 10 of people who quit a job leave because of a boss or organization culture. In volunteer groups, the same is true. With social groups, the numbers are undoubtably higher. What if we could reverse that? Creating a Culture of Community is a key to keeping your community together. Having some organized, easy-to-understand system to do just that is important. That's just what THE OHANA WAY is for you: A powerful toolbox to help people connect and stay connected in a positive, powerful way. THE OHANA WAY BOOK is the complete manual on The Ohana Way. You'll find The Ohana Way Five-By-Five with 25 more chapters diving deep into Oasis, Harmony, Assertiveness, Nobility, and Aloha, plus more chapters explaining how to apply Ohana in your group, organization and family. If you want a short introduction, see THE OHANA WAY REPORT. Here's the really, really short version of what Ohana means, right out of a Disney movie: OHANA - "Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind... or forgotten." (Lilo and Stich, 2002) Ohana means family. Family is much more than those related by blood or marriage. It does include them, of course. It also includes friends, calabash cousins, and anyone with whom you share enough in common that you might consider them ohana. One aspect of this shows up in a simple term: "Hawaii." When people connected to the islands do nice things for one another, they sometimes call it simply "Hawaii." When someone used to live in Hawaii but they have left behind that kind of natural generosity common in the islands, they sometimes say "They aren't Hawaii anymore." Ohana means family. Family includes those bonded by affection and something in common. It represents an ideal that we illustrate by using ohana as an acronym. Technically, that means we should always have periods between our latters as in O.H.A.N.A., but we often dispense with the periods and just write it OHANA or even just capitalize Ohana. This way we know we're talking about our five-part acronym.OHANA means: O-OasisH-HarmonyA-AssertivenessN-NobilityA-Aloha Each one of these elements has a more complete, deeper expression than this (which we explore in future chapters). As a starting place, this is what we mean: OASIS - Be a Refreshing Refuge. Being an Oasis and helping create an Ohana Oasis means I always make it better by being here. I help create a refuge from the usual, the annoying and the difficult. HARMONY - Embrace Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations Aimed at Greatness. Great music is made from melody and harmony. Many instruments, notes, and singers work together to make all sorts of different and amazing music. Harmony means we don't have to be alike to be together. ASSERTIVENESS - Moving Forward on Purpose with Respect for Others. We Live Life on Purpose. We live assertively, learn assertively and love assertively. We practice assertive listening, assertive relationships, assertive parenting, and assertiveness in any and all areas of life. NOBILITY - Be our Highest and Best Selves. The metaphor of the Royal Knight dives deep into our ideals of princeliness and princessliness in their highest and best forms. We pursue knightly chivalry and samurai bushido in service to high ideals.ALOHA - Love in All Its Many Meanings and Manifestations. Love is I want the best for you, I want to be the best for you, and I want you to have transcendent joy. Aloha also includes hello and goodbye in Hawaiian.

Book Long Way Down

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jason Reynolds
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2017-10-24
  • ISBN : 1481438271
  • Pages : 333 pages

Download or read book Long Way Down written by Jason Reynolds and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother. A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

Book The Startup Community Way

Download or read book The Startup Community Way written by Brad Feld and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Way Forward for Entrepreneurship Around the World We are in the midst of a startup revolution. The growth and proliferation of innovation-driven startup activity is profound, unprecedented, and global in scope. Today, it is understood that communities of support and knowledge-sharing go along with other resources. The importance of collaboration and a long-term commitment has gained wider acceptance. These principles are adopted in many startup communities throughout the world. And yet, much more work is needed. Startup activity is highly concentrated in large cities. Governments and other actors such as large corporations and universities are not collaborating with each other nor with entrepreneurs as well as they could. Too often, these actors try to control activity or impose their view from the top-down, rather than supporting an environment that is led from the bottom-up. We continue to see a disconnect between an entrepreneurial mindset and that of many actors who wish to engage with and support entrepreneurship. There are structural reasons for this, but we can overcome many of these obstacles with appropriate focus and sustained practice. No one tells this story better than Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway. The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem explores what makes startup communities thrive and how to improve collaboration in these rapidly evolving, complex environments. The Startup Community Way is an explanatory guide for startup communities. Rooted in the theory of complex systems, this book establishes the systemic properties of entrepreneurial ecosystems and explains why their complex nature leads people to make predictable mistakes. As complex systems, value creation occurs in startup communities primarily through the interaction of the "parts" - the people, organizations, resources, and conditions involved - not the parts themselves. This continual process of bottom-up interactions unfolds naturally, producing value in novel and unexpected ways. Through these complex, emergent processes, the whole becomes greater and substantially different than what the parts alone could produce. Because of this, participants must take a fundamentally different approach than is common in much of our civic and professional lives. Participants must take a whole-system view, rather than simply trying to optimize their individual part. They must prioritize experimentation and learning over planning and execution. Complex systems are uncertain and unpredictable. They cannot be controlled, only guided and influenced. Each startup community is unique. Replication is enticing but impossible. The race to become "The Next Silicon Valley" is futile - even Silicon Valley couldn't recreate itself. This book: Offers practical advice for entrepreneurs, community builders, government officials, and other stakeholders who want to harness the power of entrepreneurship in their city Describes the core components of startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems, as well as an explanation of the differences between these two related, but distinct concepts Advances a new framework for effective startup community building based on the theory of complex systems and insights from systems thinking Includes contributions from leading entrepreneurial voices Is a must-have resource for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, executives, business and community leaders, economic development authorities, policymakers, university officials, and anyone wishing to understand how startup communities work anywhere in the world

Book Imagined Communities

Download or read book Imagined Communities written by Benedict Anderson and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2006-11-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these debates on the nature of the nation state are even more urgent. As new nations rise, vying for influence, and old empires decline, we must understand who we are as a community in the face of history, and change.

Book Mastering Community

Download or read book Mastering Community written by Christine Porath and published by Balance. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Mastering Civility, a thoroughly researched exploration of the impact and importance of building thriving communities, with actionable steps on how to create them in your work and broader life. In her powerful new book, Christine Porath explores how the rise of technology and modern workplace practices have fractured our communications yet left us always “on” digitally. Through now common practices like hot-desking and remote work (even without the added isolation of social distancing we experienced during the pandemic), our human interactions have decreased, and so too have our happiness levels. This lack of a “human factor” is sparking a crisis in mental health that will have repercussions for years to come, leaving people lonelier and making the bottom line suffer, too. What Christine has discovered in her research is that leaders, organizations, and managers of all stripes may recognize there is a cost, but have no idea as to implement the cure: Community. With her signature depth and grasp of research across myriad industries including business, healthcare, hospitality, and sports, Christine extrapolates from the statistics on the experiences of hundreds of thousands of people across six continents to show us the potential for change. Through sharing information about the community, empowering decision-making discretion and autonomy, creating a respectful environment, offering feedback, providing a sense of meaning, and boosting member well-being, anyone can help a community truly flourish. The applications are endless, the stories are positive and uplifting, and will inspire the reader to establish and grow their community—be it in the workplace or the PTA—and make it thrive.

Book Cultivating Communities of Practice

Download or read book Cultivating Communities of Practice written by Etienne Wenger and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's marketplace is fueled by knowledge. Yet organizing systematically to leverage knowledge remains a challenge. Leading companies have discovered that technology is not enough, and that cultivating communities of practice is the keystone of an effective knowledge strategy. Communities of practice come together around common interests and expertise- whether they consist of first-line managers or customer service representatives, neurosurgeons or software programmers, city managers or home-improvement amateurs. They create, share, and apply knowledge within and across the boundaries of teams, business units, and even entire companies-providing a concrete path toward creating a true knowledge organization. In Cultivating Communities of Practice, Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder argue that while communities form naturally, organizations need to become more proactive and systematic about developing and integrating them into their strategy. This book provides practical models and methods for stewarding these communities to reach their full potential-without squelching the inner drive that makes them so valuable. Through in-depth cases from firms such as DaimlerChrysler, McKinsey & Company, Shell, and the World Bank, the authors demonstrate how communities of practice can be leveraged to drive overall company strategy, generate new business opportunities, tie personal development to corporate goals, transfer best practices, and recruit and retain top talent. They define the unique features of these communities and outline principles for nurturing their essential elements. They provide guidelines to support communities of practice through their major stages of development, address the potential downsides of communities, and discuss the specific challenges of distributed communities. And they show how to recognize the value created by communities of practice and how to build a corporate knowledge strategy around them. Essential reading for any leader in today's knowledge economy, this is the definitive guide to developing communities of practice for the benefit-and long-term success-of organizations and the individuals who work in them. Etienne Wenger is a renowned expert and consultant on knowledge management and communities of practice in San Juan, California. Richard McDermott is a leading expert of organization and community development in Boulder, Colorado. William M. Snyder is a founding partner of Social Capital Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Book City Reaching

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jack Dennison
  • Publisher : William Carey Library
  • Release : 1999
  • ISBN : 9780878087778
  • Pages : 300 pages

Download or read book City Reaching written by Jack Dennison and published by William Carey Library. This book was released on 1999 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book assists Christians in fulfilling the Great Commission by presenting a plan that will enable them to share the gospel in the cities of America and the world. Dennison's strategy for city reaching is both spiritual and practical in leading the Church to a higher level of missionary service.