"Communities of practice aren’t just valuable for military personnel. They are becoming vital corporate tools that allow employees with similar jobs or interests to get advice and share best practices." Sound familiar? This post at workforce.com discusses recent successes of COPs at Subaru and the US Army. The author reminds us that it's not as simple as throwing a discussion forum out there and assuming people will take advantage of it.

A recent post by Dave Pollard suggests the problem with KM is that traditionally the people charged with introducing it were front-line back-office people (middle managers with a background in library management, IT or training). Few of them understood how decisions were really made and each group thought about KM from a different perspective.

Great ideas can get trapped in bureaucracies, but some government agencies are utilizing Web technology to unlock the power of information sharing. This article uses the Transportation Security Administration's Idea Factory, an online suggestion forum for airport security officers and headquarters staff, as an example of a system that's finding the right balance.