What to include in a newsletter for your community of practice
Communities of practice thrive on rhythm. I’m not talking about members taking up the tabla of course. Community rhythm is established by holding regular events such as meetings on the first Tuesday of the month, conference calls and distributing the humble newsletter. These events perform the vital function of reminding members that the community exists and interesting things are happening. Doubly important for distributed communities.
I was asked the other day what could be included in a newsletter. Here are some ideas drawn from my experience and what was done at Companycommand.com.
- have a member write a thought piece which challenges the orthodoxy of the group
- highlight new and interesting content that has been posted to the group’s online repository
- run a survey or quiz – you can use Survey Monkey for this (http://www.surveymonkey.com/)
- describe a scenario and then ask people to write in on how they would tackle it
- highlight new members or members who have done something interesting or useful for the group
- let the group know what the core team has been planning or working on
- include pictures
- announce events and remind members of the regular events
What other neat things have you included in a CoP newsletter?
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
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I’m a community co-ordinator to a 100 odd disparate knowledge managers within my organisation, I find newsletter a great way to create and maintain rhythm. I have used wedding and birth announcements to support the social element of the community to great effect and also featuring an individual using a rough framework of : Name, Location, Interestes, Heroes, what don’t we know about you? Favourite quote etc along with their fav piccie of themselves (I have members photos on motorbikes, diving, in the garden and with their grandchildren!)
Sounds great Kirsty. I like the social element you’ve weaved into the newsletter. How often do your members get together face to face? I’m wondering whether the style of a newsletter would change depending on the level of f2f interaction.
I belong to a community group in Bendigo called the Young Professionals Network. I’ve just forwarded this list to our newsletter coordinator. Thanks for sharing it.
Hi Shawn – Yes I think your right, my community is only able to get together every 18months which makes it difficult to keep trust build from those socialisations alive. Having social news in the newsletter along with more informative articles does help to keep the community identity alive in between those f2f workshops