CoP Mentoring has been an integral process used worldwide but until this book has remained nameless. Mentoring occurs when people work and play together with a shared goal or interest in mind. In the past Mentoring was seen as something only two people could be involved with. A CoP is a group of individuals within a circle of shared commitment to knowledge. This circle is ever changing as individuals are freely encouraged to move both within and with out the circle as expertise evolves and changes.
Collaboration can happen directly or indirectly.
They use one another as sounding boards, teachers and learners. CoP's contain a diverse group of people that are engaged in a task over a period of time. Together the community builds things, solves problems, learns from each other,invents new things, and shares the groups expertise and knowledge. A commitment to knowledge, problem solving, learning, and building can take many forms depending on what those inside the circle are committed to at that time. Newbies come to the circle of old timers with their own ideas.