Communities of practice are the shop floor of human capital, the place where the stuff gets made. Perhaps most intriguing, communities of practice are responsible only to themselves. No one owns them. There's no boss. They're like professional societies.
People join and stay because they have something to learn and to contribute.
These traits give communities of practice a distinct place in the taxonomy of the informal organization. Grapevines and other networks may support your work but are not central to it. Like Poe's purloined letter, communities of practice are so obvious that we don't usually notice them. When we do, however, the implications are anything but obvious. James Euchner, a vice president in Nynex's research and development department, began thinking about them when he was puzzling over why some groups at Nynex were quick to adopt new technologies, others not.