A model of a platform for the organizational virtual community of practice

My research is focused on creating a model of a platform for knowledge management and learning in organizations. Based on my experience I am convinced that this platform should be a community platform that integrates social commutation and community-oriented technologies. Why do I want to create a model when there are commercial social media platforms that are used by millions of people already? We have class or learning management systems, we have open social networking sites (Facebook or Google+, “closed” social intranet platforms that have been developed in-house, by open source software developers or by companies such as CISCO, Microsoft, Google, Jive, ThoughtFarmer and others  that have been used by organizations as a part of a social intranet. I feel there is a need for the model because, as a social scientist, I know that a lot of these platforms are not based on holistic or a systematic approach to creating effective and sustainable learning and workplace for organizations. During my extensive literature review, I also found that not a lot of qualitative or quantitative studies have been done on the phenomenon of virtual communities of practice inside organizations, so software developers have to rely on fragmented and incomplete research data.

 Many businesses, which invest in social communication technology for their employees, buy or design an in-house software or a platform for the formal structures and offer their informal structures to utilize the same platform. As a starting point, it is useful to understand the difference between informal organizations (parallel structures, communities of practice, distributed networks) and formal organizational structures. Do we have the same processes there? Are their organizational needs the same? My next post will be about the differences between a specific type of informal organization, a community of practice and a formal organization.