Self organizing virtual communities
Stumble It!Major Oil Company, Schlumberger, exploits self-organizing virtual communities.
David Wessel reports in an article in the Wall Street Journal by David Wessel entitled Motivating Workers By Giving Them a Vote how in multinational organisations with thousands of employees spread all over the globe effectively sharing knowledge, expertise and experience can be a real headache.
The article describes the success Schlumberger have had in using online communities of practice with some 23 communities ranging from chemistry to well-engineering supporting 140 special-interest subgroups, and involving more than 11,750 employees as members.
Schlumberger attribute much of their success in this area to the decision they made to make the communities self-governing and even allowing each community to elect its own leaders.
Self-organisation is a critical success factor in sustainable biological communities.
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Team member responsibility problems
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