Local chapter

Another thing I forgot to mention in my earlier posting and actually its a completely separate thought so I started a new post. This has to do with trying to gently nudge the community ahead and see if the dynamics of the group change. Right now my community is happy. I do all the work, they attend the call. Bada bing Bada boom. They provide feedback and respond to me when I prod them.
Now I am contemplating the idea of local groups or future chapters. Here is the process. I am going to send out a message to all my Houston KM Community members and say hey, I am organizing an informal dutch dinner for the KM community, this say, this time, please RSVP if you can make it and I will make reservations. I want this to be low cost since I do not have a budget for my community so all I can afford at this time is to pay for my own dinner. At the first dinner I will have something in hand to talk about. I might even get feedback from those who respond with a yea to see what they want to talk about or maybe we all just want time to chill and get to know one another. If my Houston dinner is successful and they want to do it again, I will try say DC where I have another concentration of members. Again same process but this time I will get help from one of my KM buddies in DC to pick the location and make reservations.
The intent is of course to have these informal dinners develop into tiny local KM chapters for APQC maybe introducing new members to the fold, helping out on projects and at conferences, etc. The possibilities are endless. If any of you reading has done this before please share your lessons learned with me. I could use them.

Call for participation - Sustaining Communities of Practice

Hello all, I thought of doing something different with my KM community call next month so I thought I would share it with you and see if I get any feedback. This time instead of having a single presenter I plan on having two or three people talk. Guess what the topic is? OK silly question. The topic is sustaining communities of practice and identifying what high performing communities means. Any of you reading this blog are welcome to send me a note if you would like to present on the call. The criteria is that you must know of a high performing community and be able to come with some characteristics of one.
Its looking like the call will be on October 14 at 10:30 pm central time but all speakers have not confirmed yet.
What I am trying to do is to get someone to speak to Social Networks and if they play a role in sustaining a community or not. Apparently there are several people who believe that social networks are the lifeblood of a community and therefore all organizations should indulge in social network analysis if their communities are to sustain themselves. I look forward to this call because I know I am going to learn a lot.