When The New Car Smell is Gone, Who Will Change the Oil?

When Communities of Practice (CoPs) are newly formed there is a level of excitement that drives the team through all the hard work of planning, learning to function as a virtual team and launching on the public site. Strong leaders step up to steer, direct, and nurture individual and team development, collaboration and interaction. Maintenance and upkeep are key aspects during the “Middle Age” of CoPs, when much of the work consists of sustaining, updating, and marketing existing content material, while still trying to plan for new and innovative additions. During this time, CoPs often face the inevitable turnover of leaders, while shifting gears to focus on generating funds to keep financially hitting on all cylinders. Advanced diagnostics and content overhaul become the focal points while evaluation, revamping, refining, repackaging, and removal of content become the norm. eXtension CoPs have yet to arrive at the “Twilight Years”, but any effort to achieve immortality is a worthy topic of discussion. This session will be a facilitated discussion of tips, strategies and lessons’ learned for maintenance, upkeep, and polishing the CoP beyond the early years.