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Knowledge Communities is dedicated to
promoting knowledge sharing and innovation in organizations
by helping them to build their capacity to launch
and support the growth of learning communities.
Underlying our practice is the idea
that knowledge and insight are created and acquired
when humans interact with each other and their environment.
Members of learning communities learn through a diverse
range of social interactions, such as one-on-one conversations,
storytelling and group discussion, as well as research
projects and presentations.
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"Insight...refers
to that depth of understanding that comes
by setting experiences, yours and mine,
familiar and exotic, new and old, side
by side, learning by letting them speak
to one another."
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Much of our work is dedicated to the
development and implementation of communities of practice
(CoP). CoP are a way that people who have a shared
practice can work together on improving that practice.
Communities of practice are not new;
they often exist naturally within or across organizations
and have showed their face throughout history (in
the form of guilds, for example). Relatively new,
is the growing knowledge base of ways that we can
create and develop learning communities if they do
not exist, or build upon and make purposeful those
that do.
Private companies and corporations have
utilized CoPs with documented positive results. Knowledge
Communities would like to help non profit organizations
and foundations benefit from CoP methodology and from
other knowledge sharing strategies.
 Naava
L. Frank, Ed.D. established Knowledge Communities,
a consulting firm, to help foundations and non-profits
build their capacity to launch and support the growth
of communities of practice (CoP). CoPs use systematic
knowledge sharing to focus on improving professional
practice. Naava has given numerous presentations about
CoPs including a plenary
for Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)
Conference.
Naava has a unique combination of expertise
in Education, communities of practice (CoP), organizational
consulting and start-up of non-profit organizations.
She works with her clients to educate sponsors and
members, design learning activities and coordinate
or mentor ongoing community development. She has used
her expert facilitation skills to design numerous
conference sessions on knowledge sharing for a wide
variety of non-profit organizations.
Immediately prior to founding Knowledge
Communities, Naava was Senior Project Director and
a founding staff member at the Partnership for Excellence
in Jewish Education (PEJE),
a philanthropic partnership, where she played a major
role in the organization’s start-up and in development
of its school consultant program. Her portfolio at
PEJE included launching and managing communities of
practice with a high level of success. William M.
Snyder, a leading thinker in communities of practice,
recognized Naava for her excellence in this work.
Naava has a track record of entrepreneurship,
starting and then selling a computer training company
servicing the greater Boston area. She wrote curriculum
and training manuals for ten PC based software packages
that were sold under license.
In all of her work she is passionate
about fostering collegial sharing for professional
growth. She is inspired by learning from and working
with Etienne Wenger and William Snyder, leading thinkers
and researchers in communities of practice and social
learning systems; John Smith, a developer and coach
for communities of practice with expertise in technology;
and Michael Miloff, a consultant with whom she works
on many projects.
Naava holds an Ed.D. from Harvard
Graduate School of Education and a B.A. from Barnard
College/Columbia University. She lives in Cambridge,
MA with her husband and two children
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