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Jane Hart clearly makes the distinction between social learning and Social Training. Her work and the work of her colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance are informing me about social artistry in the workplace. I discover better strategies to work with organizations as I learn from Jane and those at the ITA. Anyway, this type of informal learning happens individually - as people go about their daily tasks - as well as socially - when we are with others. Social learning is therefore not a new term or training trend, it is something that has been happening since time immemorial - both inside and outside organisations - as we learn with and from others. So we might learn from others (intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously) by asking questions of our colleagues,  through discussions in meetings , or even in casual conversations by the proverbial watercooler.  And, it is also in social learning that powerful insights to problems often arise that have been generated by the collective wisdom of employees

Panarchy shows how changes flow through a system over time. In http://gavinkeech.com/mememachine/ an interactive model is shown. Other interesting articles on Panarchy here and here

In the referred blog, Esko writes: "...communities seldom grow beyond the group that initiated the conversation, because they fail to attract enough participants. Many business communities also fall apart soon after their launch because they don't have energy to sustain themselves...". Are there any known mechanisms or techniques that help in sustaining community energy?

Lately, I have spent much of my time studying places of service: schools, community organizations, advocacy groups, healthcare facilities. Those that are most alive and vibrant have in common a kind of blessed confusion about who is giving to whom. People, no matter their role, seem infused with a gentle and expectant gratitude as they interact with each other. A doctor enters an examining room, preparing to be cared for. A professor wonders how her students will teach her to understand the world in new ways. A soup kitchen volunteer is ready to find her spirit nourished by the person she is serving. In each encounter of service there comes a choice. We can continue to awkwardly push our skills and expertise at someone or we can remember to take a step back, breathe and say, "Here I am. Meet me, and we will both receive something we could never find on our own." This perspective is simple, but its implications for the various personal and institutional calls to service we participate in - healing, nurturing, instructing, speaking for - are drastic and disarmingly hopeful. In my own work as a teacher, writer, and community practitioner, I find that I am most helpful to others when I am most reverent toward what they are offering me. I think this is true because what we are called to give is also what we most fiercely need. A gift is a perfect conspiracy, meant to open us up to the possibility of becoming something new. What is asked of us, then, is simply that we pay attention.