There are 444 municipalities in Ontario all ranging from various sizes and tiers (Ontario.ca, 2020). As communities continue to grow and develop, there are greater demands for increased services and to build better infrastructure. Municipalities are required to become increasingly more strategic, innovative, and forward thinking in order to create a sustainable future. Depending on its population size and geography, municipalities will have varying priorities and needs. With such a massive and diverse umbrella of work, professional organizations such as the Municipal Finance Officers’ Association of Ontario (MFOA) strive to provide timely and relevant training and policy work to support municipal finance staff in their roles.
With the change over in governments and recent pandemic effects of COVID-19, municipalities have been racing against the clock to adapt at a quicker pace to meet the demands and needs of the changing landscape. MFOA saw a need to provide a virtual space where its members, stakeholders, and provincial partners could easily communicate, share resources and ideas at minimal costs. I saw a need to understand and examine the virtualization of traditional environments, and its impact on the individuals’ experience. What kind of conditions are required to create such a space? Can the experience be truly replicated?
With social distancing measures in place, MFOA is unable to host workshops or their annual conference. The uncertainty of travel and potential budget cuts has propelled the idea of moving the remainder of our training events virtually. Going virtual could mean potentially lower costs and time savings for members, which are very attractive to municipalities at the moment (Klement, 2017). However, what will be cost upfront? What kind of infrastructure will be required?
Another traditional space that comes to mind is face to face networking. People leveraged the social aspect of networking to foster learning, develop relationships, brainstorm, and to share information (Haas, Abonneau, Borzillo, and Guillaume, 2020). Time and budgetary constraints are often some of the barriers that prevent people from attending these days, as a response to that, the concept of virtual communities of practice (VCoP) can support MFOA members in making those experiences more accessible. However, the success of growing a VCoP within a group of municipal finance staff will be dependent on them to find value in participating and contributing to the community (Wenger, 1998 as cited in Haas, et al., 2020). What will motivate and encourage people to participate? What can MFOA staff do to facilitate learning and information sharing?
The virtualization of traditional environments has created new alternatives when traditional spaces may not be a viable option. What can be done to ensure that the experience is still valuable and enriching?
References
Haas, A., Abonneau, D., Borzillo, S., & Guillaume, L.-P. (2020). Afraid of engagement? Towards an understanding of engagement in virtual communities of practice. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 0(0), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2020.1745704
Klement, M. (2017). Models of integration of virtualization in education: Virtualization technology and possibilities of its use in education. Computers & Education, 105, 31–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.11.006
List of Ontario municipalities | Ontario.ca. (2020). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.ontario.ca/page/list-ontario-municipalities
[Image of virtual web]. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://medium.com/@devanshagarwal121/virtualization-and-hypervisors-9c4c8f4ab27d
April 26, 2020 at 9:03 pm
Eunice there is a lot of good literature on different types of virtual environments for distributed networks, as well as research focused on how they work in professional work environments (i.e. corporate or professional settings). While a lot of discussions and rsearch focus on the technologies and tools that can be used, and those are of course important, in addition you’ve homed in on the key questions: those of motivation to participate and how to facilitate a networked community of practice.
April 27, 2020 at 5:37 pm
Hi Irwin, thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated!
April 28, 2020 at 5:57 pm
Hi Eunice,
I am really intrigued by your critical inquiry topic! I think it is very timely and extremely relevant as many organizations and learning communities cancel their in-person conference, but only very few offer virtual ones in their place. I have recently participated in one of the virtual conferences (on e-learning and technologies) and I was surprised about how little virtual interaction was there. It made me think about how virtual experiences cannot fully replicate in-person meetings, but also what virtual meetings could contribute to the community (such as wider access). I am looking forward to seeing how your project is developing and what conclusions you draw from it!
Marta
May 3, 2020 at 3:50 pm
Thanks for reading my blog and commenting! Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize that there are so many variables at play when it comes to conducting virtual sessions, so much so that one can argue you can’t fully replicate in-person interactions. At my organization, we’ve been hosting virtual town halls for our members to give them a place to share insights, information and resources. We’ve set up three different types of these sessions based on population sizes. The dynamic of each one has been vastly different. For some sessions, very few want to speak or share, while other sessions people carry on great conversations and are very open to sharing resources. It will be interesting to see what I can draw upon from my research to better support the initiatives at work.
May 11, 2020 at 5:12 pm
Eunice,
It’s fascinating reading about the potential social opportunities offered by virtual communities of practice. It’s worth considering who was excluded from the traditional in-person social meetings (meet and greets, gatherings, conventions, etc.). Not only is there a financial barrier to travel, but there’s also a time commitment needed. Those with families or other care-giving responsibilities might have been prevented from attending the traditional social meetings of the Municipalities. In addition, those with mobility issues also face challenges in attending off-site social events. Virtual communities of practice offer the opportunity for participation by these marginalized groups. Perhaps they may be the most motivated to participate in virtual gatherings.