
Communities of practice are trusted spaces to learn and experiment.
In January 2018 I started the coffee club as a professional community of practice focused on work and learning. We have a private community space for the members. There are now [2019] over 60 members of the Perpetual Beta Coffee Club. As it grows — which is my hope — I will focus more of my energy there. So far we have a discussion forum and I host live web video chats monthly. These are recorded and available for 30 days. We try to ensure that what is discussed inside the coffee club stays there. It is intended to be a trusted space. If the club grows, I will offer more services to meet demand.
We are now one year in [updated January 2019] and there are members from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, & USA. It’s a pretty eclectic group and while the main focus is workplace learning, we talk about whatever interests our members. The surveillance economy, and how to deal with it, was a recent topic. We also talk about books and current events.

Coffee Club Topics
If you are looking for a trusted space to share ideas and learn from fellow professionals, please join us.
Here is what we talk about on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hjarche/lists/pbcc/
We have more in-depth conversations in the community
What do you get?
- Support my continued free public writing on this blog (since 2004).
- A private space for deeper discussions.
- A global community of practice.
- Monthly web video sessions to converse and discuss topics of professional interest.
Hi Harold
really enjoying your insights. i have just subscribed to the coffee club.
very much look forward to connecting.
best wishes
Grahame
Welcome, Grahame!
Hi Harold – I’m in Sydney, Australia in Eastern Standard Time. What time does the coffee club meet? I’d love to join but as we are about 16 hours ahead of Canada, the meeting may occur in the middle of our night.
We don’t meet, per se, Kathy. We have a shared space as a discussion forum which is available 24/7 and then we schedule monthly chats on Zoom. These are scheduled according to who is available. In many cases though, AUS times are not the preferred times. I would be very open to doing a few AUS preferred sessions though. All discussions are recorded and available for one month. There are three other members from your timezone in the community.