Wenger started the thnking on communities of practice in later 1990s. He is now hosting some CoPs and our community based research colleagues at U Brighton are attending and blogging about it. You can follow them at:
http://cuppcop.ning.com/profiles/blogs/communities-of-practice-cops?xgs=1
If this isn’t a public blog you can sign up for a profile on the Cupp ning and get access to the posts.