LAS VEGAS, The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has selected Xerox Corporation's (NYSE: XRX) Corporate Engineering Center as one of five benchmark organizations for "Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice." The selection marks the second time this year that the APQC has recognized Xerox's expertise in knowledge sharing. Meeting here for its fifth Knowledge Management Conference, the APQC meeting included a focus on communities of practice, which are the places where knowledge is owned and used. Xerox and other companies detailed their best practices for enabling employees to share knowledge across time zones, continents and cultures. "Communities of practice are fast becoming the most effective way to connect people who need knowledge with those who have it. They cultivate new and innovative ideas to guide important business decisions," said Carla O'Dell, APQC president. The Xerox Corporate Engineering Center (CEC), located in Webster, N.Y., sponsors more than a dozen communities of practice, such as hardware systems design, globalization, and software process improvement. "People participate naturally in their community of practice as a way to grow professionally and to amplify their contribution to the success of Xerox," said Janice L. Malaszenko, CEC vice president and chief software engineer.