Musings on the readings:  First, the concept of a network vs. a community.  At first, I initially thought they were largely interchangeable, but some key distinctions can be made after doing some basic research on this.  Communities are often more about caring and providing support.  They also likely involve more time to create and care for the connection within the community.  Often they are smaller.  Communities can link to networks, and people within a community can provide those connections.  Networks are more transactional in nature, and as a result, people can come and go, get what they need, make a contribution, and then disconnect.  A community suggests a longer-term presence.  Professionally, networks sound more appealing to me.  I'm happy to make contributions and gain knowledge from a network within my professional setting, but I'm less likely to want to join a "work community".  I'm involved in several communities personally, and while I might be more of an outlier sort of person within that community, I value those connections and offer what value I can.  Over the years, having worked from home for such a long time, I tend to make some clear distinctions between work and life--out of necessity and to keep some balance.  I would not much like to smoosh those personas together in one, overlapping digital footprint, even if there was some benefit to greater connection and time savings.  I value both, but am happy to keep them separate.    

On the C4C part of our readings, I do think these skills are VERY important, likely in slightly different ways than initially discussed.  And I'm not sure we are actually better at these things.  Copying those skills here for reference from the article:

"This requires a focus on what can be described as the C4C [21]: the capacities of graduates to be • creative – gaining the ability to act as collaborative cocreators in flexible roles, participating as one amongst a number of creative produsers rather than as a selfsufficient creative producer; • collaborative – being able to collaborate effectively and understand the implications and consequences of collaboration; • critical – maintaining a critical stance both towards potential collaborators and their work as well as towards one’s own creative and collaborative abilities and existing work portfolio;  • communicative – engaging in effective and successful communication between produsage participants, and of ideas generated in the exercise of one’s capacities as a produser."

My experience in HE publishing has seen massive shifts from the "editor" being the team lead to that role being subsumed into a group orientation, with that specific expertise becoming more of an instrument in the orchestra vs. the conductor--and C4C skills are expected and anticipated.  Some of that is due to cost-cutting; some of it is due to the tactics used for cost-cutting, for instance, re-orgs to matrixed organizations is one such tactic.  I don't necessarily have an issue with that shift, except to say that the editor usually functioned in the role of project lead and "visionary", with deep market expertise and an understanding for what the key pain point a product was trying to address through its value proposition.  When you take that component away, there is often a vacuum of leadership.  After a while, it gets sorted out, but time is lost through that process, so it's inefficient.  And I'm not certain what is gained.  Upper management can step in to provide the leadership, but often doesn't.  The thinking is that with less of a hierarchy, people will step up and more voices in the group will contribute to and improve the project trajectory.  So, on to the C4C specifics:  with that experience, collaboration is placed as a higher priority vs. speed to market, let's say.  And in that collaboration, lots of creative ideas get discussed, and that's wonderful, except when budgets and infrastructure drive what is possible.  Someone on the team has to have the info to determine what is possible and what really isn't.  In team environments, that person often gets the reputation of the "naysayer", or someone who brings the focus back to what is possible.  Regardless of how that person is perceived, that person is necessary.  The idea of the team orientation in digital projects is that each member brings their own expertise and skills.  My sense, however, is that sometimes hierarchy is useful.  Sometimes a market reader must say these ideas are good and solve a problem, while others are cool and flashy, and likely expensive, but won't move the market.  That is boring and a bummer, but an important and necessary part of the process.  And there typically is one key market reader on the team.  I've seen that person be perceived as the defacto leader, and it sometimes leads to uncomfortable team dynamics.