Management consultants just wanna have fun

May 19, 2008 4:48 PM

Can anyone recommend software for a community forum / photo gallery / blog suitable for a corporate organisation?

Mr HSG is looking for ways to add social interactivity to his employer's corporate website. The company is a small management consultancy, and they would like to create a password protected message board to aid social networking among employees.

* The general aims are to encourage networking, arrange social outings, and foster general chit-chat;
* They do not expect more that 100 users;
* They are considering a combination of message board, blog, and gallery - perhaps something along the lines of this package - but are open to other (more 2.0?) suggestions;
* It's uncertain how necessary is it to have these hosted on the corporate server - they will happily consider web-based social networking applications, so long as they can be password protected and accessed only by the company's employees.

(Mr HSG is not a boffin, and will not be implementing this himself.)

What is the best way to do this? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!

posted by hot soup girl to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Mr HSG's company could create their own social network on Ning and get those features.
posted by PueExMachina at 5:26 PM on May 19

Windows SharePoint Services will do everything they want and more. Various Open Source products have much more functionality, look better and are MUCH more scalable, but SharePoint makes it really, really easy for non-technical people to add and edit content.
posted by cnc at 8:00 PM on May 19

WARNING: total plug ahead--I work on Lefora. We're similar to Ning except we concentrate primarily on making the forum experience the best part of the community. You'll notice there are also social networking/blogging features. Everything's hosted, management's a cinch, and you can mark the forum as private/approved memberships only.

The best thing you could do is to visit our site and give it a whirl on a test forum to see if it suits you. It will take you under a minute to get the thing going.
posted by kurtiss at 12:01 AM on May 20

Backpack looks like a good fit, although their other products might be good too. I've used backpack somewhat and was very impressed by the user interface. It's more intuitive than breathing.
posted by kpmcguire at 1:24 PM on May 20

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone - they've been very helpful!
posted by hot soup girl at 11:53 AM on May 22