I've consulted with several coworkers and we all agree our multi-faceted job can be made more efficient if all tiers of the company were able to communicate more fluently through a forum of some sort.

Does anyone have any experience with this? How do the employees usually behave once they start opening up in front of employers but still have the power of anonymity? I'm also worried it might just turn into a workplace chit chat or venting resort, and wouldn't be productive.

The vet employees who know the most and who also work on our level probably won't care about going online to talk with us anyway, it might be difficult to involve them.

4/8/2009 5:08:49 PM

Quote :

"but still have the power of anonymity? I'm also worried it might just turn into a workplace chit chat or venting resort, and wouldn't be productive. "

first of all, it shouldnt be anonymous. We have some great knowledge resources online the form of forums across all of our offices worldwide, but we login via our company username and our real name is automatically used for forum posts. Doing this with the ability to be anonymous isnt very helpful and isnt something I would suggest.

4/8/2009 5:14:18 PM

anonymity? hahaha as if.

just set up a wiki and be done with it. also, no one will use it.

4/8/2009 5:14:25 PM

Quote :

"also, no one will use it."

Depending on the type of work I would have to disagree. We have a use "Knowledge Online" internal database of information that people upload to all the time as well as active forums that involve every office from US, China, Germany etc. And being an engineering company there is TONS of useful information that can be uploaded there. For some other work places, maybe not so much. /shrug

4/8/2009 5:16:35 PM

I actually set one up for my workplace about 1.5 years ago and it has worked amazingly well. Mine isn't the same type that you appear to be looking for though... I set mine up with a few fellow new-hires (I was extremely new at the time) as a means to meet other young employees and answer questions they might have about living in the town and how to do certain work related tasks, or even just setting up plans for meeting for lunch. My advice to you would be to start out with a free message board service from something like phpbbweb. Use that for a few weeks and if it works out, then upgrade (you can still save everything from the original message board) to something like Simple Machines Forums, or hell, even CrazyWeb. Let me know if you want more info or want me to elaborate on the one I use for work.

4/8/2009 5:16:41 PM

I wouldn't upgrade to crazyweb if you shoved a shotgun down my throat and told me I had to or die.

[Edited on April 8, 2009 at 5:21 PM. Reason : more like downgrade to crazyweb]

4/8/2009 5:20:50 PM

we have multiple collaborative workspaces where I work (shared drives, ftp, and a forum like you speak of). My experience has been that the shared drives and online workspace are very useful for sharing information with sites across seas, but the forum has yet to take off. Our new, young CEO is the person who implemented it, and is also pretty much the only person who posts to it.

4/8/2009 6:41:10 PM

My company got Microsoft Office SharePoint Server a couple years ago and went crazy creating SharePoint sites for just about anything you can think of in the company. The forum on our budget SharePoint and project SharePoint get used a lot so managers can stop sending out mass e-mails on the same subject. Meanwhile our new employee forum hardly ever gets looked at. So from my experience, participation will depend on how many questions come up around a subject and how they are answered now.

4/8/2009 8:10:04 PM

My organization has a message board that was built by one of the employees. It's "anonymous" but not really because we all know who is who. And all the higher ups can access the personal info behind the account.

Anyway, for the most part people are well behaved. Every once in awhile an employee will start treating it like tdub but they get reigned in quickly.

Why not just set something up on LinkedIn?

4/8/2009 8:19:57 PM

Quote :

"or hell, even CrazyWeb"

CrazyWeb shouldn't ever be used for anything that could be remotely useful. You could code something better from scratch while intoxicated.

4/9/2009 12:49:36 AM

Quote :

"My company got Microsoft Office SharePoint Server a couple years ago and went crazy creating SharePoint sites for just about anything you can think of in the company. The forum on our budget SharePoint and project SharePoint get used a lot so managers can stop sending out mass e-mails on the same subject. Meanwhile our new employee forum hardly ever gets looked at. So from my experience, participation will depend on how many questions come up around a subject and how they are answered now. "

thats a good point. sharepoint is free (most of it at least), it works beautifully, and it does way more than forums. that gets my vote, but youll need an IT person to set it up...preferably a developer of some sort.

Quote :

"I wouldn't upgrade to crazyweb if you shoved a shotgun down my throat and told me I had to or die."

whatever. code has to be maintained, and this code hasn't been maintained at all (except qntmfred putting out fires when needed). way to be a drama queen. i'm not saying it's the best forum software ever written, but it's not as bad so your trying-too-hard ass is making it out to be.

4/9/2009 12:57:53 AM

sharepoint is a horrible UI. we have a ton of unused sharepoint sites at work. Nobody gives a shit about all of sharepoints features because they are stuck in a horrible interface that only partially works on other platforms.

if crazyweb were actually functional and maintainable, it would make a great site for work. Simple, easy to use, don't have to learn a bunch of shit. It's easier to use than wiki. That's very important for convincing older people to use.

The best thing to do is just convince your smaller workgroup to start using a messageboard. It's use will grow organically. Over time, start sending other people you work with to the site. If it is actually useful, word will get around.

[Edited on April 9, 2009 at 2:42 AM. Reason : .]

4/9/2009 2:39:57 AM

yeah it took me two years to get my team on board with using a wiki, but now that it's there and populated with info, just about everyone uses and contributes to it regularly.

and now that it's become popular, fucking IT wants to run it and move from media wiki to something new...

in other words they're killing it.

4/9/2009 8:08:41 AM

Quote :

"sharepoint is a horrible UI. we have a ton of unused sharepoint sites at work. Nobody gives a shit about all of sharepoints features because they are stuck in a horrible interface that only partially works on other platforms."

agreed.


it's possible to re-write a lot of shit to improve compatibility (I have spent a good deal of time doing just that), but in the long run it's not really that cost effective. It'd be a huge time sink, because at best you're making it functional, and at worst you're re-writing everything from the master pages to the web parts.



but in the interest of not being too technical and keeping the topic on track, I'll point out that Sharepoint (Windows Sharepoint Services v3, not MOSS) is probably the easiest solution for cddweller if her organization has a Windows Server 2XXX infrastructure. It's literally a 10 minute max install.

[Edited on April 9, 2009 at 9:21 AM. Reason : .]

4/9/2009 9:20:11 AM

ibm has a pretty extensive set of internal forums for various things - some aren't used at all and some are used very frequently (not by tww chit chat standards but often enough) - the RFID one that I read/contribute to is pretty helpful

4/9/2009 9:27:25 AM

im just glad to see someone pwnt solinari

4/9/2009 9:57:59 AM