Public Communities With Privacy

Posted by Phil Kessler on June 19, 2009, 9:45 AM EDT

A community by definition is a "unified body of individuals".  When it comes to building communities of people on the Internet, the more tools that a person has to display the public side of themselves or their company, the better.  Blogs, wikis, forums, and review tools for the members of a community to use to promote themselves are as important as they are for the businesses and organizations in the community.

But companies may want their employees to work togehter in groups or projects that they don't want the public to view.  This would be the private side of a public community.  A user starts a project, invites others to join it and they collaborate to resolve an issue or complete a customer requirement.  Only those users that have been invited can see the project and participate.  To everyone else, it doesn't exist.

Concurse Connect has a robust project management capabitlity that allows a team to work together privately in an otherwise public directory.  Users and businesses have their individual 2.0 tools to educate others about themselves and the community owner uses the power of emplyee collaboration to advance the interests of the business.