Suggested platforms
It is necessary to consider some of the functional and non-functional pros and cons of any platform through the prism of their fit with knowledge transfer activities and existing communities. Some suggestions of platforms currently being used in Knowledge Transfer (KT) are given below.
Cheap and cheerful
Ning
Ning is a widely used platform available on a Cloud/subscription model, Software as a Service (SaaS), basis. It used to provide free social platform services but now charges on a monthly basis with different price plans for a fairly functionally rich social platform. Ning is easy to use and is hosted, but there is an additional monthly subscription cost to remove all the Ning branding. In addition there are bandwidth/storage limits. So this might be suitable for very early or small developments, but less so for a university-wide initiative.
Customisation
Ning is customisable but you will sign over your rights to have your source code updated by Ning. You can create CSS templates for it, but that is just changing the look. It's not possible to customise additional functionality, although there are plug-ins that might meet certain 'pre-defined' custom requirements.
Pros and cons
The platform is not specifically designed or focused on the KT or Innovation community and that would make it hard to speedily recruit membership to your Community of Practice or piggyback on related KT networks but if you already have an existing community, it's a functionally rich platform.
LinkedIn groups are in the KT space and again this is a cheap and easy way to get a community off the ground.
Customisation
Whilst benefiting from the easiness of establishing groups, it is not possible to control the look and feel of the site, nor any customisation. This lack of customisation is really a problem given that it does not have the functionality that an innovation community might need, such as the ability to load video and to link into existing KT communities.
Pros and cons
It has the clear benefit of critical mass and the counter-posed downside of an army of traders in sales, even spam mode. It also tends toward existing social connections rather than stimulating new links. Finally its size tends to encourage spamming and selling.
Mid-range bespoke innovation platforms
MillionBrains
MillionBrains is a portal designed specifically for stimulating internal corporate innovation and collaboration. In this sense it shares many of the objectives of the Ubridge platform in that it seeks primarily to stimulate and set challenges and instigate joint working. MillionBrains is designed with innovation in mind and so has bespoke functionality of ideation and assessment.
Pros and cons
It's highly configurable and designed for internal innovation coordination, but again a KTO new to this might need to find ways of populating a new innovation community, especially if many are external to the KTOs's host university. It is a proprietary platform paid for on a SaaS or a licence basis.
Cloud9
Cloud9 is a mid-market SaaS service that has focused specifically on the innovation, and more specifically the Knowledge Transfer niche. It is probably a cheaper starting package and has the benefit of being used by many of the universities referred to in this resource, and consequently has a good functional fit. The community of universities using it all benefits from any functional development and so it also allows for KT/innovation driven innovations to be accessed by all universities.
Pros and cons
The advantage of Cloud9 is its focus on knowledge transfer and its integration with many existing KT/innovation communities. It is also configurable to match university branding and has very relevant functionality to the method outlined herein. It is, however, SaaS rather than open source and does not have the same developer community behind it as many of the open source platforms.
Enterprise open source platforms
Liferay
Liferay is an open source enterprise-capable social platform; meaning that it is capable of hosting large and demanding communities (perhaps regionally or nationally based), and it has a body of open-source developers keeping its development fresh. This is related to the fact that it is open source and so, in a sense, this manages the cost of the software acquisition.
Pros and cons
The key advantage is that the Liferay platform provides the backbone of the Technology Strategy Board's _connect platform. Hence integration with the connect should be relatively straightforward. Nonetheless, this platform might be best reserved for use in large-scale national or regional initiatives where sufficient resource and expertise is available for deployment and development. Due to it not being provided as a Software as a Service, it requires hosting and all the attention that entails.
Elgg
Elgg is another open source customisable social networking package. It is released under the GNU licensing system. It is flexible with a variety of plug-ins and large community of developers behind it.
Pros and cons
Elgg has an education orientation and is used in a range of campus-wide social networks, based in universities, schools and colleges. It's also used as an internal collaborative platform for companies. However, unlike Liferay it has no major (UK at least) innovation community use, but it is used in a range of universities. It has Open ID login. As with Liferay this requires self-deployment, hosting and support, and it doesn't have the association with connect that Liferay has.
Other communities
Facebook. It's difficult not to mention this platform given its size and ubiquity but it is not recommended as a Community of Practice platform due to its informal and friendship focus and advertisement revenue model. It is probably unsuitable given the inability to provide a corporate skin, remove advertising, inability to customise, and moreover the reluctance of many people to mix their social and business communities.
It may be that Google + might be more suitable, but for many of the same reasons as Facebook, it is suggested you look to a dedicated platform.
In passing it is worth a reminder to check out existing innovation services such as InnoCentive, NineSigma, Yet2.com, Spigit and HYPE Innovation as they have begun building social elements into their offerings.
