This discussion of various Blogging Platforms looks interesting, and very timely for me. I am currently evaluating platforms to use (internally) for blogging within my company as a collaboration and idea exchange tool (external blogs may or may not come later). As a part of an overall innovation program, I think internal blogs will be very useful – even within a relatively small company it is really easy to be completely unaware of cool things others are working on.
I also love the Mind Map in that post – I use mind maps everywhere, and love to see others using them.
FredSpace 
Des,
Thanks. I agree that it should be helpful. We are a growing company which up until about 8 months ago was about 100 people all in one location. Midway through last year we acquired another company of comparable size, which is about 1000 miles away. We have made a conscious decision to maintain both sites, including R&D labs at both locations. This has led to some challenges in R&D and innovation. If we want to just let both labs run as they were, and get a simple 1+1=2 result, then it is not a big problem. However, if we want to truly leverage the combined brainpower, then we need to find a way to foster continuous cross-site information and idea flow. I see the introduction of blogs as a first step. I hope to build on that with other technologies, as things progress.
I also like your “intranet with soul” comment – that is an issue I see in many places where the intranet is set up (intentionally) to be a one way information channel – it just does not live up to all it could be in terms of idea exchange and innovation.
Fred
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Fred
It’s a great idea to start with an internal blog, so everyone can get used to the process, learn some dos and don’ts and develop a level of comfort with sharing ideas in this way. And it could be very good for a business owner or chief exec even in a small firm to have a blog and encourage others to have internal blogs to start – even small organizations suffer from the “nobody ever tells me anything around here”, “why am I always the last to know?”, “when did we agree on that” type of internal communication challenge. An internal blog – which I believe can be an “intranet with soul” – can help overcome that.
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