If we build it, they will come

The UK's internal communications organisation - CiB - has opened its Forum to all contributors at http://forum.cib.uk.com but it's still a pretty dead area. That's a shame since there's a membership of about 1,000 communicators who could, and possibly should, be meeting, networking and bouncing ideas around through this site. Hopefully with more people able to access the site there'll me more dialogue. But, like so many message boards, the 'if we build it, they will come' mantra doesn't hold true. It's not clear where the message board fits into CiB's own comms strategy (if there is one...) or what purpose it fulfils.

That's in contrast to a much slicker e-mail based CiB freelance forum which has built an active community of interest. Acting as a virtual water cooler for a disparate (and occasionally desperate) groups of largely UK-based freelancers and two-person agencies the forum brings a real sense of belonging to participants.

It'll be interesting to see what effect opening up the clunkier message board has. But so far, the fish just aren't biting.