Building a community - what technology platform should you choose?

Although you need to have a strategy that dictates the need for you to build a community, assuming you do, what about the technology?  You can use Ning which is great and starts off as a free platform or you can get Jive which is the market leader with a Gucci price tag to match.

A good start point is the Gartner, Inc.'s 2009 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace which you can get from Jive if you register here.

There is also the Enterprise Social Media event on 15/16 March at Olympia in London where you'll be able to check out various vendors that offer community software.

The number one consideration for me is data security.  Not how secure is it, but how open is it.  If for example you want to run an internal workplace community a platform such as Ning is not ideal whereas Jive will be too expensive for a lot of companies.  Whilst a lot of companies are taking a strategic view of such ideas they are not necessarily expecting to invest £250k to achieve this with a yet unproven outcome.  We are very much in the "land grab" scenario at the moment with very few UK providers but there are some.  As I'll be at the event in Olympia I will be looking out for some alternatives as community building, internal and external, is key to any talent management strategy.

If any one is also going or wants to meet up post TRULondon I'll be around on 15/16 March.