Giving your employees the power of *secure* blogging

One of the most frequent concerns that comes up when you talk about employees blogging within an organization is privacy. Probably the first reaction you get is ‘No way, everyone will be able to read it’.

However, that’s doesn’t have to be the case and there are a range of options you can use which might even stop your latest disgruntled individual from going and getting that blogspot blog and calling the CEO something unpleasant…. and you don’t have to just run it from behind the firewall.

First up there are a number of tools which will allow you to give all your employees blogs within an authenticated environment. For example, the open source ePortfolio system Elgg not only includes a powerful blogging tool but also allows for the development of social networks, Friend Of A Friend (FOAF) models and more. Simply customize for your organization and you’re away!

Alternatively you can run a similar system using the open source content management system Drupal which will also allow for LDAP integration, extensive collaboration, polls and the many different modules that the community has developed.

But that’s not to exclude the wonderful WordPress for which you can simply install the registered only plugin which will allow only registered users to collaborate in a blogging space.

So don’t despair if you don’t want to play with the firewall.