THE CUSTOMER

BoardSeat is a subscription based, private social networking and collaboration platform for senior executives. It’s the world’s first platform that provides business leaders with a secure forum for face to face and online collaboration and networking.

THE PROBLEM AND THE FOLIO3 SOLUTION

BoardSeat was born out of the need for an exclusive and private social networking and online collaboration platform for executives at the Vice President level and higher. Since no forum existed that focused exclusively on executives, despite the proliferation of social networking platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, BoardSeat’s founders saw immense potential in a product that would cater exclusively to this niche and underserved market.

BoardSeat’s management had been working with another development company for over a year to bring its idea to fruition. However, despite months of effort, the resulting application was not up to the standard that they had envisioned. The company was therefore looking for another enterprise social network development partner who could help them redesign and rebuild the BoardSeat platform from scratch.

Having heard good things about Folio3 and impressed by Folio3’s expertise in workflow automation and web-based application development, the company chose to partner with Folio3 for rebuilding the BoardSeat platform.

After assessing BoardSeat’s requirements and the requirement-functionality gaps in the existing BoardSeat application, the Folio3 team decided to rebuild the platform from the ground up, on the Drupal 7 Content Management System (CMS). Before commencing development, Folio3’s graphic design team first revamped the platform’s entire UI and UX, in line with the vision that the BoadSeat team had in mind. Folio3’s developers then started on the actual development and after intensive efforts over a period of 18 months, the BoardSeat platform was made live in January 2014.

The revamped BoardSeat platform provides users with the ability to send messages and meeting requests to other users, as well as post news and comments to other users in their circles. Additionally, it also offers users with the following features:

• Member groups called ‘Societies’ – Small and focused member groups of up to 25 members who share similar interests
• Analytics – A points based gamification system that measures member contribution and drives member engagement through reward and recognition
• Face2Face – A meeting management system that facilitates in person and high definition video meetings for groups of members, via secure, online video conferencing
• Knowledge Centre – A central repository of meeting best practices and short leadership videos that are meant to inform and inspire the platform’s members
• Marketplace – An integrated marketplace that offers tailored products and services designed to help enhance members’ productivity and efficiency
• Personal Aide – A dedicated support person for every member

Thanks to Folio3’s efforts, BoardSeat was able to launch a custom social network and collaboration platform for senior executives, before any other competitor, giving it the distinction of being unique in the industry. There is no currently other platform available in the market that provides the same value for the niche user base that BoardSeat caters to.

Due to its distinctiveness and its cutting edge feature set, the BoardSeat platform was received with wide acclaim by its intended audience (C-suite and other business executives). Subsequently, BoardSeat’s management has engaged Folio3 as their on-going development partner for the platform. The relationship is now in its second successful year with the Folio3 team constantly adding new features to the platform and providing support as needed.

ENTERPRISE SOCIAL NETWORK DEVELOPMENT – TECHNOLOGIES USED

The BoardSeat platform was developed using Drupal 7.

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY USED

Folio3 used Agile development on the BoardSeat enterprise social network development project, with Redmine as the project management tool.