What to name an organisation-wide portal?

We are developing new IT systems which will be accessed by our users through an organisation-wide portal and contain smaller topic specific portals. We are looking at naming the organisation-wide portal and I would like to know if your organisation uses a portal, then what name have you given it?

A suggestion has been to call it the 'knowledge management portal' and I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to whether this may help or hinder advancing the field of knowledge management in the organisation. One positive could be that it keeps knowledge management at the forefront of people’s minds. A negative could be that knowledge management is always equated with only IT systems and misses out on the many other areas that knowledge management covers. Your thoughts?

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Comment by Allan Ogomo Amulabu on October 19, 2010 at 1:54pm: Your concerns are reasonable. But I would rather suggest you give a name a name that focuses on the bigger picture or a thematic focus, something like "Thematic Knowledge Portal" as this will address the fact that it is a knowledge portal for different themes, as opposed to it being equated to IT Systems.

Comment by Esther Wheeler on October 11, 2010 at 1:12pm: I agree with Tom. Giving a "technical" name to a portal that you are probably hoping will get considerable use might not catch on as quickly as something more general. Our portal is called mobi (after mobius which is our logo). Quick and easy to refer to and is in use all over the firm. Maybe something that refers to knowledge more subtly would work?

Comment by Md Santo on October 10, 2010 at 2:11am: WHAT’S IN A NAME DOES KM PORTAL DO?

Since May, 2010 we’ve been developing a Social Networking Site (SNS) “MOBEE KNOWLEDGE CoP” http://mobeeknowledge.ning.com intended first as a limited corporate Community of Practice (CoP) portal or “corporate intranet learning resources portal” but later extended also to be consumed by other people instead of our own corporate (PT Mobee Inc) people to become “corporate extranet learning resources portal”. The mission is “Toward Next Generation KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 2.0 through Contextual Learning on the issues of Technologies, Market, People and Innovation”. All the content material to be discussed in the forum generated mainly from inside the corporate stuff including all the aspects of their Technology, Market, Innovation and the People

It is presently becoming “organization-wide portal” with over 650 members in 38 countries wherein you could learn systematically from it as learning resources in corporate KM in practice. In brief people or the members could learn it as follow through the Folders at each page of http://mobeeknowledge.ning.com :
Folder “Past and Current KM” – should click the following sub- folders :
1. Corporate KM 2.0 in Practice - http://bit.ly/cs5V45
2. Learning Objects (LO) of Mobee KM 2.0 in practice - http://bit.ly/9Ci50Y
Folder “Emerging KM” – should click the following sub-folders :
1. Our KM Metrics-KM Maps-KMDiagrams - http://bit.ly/bROikS
2. Our noted Knowledge-base - http://bit.ly/bUbQqh

Folder “Future KM” should click the following sub-folders :
1. Shifting Paradigm of Knowledge and Science - http://bit.ly/955POI
2. Most Likely the next Gen KM - http://bit.ly/aqWTPh

Or you can go indirectly via our Learning Management System (LSM) by clicking http://bit.ly/aJzcMm

By doing this, I hope “One positive could be that it keeps knowledge management at the forefront of people’s minds” as you mentioned could be achieved

Md Santo
Founder http://mobeeknowledge.ning.com

Comment by Tom Zeppenfeldt on October 8, 2010 at 6:13pm: I wouldn't use any tech terms. Instead, I'd try to find a name that generates positive vibes. After all, the "thing" that you are developing should be a source of inspiration, a place where you can learn and communicate with fellow users.

Comment by nondlela ndabezith on October 6, 2010 at 4:43pm: I think that the first thing we should do is to understand the meaning of "portal" then we ll be able to say it the name suiits. so according to my understanding portal is the service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and online shopping malls. So by saying this I think that the name is suitable as we are all discussing through out the world.