Chris McGrath of One Intranets has a nice set of 6 Steps to Effective Discussion Forums on your Intranet, which I find fairly interesting. He's got more details in the full entry, so I'm not giving away the store here.
- Attach a forum to every page.
- Provide an aggregated, prioritized view of discussions.
- Integrate forums with the company directory.
- Strip the interface to the basics.
- Signal participants when a post is made.
- Engage your organization's thought leaders.
As I read through the article, it's clear these ideas are influenced by the current thinking around social software. And they apply outside the intranet too.
The other thought I had was whether in-house forums work at all, unless you are a very tech-centric company. Many companies have the capability, but they certainly don't integrate forums the way McGrath suggests. Of course, maybe this is why most of that capability goes underutilized.
This article was linked by Column Two, who also has a recent piece on When intranet discussion forums work.