Upcoming workshops and seminars. Company announcements. Birthdays, parties, anniversaries, and all manner of other important events.

The bulletin board has for decades been a fixture of communities, workplaces, and first responder agencies. At the time of its inception, it was simply the best way to keep everyone up to date. As you might expect, a great deal has changed since then.

Even before the pandemic, ours was a world defined by hyperconnectivity. A world where digital communication made long-distance collaboration easier than it had ever been. A world with limitless communication options, from SMS to email to videoconferencing.

One might think that, in such a world, bulletin boards would be rendered obsolete. After all, why would you need a cork board and paper when you can simply send an email? Why would you need to gather around a notice board in the office when you can simply connect through a meetings app like Microsoft Teams?

For several reasons, actually. To understand them, we’ll first need to look at what makes bulletin boards so valuable. After all, if they didn’t come with clear benefits, they wouldn’t still be a part of so many workplaces.

Efficiency and Productivity

At least on paper, a bulletin board cuts down on unnecessary communication by keeping major company announcements and updates in a single, centralized location. Rather than having to reach out to multiple colleagues or organizational leadership, employees can simply glance at the bulletin board. This theoretically can also result in increased productivity, as people will spend less time asking for clarification and information on company updates.

Community and Togetherness

The real strength of the old-school bulletin board is that whether you’re using it in an office, a classroom, a fire station, or somewhere else entirely, it’s not just a tool for communication. It’s a medium for community building. It connects people through shared messaging while at the same time helping to build a foundation for a company’s culture.

A bulletin board can also serve as a source of motivation and inspiration. Leadership can use it to recognize exceptional work from a particular employee or express gratitude for a department or team’s achievements. Alternatively a business might simply share good news regarding the company’s outlook.

Going Digital

For all their myriad advantages, bulletin boards also suffer from a few major drawbacks:

• Compared to modern methods of communication like instant messages, they’re highly inefficient.
• They offer relatively little in the way of interactivity.
• Leadership has no real way of knowing if people have either seen or understood the messages they’ve posted.
• They are not designed for use in a distributed environment.

The simplest, most obvious solution is to leverage a digital bulletin board solution that combines the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, this goes hand in hand with another issue currently plaguing the business space. Employees are already overwhelmed by the plethora of applications they must jump between on a regular workday, communication and otherwise.

Introducing further complications into this already cumbersome ecosystem isn’t going to help matters. If you’re to deploy a digital bulletin board, your best bet is to do so as part of a unified communications platform. And that’s where Unio comes in.

Meet Unio’s Integrated Newsfeed: For All Your Corporate Culture Needs

An intuitive, robust secure messaging solution with talk, text, video, and file sharing, Unio’s arguably most unique feature is its integrated newsfeed. Functioning an interactive digital bulletin board, it also serves as a hub for discussion, ensuring that every employee within the business has a voice. More importantly, through Unio’s built-in analytics, leadership is able to determine who’s seeing their messages and who isn’t, while also gaining deep insights into how people within the business are communicating.

In short, if you’re looking to preserve corporate culture, the bulletin board is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal — and Unio offers you that and more.