About Us

About ThoughtFarmer

Building the ultimate intranet

The idea behind ThoughtFarmer was hatched in 2005 during a search for the ultimate intranet solution for a consulting client. This intranet would unite a geographically dispersed workforce and be the de facto knowledge repository. It would make it easy for any employee to share information and would exist on a secure, on-premise Microsoft network.

Such a platform didn’t exist, so we set out to build it. Intrawest Placemaking became the first ThoughtFarmer customer in the spring of 2006, and their success with the new platform led to an oft-cited case study featured on the Enterprise 2.0 Case Study site, cases2.com. In the years since, ThoughtFarmer has been adopted by innovative organizations around the world, including EA, eHarmony, IDEO, Guardian News & Media, Penn State University and WATG.

ThoughtFarmer is owned by OpenRoad Communications Ltd, a privately held web application development company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1995, OpenRoad’s team of 25 is well known in the Greater Vancouver area for high quality user-centred web and application design.

Leadership Team

Darren Gibbons, Co-Creator and President of OpenRoad Communications

Darren GibbonsDarren Gibbons is the co-creator of ThoughtFarmer and the President of OpenRoad Communications. Darren has led OpenRoad since co-founding the company in 1995. A unique blend of strategic thinking, technological know-how, and great people skills, Darren maintains a presence in many of OpenRoad’s projects. His hands-on approach has helped organizations like the British Columbia Supreme Court, Intrawest Corporation, and the Workers Compensation Board achieve success with innovative and powerful web applications.

Darren majored in Applied Physics at Simon Fraser University. He has been a guest speaker on topics ranging from Java to network security and is co-author of a book on JavaBeans 1.1 published by McGraw-Hill.

Chris McGrath, Co-Creator

Chris McGrathChris McGrath is the co-creator of ThoughtFarmer. Since 1995 Chris has been consulting on web and intranet projects, with a particular emphasis on interface design, information architecture and usability analysis.

Chris lives with his wife and two three children in Nelson, British Columbia, and enjoys skiing, distance running, photography and fine espresso.

Gordon Ross, Vice President of OpenRoad Communications

Gordon RossGordon Ross is the Vice President and partner at OpenRoad Communications. Gordon has played a key role in refining the firm’s development methodologies. Since 1996, Gordon has worked through OpenRoad’s project design and development cycles extensively, doing project management, systems analysis and strategy work for some of British Columbia’s largest web projects. His portfolio at OpenRoad includes a wide range of work with clients like the Ministry of Attorney General, Ministry of Transportation, and Rocky Mountain Bicycles.

Gordon earned a BA in Communications at Simon Fraser University. He has taught IT project management and e-business topics for Simon Fraser University and lectured at BCIT and the Vancouver Film School.

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