For organizations built around events
Your event lasts three days. Own the other 362.
For conferences, associations, training businesses and meetup networks whose only touchpoints between events are a Facebook group, a LinkedIn page and an email list. DBX Expert Lab designs and runs a community you own, where your speakers' knowledge keeps working and your members find each other all year.
Who it is for.
- 01
Conferences and summits
Attendees, speakers and sponsors who meet once a year.
- 02
Associations with an annual meeting
Members who pay dues and hear from you by newsletter.
- 03
Training and workshop businesses
Alumni who learned together and then lost touch.
- 04
Meetup and networking groups
Regulars who know each other by face, not by expertise.
- 05
Customer and user conferences
Customers who ask your team the same questions between events.
- 06
Event agencies
Running a brand's audience between the brand's events.
Today, and with your Expert Lab.
Today: A Facebook group where the feed decides who sees your post.With your Expert Lab: Your community, on your domain, where every member can be reached by email.Today: A LinkedIn page whose followers you can't take with you.With your Expert Lab: Your data, with automatic backups, on software that is 100% open source.Today: An email list that only talks one way.With your Expert Lab: Email that answers back. Members reply from their inbox, and the whole community benefits.Today: Sessions that disappear when the venue empties.With your Expert Lab: Sessions that keep working: recorded, searchable and discussed all year.
What members get.
- 01
Take part from the inbox
Members who live in email never have to log in. Notifications reach them by email when they are away from the site, and they can reply from anywhere, on any device. Email invitations and mailing-list support are built in.
Discourse: Reply via email, email invitations, mailing list support
- 02
Catch up in minutes
Long discussions condense to the most interesting posts with one button, and AI summaries bring back members who missed a month.
Discourse: Summarize topics, AI summaries
- 03
Find the right thread and the right person
Semantic search understands a question asked in plain words. Related discussions appear at the end of every topic. Personal messages and chat channels carry the informal conversations that build relationships.
Discourse: Semantic search, related topics, personal messaging, chat
- 04
Read in their own language
For international audiences, community content can be translated into up to 49 languages.
Discourse: AI translations
- 05
A room that stays civil
Regulars earn moderation abilities over time, members flag what does not belong, and spam and toxic content are detected automatically.
Discourse: Trust system, community moderation, spam and toxicity detection
- 06
Phone first
A built-in mobile layout plus iOS and Android apps, so taking part between sessions or on the train home works.
Discourse: Built-in mobile layout, Discourse apps
What you own and control.
- Your domain, your login
- Single sign-on with your existing website's login, or common social logins. Members arrive as your members.
- Your data
- Discourse is 100% open source, with automatic backups and an API that can do anything the screen can. AI data is stored alongside your community content.
- Private where it should be
- Invite-only access, private spaces for members or sponsors, post approval and self-managing user groups.
- Events on the calendar
- The official Calendar plugin keeps a dynamic event calendar inside a topic, and the Zoom plugin connects online meetings.
- Memberships and revenue
- The official Subscriptions plugin sells recurring and one-time subscriptions that grant access to groups. Newsletter integration lets members subscribe to your newsletter from inside the community.
- A clear view
- The admin dashboard shows community health metrics, and automated AI reports describe activity, trending discussions and member sentiment.
Official plugin availability depends on the Discourse hosting plan or your own deployment, and is confirmed in your written proposal.
Every session keeps working after the venue empties.
The talk is the start. The questions it raised, the explanation the speaker gives afterwards and what members do with it are where the relationship lives.
01Capture
One place per session
Recordings, slides and the questions a session raised live in one topic, where links expand in place and files attach.
02Explain
Answer once
Speakers record short explanations of what the room kept asking, with captions and a written companion, so an answer given once is found all year.
03Apply
Try it, report back
Members try what they learned in their own work and say what happened. Accepted answers are marked solved, so the next person finds them first.
04Decide
Shape the next program
Organizers see which sessions, questions and resources members actually used, and plan the next event from it.
What DBX does
A platform you own is the floor. Someone whose job is the other 362 days is the point.
Between events nobody on your team has the time to answer every question, chase every speaker and keep the room worth visiting. That is the job DBX takes on.
- A named DBX community leadWorks inside your organization, in your channels and with your experts.
- Instructional design supportFor every explanation and exercise.
- An experience designed with youLearning and community routines built around your experts and your problem, not from a template.
You keep the decisions: membership, policy, sponsorship, program and what gets adopted. Sponsors get clearly labeled space, and introductions and marketing contact are permission-based.
Built-in AI, on your terms
The community does the finding. Your speakers keep the judgment.
A dedicated Discourse community brings its own AI. It works from what your speakers have already explained, and the community stays useful with it switched off.
Finds the answer
Semantic search and related topics surface the speaker's explanation when someone asks in their own words. An assistant can answer from your community's reviewed content and documents, with the source linked.
Protects the lead's time
Summaries catch people up on long discussions. Spam and toxic content are caught automatically. Usage and cost reports show what the AI is actually doing.
Stays within your policy
AI data is stored alongside your community content. Discourse's included hosted model comes only with its hosting plans; otherwise you connect an approved provider or separately scoped local AI.
Discourse AI is an open-source capability of the Discourse platform. DBX configures the selected features within your policy; model hosting, local compute and provider fees are scoped separately.
A 90-day launch, timed to your event calendar.
Before
Build the room
Map the questions your audience brings every year. Set up the community, sign-on and email. Onboard speakers and the first members.
During
Capture while it is live
Collect the questions each session raises and open the threads where follow-up happens, while the speakers are still in the building.
After
Keep it working
Run discussion, record explanations of what the room kept asking, review what members used and decide what continues.
Launches are fixed-scope fees, not subscriptions. The three 90-day packages are on the homepage; bring your event dates and we scope the rest.
See the launch packagesQuestions organizers ask first.
We already have a Facebook group with thousands of members. Why add anything?
Keep the group if it brings reach. The difference is ownership: in your own community you decide who sees what, how members are reached, what is kept and what happens to the data. A launch starts with your speakers and your most engaged members, and the group can stay open as a doorway.
Our audience only reads email. Will they take part?
That is the point of starting with email. Discourse sends notifications by email when members are away from the site, members reply from their inbox, invitations go out by email, and mailing-list support is built in. The community lead writes the follow-ups that reach inboxes, so email becomes two-way instead of a broadcast.
What happens between events if nobody posts?
A named DBX community lead is responsible for the time between events: following up the questions your sessions raised, bringing speakers the ones that need their judgment, recording short explanations and running scheduled reviews. The community is managed, not left to chance.
Do we have to move to Discourse?
No. If your existing tools fit, we work there. A dedicated Discourse community is recommended when you need durable discussion, your own domain and data, client-controlled deployment or the ability to take the community with you.
Can sponsors be involved?
Yes, on your terms. Sponsors can have clearly labeled space and private areas within your policy. Usefulness to members comes first, and introductions and marketing contact are permission-based.
Can members pay for access?
Discourse's official Subscriptions plugin sells recurring and one-time subscriptions that grant access to groups, and single sign-on can connect an existing membership system. Both are set up within your agreed scope, and plugin availability depends on the hosting plan.
Do we need AI for this to work?
No. The community is designed to be valuable with AI switched off. A dedicated Discourse community includes Discourse AI features such as semantic search, summaries, translations and spam detection, with AI data stored alongside your content. Discourse's included hosted model comes only with its hosting plans; otherwise an approved provider or separately scoped local AI is connected.
What does it cost?
Launches are fixed 90-day fees, not subscriptions; the three launch packages are listed on the DBX Expert Lab homepage. Ongoing management, hosting, licenses and custom integrations are quoted separately, and the schedule is agreed around your event calendar.