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A large purple box plastered with a funky yellow logo hums like a mini-refrigerator behind a glass panel in the airy Yakabod offices in downtown Frederick.

The technology, called Yakabox, has been the software development company's flagship product for several years, fostering steady growth and catching the eye of intelligence community leaders.

The system integrates content management, enterprise search, collaboration and social networking, like a work-related Facebook for co-workers. It learns which topics, events and categories users find relevant, then delivers that information directly to the "activity viewer."

Unlike more conventional data-centric designs, the Yakabox captures "soft" knowledge and prevents it from getting buried in shared drives or in-boxes, said CEO Scott Ryser. The technology integrates with legacy systems and Microsoft Office applications.

Privately held Yakabod was launched in 2001 in Ryser's home in Uniontown, Pa., initially only providing technology services and designing software. Ryser originally started with a system for Florida county governments but soon drew clients from the intelligence communities.

Meanwhile, Scott Williams, co-founder and chief technology officer, was developing his network for farmers from his Lovettsville, Va., home, when the two were introduced and forged the current company.

The men remodeled a second-floor office space at Patrick and Market streets, a rough midpoint between their homes, and moved there in 2005. Now with 26 employees, the company has been busy recruiting new hires, including Chris Coleman, vice president of marketing, and Ken Foxton, vice president of national intelligence programs.

"We're pretty conservative," said Williams, who had been involved in ambitious startup ventures before Yakabod. "We have a good balance in the bottom of our boat and we're going steadily forward."

While Ryser declined to disclose Yakabod's revenues or profits, he said the self-funded company has weathered the current consumer-driven downturn well with its government contracts. Yakabod has seen 100 percent growth in the past year, and is on track to repeat this year. More than 20,000 professionals in several intelligence agencies use its technology.

"We're continuing to grow in the intelligence community, but we're looking at other markets," Ryser said. "Our challenge is to pick only a couple markets."

Richard Griffin, Frederick's economic development chief, said the county's roughly 65 IT companies, including about 20 in downtown Frederick, have been flourishing.

"These are smaller businesses, but control some millions in contracts," Griffin said. "They offer well-paying jobs that really tap into that creative group of people."

While Yakabod doesn't directly compete with other software or companies, it is often evaluated against Microsoft SharePoint, he said. One challenge is getting employees who are accustomed to communicating solely through e-mail onboard with the Yakabox system.

Yakabod recently modified its Yakabox, now called Yakabox 3.0, to provide a basic tool that employees can begin using immediately without any customizing. Yakabod can then tailor the technology to suit the client's needs. So far, the trial period has gone well for two agencies, as users are already sharing information faster and receiving more relevant information with the technology's "intuitive" feature, Ryser said.

Yakabod, which had been using the new version that encourages more posting, noted that employees were posting up to four times more work-related information. The upgraded version uses a mechanism such as Twitter or Facebook's "status" updates, where users see other postings and feel encouraged to post as well, Ryser said.

"Program managers who've had a sneak preview of Yakabox 3.0 get it right away," Ryser said. "The user experience is as intuitive as e-mail, and it's a true knowledge network secured down to the object level, searchable and indexed. Most important, stuff that matters doesn't disappear into a black hole when you need it most."