The Running Librarian

What are your intranet bad habits?

...but I had to link to this post on the Content Formula website which asks what are the five worst things you can do with your intranet.

There are probably a lot more then five really bad things that you can do to your intranet having said that this article covers some of the things you HAVE to do right to ensure your intranet is well used.

What are these things I hear you say, well here we go:

1. Don't grow an eyesore - Make your intranet aesthetically pleasing, keep font use to a minimum and apply the same styles throughout the intranet so that users have a seamless experience and don't think "Am I still on the intranet"
2. Under or over watering - This is about ensuring your content is well maintained and that the content that is published to the intranet is meaningful and relevant
3. Having an out of control intranet - It's all very well having an intranet that looks great, but not if it contains 50k pages of which 7 are actually useful. Establishing a well ordered hierarchy and encouraging editors to review content regularly will ensure your intranet doesn't get out of control
4. Too many cooks in the kitchen - Where intranets are based on a de-centralised publishing model it can be hard to maintain the same look and feel and content quality across the site. If this is the case then you should put in place a good governance model, which makes it clear who 
5. Having an intranet that remains static - Content that has been on the homepage for months isn't going to be appealing to users. Across the intranet content should be updated regularly to ensure users regularly check the site for updates and for new content

So those are the five worst things according to Content Formula, do you have anymore?