Four intranet managers are talking about Intranetizen:
– Principle – shared knowledge is power.
– Jonathan – 10 characteristics of great intranets – communication tool, a place of work, collaboration to an end, positively impacts employees, for sharing knowledge, a digital reflection of the business, builds community, transparency of governance, make it fun (to gain engagement), and available everywhere.
– Sharon – top tips for intranet search. The problem – too much content on the intranet is bad. Work with contributors for building great pages – simple training. It's not Google – you don't have the resources that Google does. Add synonyms and acronyms to make it easier to find content. Review search logs. Auto-suggest encourages people to use more words.
– Dana – losing the intranet plot. Things to lose – animated GIFs, world clock, Dilbert, weather widget, scrolling marques, picture of the day, travels photos, etc. Principles – be original, focus on the business value.
– Luke – 10 ways to ensure project failure. (1) enforce your own approach. (2) don't listen to users. (3) have arbitrary measures. (4) keep it under wraps and make it a huge surprise. (5) set up a committee of people who have different objectives. (6) don't have a lessons learned meeting. (7) don't compromise on anything.

For more, see intranetizen.com.