Finger-painting on the intranet. Where writers start with Word, they can commit all manner of formatting sins. Examples: inconsistent font size, double line breaks, random use of underlining and bold, multi-coloured text, misaligned text in tables, and large tables necessitating sideways scrolling.

Solution: "Get a decent content management system (or keep fighting for one if you haven't got one)." That includes a consistent, hands-off template.

Wordiness
"The biggest problem our staff have in writing for the intranet is cutting the words down so that they only include the important information. For example, they commonly start with 'This page contains information about ...'"  "Keep it short!"

Styles from stuffy to slack
"Our people ... don't understand that people read from screens quite differently to the way they read from paper and therefore web writing requires a different style." "They plough on with their usual style without thinking about the audience... a manager writing a stuffy, official style memo and wanting it to be pasted into a news story... Others use a really chatty, social way of writing. They don't remember the chief executive will also read the pages and alter them accordingly."

"Experienced communicators focus on their usual audience - media, customers, external stakeholders - and don't answer the 'what's it to me?' question in those crucial first few sentences."

"Corporate doesn't have to mean dull - keep the language simple and the tone upbeat."

Insiders and outsiders

"Often some people are so involved in their project of part of the business that they don't realise how little others know about what they do."

A place for personal opinions

"We strike a balance by having a message board that anyone can add things to, which minimises the number of requests to add silly stories as news items."

Size of pages, sections and documents

"One topic per page is the rule." Long documents need guidelines for sizing and subdividing.

Management issues encroach

Management issues loom large, especially lack of time and:

"Getting senior management support; working on no budget; reconciling communications objectives with IT objectives."

Rewards of a successful intranet

"Well-informed, communicative staff...increase in intranet usage... positive feedback (but don't hold your breath)."