Discussion boards and online forums are intended to be reflective, forcing people to read other perspectives and thoughtfully consider a response in back-and-forth interaction and engagement. Anyone who has seen a comment section with a troll, spambot, or griefer disrupting the conversation knows that’s not always the case. However, a company SharePoint discussion board is a safe haven for timely and topical collaboration, and a great opportunity to share ideas.

It’s a pretty safe bet that no one gets excited to see a survey from their management in their inbox, if only because we’ve been trained to dread surveys by constant exposure to bad ones. I think surveys can be very useful – what other options do you have, to get employee feedback, short of mind-reading? – but there is an epidemic of badly planned and formatted surveys making the rounds in corporate America.