If you're using or running an Igloo community, I'm willing to bet it's an intranet. Most Igloo communities are internal workspaces, a digital destination for you and your coworkers to communicate and collaborate. You work in its wikis, store files there, announce new company initiatives with blogs, and share pictures of your pets in microblog channels. Everything that happens there is private. But there's another side to Igloo. A public side. 

Extranets are communities that are entirely public,…

Every Igloo includes the opportunity to use Google Analytics to get a look at how your community is being used, tracking traffic and hotspots. It can give you real time information on what's happening, how actively consulted your knowledge base is, which files are accessed most frequently, and whether your blog posts are driving people deeper into your community. With that kind of information, you're well-equipped to learn what people in your community want, and how best to give it to them, to…

Tasks are the unsung heroes of content types. Blogs get all the love, because they're easy to read, and communications people adore them. Wikis get the honour, because a meticulous knowledge manager can use a wiki to index and find anything. But tasks are everywhere in your community, on content, in profiles, and in their own channels, and they help you get things done. 

Tasks can be created from anywhere in the community with the userbar, and can be a single line to act as a reminder, or…

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) is a language that can change the appearance of web pages, including the ones in your Igloo community. It can change fonts, colours, backgrounds, and even whether or not an element appears on a page. You can find a comprehensive introduction to CSS here, but let's go over some basic terms and concepts. 

CSS works by targeting specific selectors by type, class (marked with . for a class like .thisismyclass), and id (marked by # for an id like #thisismyid ). Then, it…