Intranet Trends for 2010: How Far We Have and Haven't Come

One of the best ways to improve your own Intranet is to learn from those who are also working on theirs. Jane McConnell's Global Intranet Trends 2010 report is a perfect way to do just that.

Global Intranet Trends 2010

Many organizations are undergoing rapid changes in how they work. New strategies for collaboration and a heap of new tools and technologies are developing, moving us closer to a "unified workplace web" and our Intranets are a key, if not the key, component. But not everyone knows how to evolve their Intranet to support this new way of working.

Jane McConnell's Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report is based on survey that her company runs every year to identify the strategies and practices for intranets, collaboration spaces and social media inside the enterprise. The survey, comprised of 120 questions, was completed by over 300 organizations across the world. The results are interesting and can help guide the roadmap for your Intranet's evolution.

5 Key Trends For Intranets

The report identifies 5 key trends that show how the Intranet must evolve if it is fulfill its role as the central hub for the workplace:

• The Front-door intranet: The Intranet is the front door into the workplace web providing a single point of access to applications, sites, team spaces, collaboration, etc..
• The Team-oriented intranet: These are the team workspaces set up to support teams which may cross functions and geographic locations, even internal vs external people.
• The people-focused intranet: Providing information and services to employees (Business to employee) and in some instances enabling employee to employee support. (you could almost refer to this trend as the social intranet).
• The real-time intranet: The intranet provides tools for real-time communications like blogging, micro-blogging, presence, alerts and notifications.
• The place-independent intranet: An intranet that supports the employee regardless of time and place: extranets and mobile.

The report says that each of these trends is a facet of the future intranet. There are few who can claim their intranet has elements of each facet today. They may provide the technologies to support these trends, but they are aren't in a cohesive single intranet or "workplace web".

How Mature is Your Intranet

Your intranet likely falls into one of three levels of maturity as defined in the report:

1. Stage 1 - the early period: No integration with business applications or processes, no senior management support, some are just starting to consider a Web CMS.
2. Stage 2 - the ambitious period: The intranet is starting become the central point of access, it may include blogs/wikis, some business processes and customization based on roles/activities.
3. Stage 3 - the mature period: The intranet has a high degree of purpose, employee collaboration/real-time communications, supports core business processes making it a business critical system

Unfortunately you may find it hard to identify exactly where your intranet fits as McConnell says these stages are not black and white: 

There are many shades of gray, and many organizations will identify with one stage for certain aspects of their intranet and with another stage for other aspects. Organizations many also have areas within a global intranet landscape that are more or less advanced than others.

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Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise collaboration, intranet, jane mcconnell, social media, social software

One of the best ways to improve your own Intranet is to learn from those who are also working on theirs. Jane McConnell's Global Intranet Trends 2010 report is a perfect way to do just that.