Here are some statistics to show you the dimension the survey is taking on:

• The number of participating organizations has nearly tripled since the first year in 2006.
• The survey itself has not gotten shorter! Both 2008 and 2009 contained over 120 questions.
• This year we have an even greater wealth of collective intranet experience: 283 managers each spending about one hour makes 35 full days of “intranet reporting” to consolidate and analyze.
• We are growing in new regions. Both Russia and Brazil are two countries on the upswing this year, thanks to network partners in those areas.
• Intranet managers are getting more involved in the design of the survey: the results of the pre-survey Quick Poll in May, and the suggestions from 9 intranet managers who did a pilot drive of this year’s questionnaire were instrumental in shaping the final version.
• Several fellow intranet consultants also brought valuable suggestions to some very specific parts of the survey.
• Over 50 bloggers, twitterers and communicators have helped spread the word enthusiastically since June.
• When asked where they heard of the survey, quite a few organizations this year answered simply “Twitter”. We had a very fast RT (retweet) network this year, thanks to lots of you.

More later on the survey highlights, but again, many thanks to all of you in the global intranet community.

The official report will be published in the second part of October, but I’ll leak some trends here soon!

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So far this year, there have been a few suggestions for improvements for next year. One involved making it easier to use from a laptop (very good point!). It’s really great to have participants contributing ideas for the 2010 survey.

Many participants have found the survey a stimulating trigger to thinking about their own intranets:

One participant used the final field to share his thoughts on the future of intranets:

“My overall feeling regarding the future of intranets:

• Greater time spent on ‘social media literacy and training – consolidating rather than deploying
• Multi-layered communications and knowledge sharing will increase (html mixed with video, audio etc)
• Authentication will be the key – people want apps within the firewall that can be used and trusted
• Recession and swine flu will ensure intranet will be a port for knowledge sharing and virtual working
• Increasing demise of the ‘newspaper’ homepage for intranets. Now seen as a working task-based tool – not a newspaper
• Greater importance on finding, relating and engaging people within the intranet and invites to external users to enter controlled areas of the intranet”

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The top 5 priorities all lean towards work and business this year…

1. “Collaboration, communities, virtual teams: tools & technologies, governance” is the topic that leads by far this year. It came in at 71 percent of the organizations rating it as “highly relevant”, a 10 point lead over the other topics.
2. “Positioning and role of the intranet in the online workplace” is a strategic issue, and not at all obvious for most organizations. It’s not surprising this came number 2 on the top priorities.
3. “Senior management awareness, participation & support” is still an on-going issue, and is in position 3 on the list of “highly relevant” topics.
4. “Obstacles holding back the intranet from achieving its potential” is in 4th position. This topic has been part of the survey for the last 3 years and analysis based comparing obstacles faced by organizations with intranets in Stages 1, 2 and 3 has provided a number of leads as to what to deal with and when as the intranet advances through the different stages.
5. “Measurement & evaluation: ROI (hard & soft), techniques, indicators” is in position 5 on the list. Interestingly, it did not even make the top 10 topics.

The two charts below show the topics ranked in decreasing order of relevance.(I’ve listed the full topic description as it appeared on the Quick Poll at the end of this post.)

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Flashback to one year ago…

Last June, 114 organizations participated in the 2008 Quick Poll which preceded the 2008 Global Intranet Strategies Survey.

The two main different items in the top 5 topics a year ago are items 1 and 4 below:

1. Search & findability: user features, resources, satisfaction
2. Roles of the intranet/portal as perceived by employees & management
3. Obstacles holding back the intranet from achieving its potential.
4. Web 2.0 tools & features: usages, issues
5. Single point of entry: integration of applications, other enterprise information resources.
6. (same rating as point 5) Finding people: directories, expertise locators

What’s next?

Many thanks to all of you who participated in the Quick Poll. The survey itself will open in June.

I also thank the 50 organizations (out of the total 165)  who responded to the open question where we asked for other ideas, comments and suggestions for topics. I’ll share this feedback in a separate post. Stay tuned.

This year’s survey results are going to be full of surprises, in my opinion!

As always, I’d love to hear from you if you have comments about the charts and data in this post.

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P.S.  Full description of topics as they appeared on the Quick Poll

Remember, these are topics, not the questions themselves!

• Collaboration, communities, virtual teams: tools & technologies, governance
• Positioning & role of the intranet/portal in the online workspace: entry point, separate system, purpose
• Senior management awareness, participation, support
• Obstacles holding back the intranet from achieving its potential
• Measurement & evaluation: ROI (hard & soft), techniques, indicators
• Home or entry page: type of content, customization
• Integration of applications: core business, secondary process support, enterprise systems
• Strategic steering group: role, members
• Information sources for employee data: which ones, how used, how kept up to date
• Social media: types, usages, benefits, concerns, governance
• Place of the intranet/portal team in the organization (function/department, level 49 %)
• Availability of the intranet to all employees: when, where, how (smartphone, home access, solutions for non office-based workforce)
• Customisation & personalisation: how much, criteria, individual control
• User-generated information: integration with information from traditional editorial process
• Moderation and management of content in collaborative and social media spaces
• Social networks, personal pages, social tagging
• Solutions/tools for virtual teams made up of employees and external partners
• Relation/impact of external social networking tools (e.g. Facebook) on the internal online workplace
• Current economic crisis: impact on intranet, focus areas in 2009 and 2010
• Sustainable development (“Green program”): impact or relation with intranet/portal

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Now is your chance to influence the choice of topics. I’ve consulted with many intranet managers in both Intranet Professionals (Linkedin group for all intranet professionals, managed by Anne Mitchell) and NetJMC&Co (Linkedin group dedicated to intranet managers, managed by myself) as well as on this blog. (Thank you all.)

I’ll be presenting this list this morning to a group of intranet managers from large organizations (at the JMC Paris breakfast) for their feedback.

I have posted this list here, hoping for your feedback!

What follows are the topic areas, not the actual formulation of the questions.

The positioning of the intranet within the organisation

• What systems and applications feed the intranet
• What processes are supported by the intranet (core business, secondary support such as HR)
• To what extent the intranet is the entry point into the organisation’s information resources, systems, …

Employee data

• What different information sources do organisations have for employee data (ERP, directory, phone system…)
• How it is used (filter, personalise, org charts…)
• How it is kept up to date (by employees, by HR, which methods, …)

Collaboration, communities, virtual teams

• Moderation and management of content in these “spaces”
• Guidelines, regulation; what type, how much
• Which social media tools & technologies are being used and how

Governance and operational management

• Where is the intranet team placed in the organisation (which division or function and how high)
• Existence of high level steering group and membership

Areas to be explored through open questions: (each year 3 to 4 open questions are asked)

• What impact are social media having internally on how people work/collaborate/communicate?
• Is ROI measured on intranets and if so, how: indicators, methods?
• How is user-generate information being integrated with information coming from the traditional editorial process?
• Does an organisation’s green agenda” (sustainable development programme) impact or influence the intranet and if so, how?

The topics that have been excluded this year (and will probably return in 2010) are:

• Search and findability
• Number of intranet resources (people)
• Content strategies
• Meta data

Marker and segmentation questions

There will of course be a small number of indicator questions that have been present every year since 2006, as well as a few questions about organisational demographics and types of intranets/portals that facilitate analysis and segmentation of the responses.

Feedback please!

Let me know your thoughts on these plans.

Is there a topic I’ve missed that you’d like to see included?

Have I included a topic that you feel is of only secondary importance?

Do you have any specific questions you’d like to see added?

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I’m collecting feedback and will be doing a first draft of the questions in a month or so.

I’ve had requests to cover the following points:

• How are companies using employees data (for security, or filtering, or organizational chart, or not at all) and how do they maintain the accuracy of the data (on-line self service, or form based workflow, or phones, or paper).
• Which processes do intranets support: core business and/or secondary support processes? Can an intranet be essential for an organization if the core business processes are handled in other systems?
• What are companies’ strategies for portal entry pages / home pages? Are they news-based or do they offer customized workplaces? Are they more global or more local in terms of the content?
• Information resides in multiple systems such as ERP, Product Lifecycle Management system, Document management systems, and all kinds of other systems. How much of this information is accessible from the intranet? What kinds of systems feed the intranet with information – is that primarily enterprise systems, specialist systems or the intranet itself? What kind of information is accessible, and for what use?
• How diverse is the intranet, especially in large organisations with multiple divisions, subsidaries and business areas? What kind of governance and operational management have organizations implemented? How is it working?
• How do companies handle the relatively new concept of “my page” or “my site”? What type of governance has been put into place.

Are the points above relevant for you?

What else would you like to see included?

Thank you for your input. The survey is intended to serve the needs of the participating organizations, so please share what’s on your mind.

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3 downsides

Collaboration features and horizontal information flows are weak.

Many intranets are inflexible and risk losing their “raison d’etre”.

Dissatisfaction with search is expressed by 50 percent of the organizations.

3 upsides

Management is getting more involved.

Social media are slowly finding their place behind the firewall.

Dissatisfaction with search is 10 percent lower than last year!

A slightly longer story…

The “way of working” & 3 stages of intranet maturity

Three stages of “intranet maturity” have been defined by NetStrategy/JMC. (The Global Intranet Trends for 2009 provides details on each stage, analyzes the differences and provides guidelines for advancing from one stage to another.)

Stage 1 is where the intranet will become the “way of working” in 3 or 4 years or more. These intranets show signs of lack of strategy, a low level of resources and a very low degree of management attention. If the intranet “goes down” for 1 or 2 hours, 40 percent will be disrupted in daily work activities.

Stage 2 is an intermediary stage where the intranet will become the “way of working” in 1 or 2 years. The tipping point is near and this can be felt by the many planned action areas that will make the intranet the “way of working” “soon. Management is more supportive both in terms of resources and participation. These organizations reported major leaps in the last 12 months in key areas such as the integration of business applications into the intranet. If the intranet “goes down” for 1 or 2 hours, 60 percent are disrupted in daily work activites.

Stage 3 is reached when the intranet is the “way of working” today. These intranets have reached a high degree of maturity and purpose. There is a much stronger usage of collaboration tools and spaces. If the intranet “goes down” for 1 or 2 hours, 90 percent are disrupted in daily work activities.

Stage 3 is not dominated by organizations with a high knowledge-based workforce as one might expect. In fact, very large organizations of over 50,000 employees are more present in Stage 3 as are enterprises with a high proportion of the workforce in manufacturing.

10 Highlights for 2009

The figures below represent the full survey population. They differ, sometimes quite radically, depending on whether the organization is at Stage 1, 2 or 3.

• Top senior management, specifically the C-level (e.g. CEO) now participates in intranet steering committees in half the enterprises, up from one third in 2007. However, only 14 % say their senior management consider the intranet to be “business critical”.
• The intranet is becoming the front door into business applications and process with Stage 3 organizations leading by far.
• The intranet is still weak for collaboration and horizontal information flows in all organizations. The silos are still there in all stages even though Stage 3 is stronger in collaboration than the others.
• The people side of content management is weak, with few organizations integrating content contribution responsibilities into job descriptions.
• The majority of employee directories do not reflect the way organizations work today: they are too rigid and too closed.
• Well over half the organizations have been experimenting with 2.0 tools and technologies for 2 years or more, very few feel they are using them in an optimized way.
• The very large organizations and Stage 3 organizations are the most advanced for implementing social media in the intranet.
• Evaluation techniques tend to be statistical and not sufficiently user-oriented. Usability studies and user focus groups are used in fewer than half the organizations.
• All organizations are struggling to find solutions for virtual teams where employees and external partners work together. This is a priority action area for 2009 for many.
• Today’s intranet model is not sustainable: intranets must become more user-centered and more flexible for integrating new tools and supporting new ways of working.

About the survey:

226 organizations around the world participated in the 3rd annual Global Intranet Strategies Survey which took place between July and September 2008. The resulting Global Intranet Trends for 2009 report, published November 26.

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The main messages are that 2008 has been a year of turbulence for many organisations. A the same time, the intranet is or has become the “way of working” for 22% of the survey participants. Last year, the figure was 11%.

Search will continue to be a major challenge in 2009. The figures show that many consider it to be “mission critical” yet do not provide adequate resources to support it. Interestingly, the rate of satisfaction with Search has become 50/50 with 10% very satisfied, 40% moderately satisfied (that’s my 50!) and the others dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Social media are slowly entering the intranet landscape. There are lots of hesitations and concerns. However, the striking thing is that where the intranet has become the “way of working”, social media is being integrated faster than in other organizations. I’ve included some figures on the slide for instant messaging, blogging and wikis as used inside the firewall.

The report will be published November 25th with complimentary copies sent that day to all participating organizations.

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My observations on their feedback:

1. We are getting back to intranet basics – that is to say (a) users finding what what need and (b) raising intranet awareness in general.

The chart below shows the top 10 topics. You’ll see that “search & findability” leads all other issues. It’s followed by roles and perceptions of the intranet and obstacles holding the intranet back.

These fundamental issues risked getting lost in all the excitement about social media behind the firewall. It is reassuring to see that intranet managers have their feet firmly on the ground!

(click to enlarge chart)

2. User adoption is rising on the radar.

Do you remember that “usability and user-centered design” was the number 1 planned investment in the 2007 survey data? Not surprisingly, we see that “user adoption” becomes the 3rd hottest topic in 2008 if we combine “highly relevant” and “moderately relevant”. (chart above)

3.  “Governance” is getting real: people + ownership + content + quality

Intranet managers are rightfully focusing energy on publishing models, ownership and quality;  engaging and motivating part-time content providers; and on how to get people to work together.

Comments from the Quick Poll participants:

“Related to governance, I’d be interested to learn about what kind of intranet publishing models (distributed, hybrid, centralized, other) other organizations employ as well as how they maintain the quality and consistency of the intranet (content audits, standards, etc.).”

“How do we ensure that all content has an owner and how do we engage those content owners to keep their content up to date. This is certainly an issue with us.”

“A key pressure for me is getting business buy in, funding and ensuring people aren’t working on their own “thing” in silos thus undermining efforts the Intranet team make.”

“I would like to learn whether large organizations have in place programs or mechanisms by which to improve the overall quality of their intranet. Distributed authorship has taken off with content management systems – what are organizations doing to equip these ‘part time webmasters’ with the skills they need to create effective online communications? Who has editorial oversight for the whole intranet? Does this person or group have the authority needed to enforce standards? Do organizations even have standards? If yes, what format do they take, and what sort of success have organizations seen with their standards programs?”

4. “Intranet manager” is beginning to be perceived as a profession.

Both the 2006 and 2007 survey data showed that intranet managers in many organisations feel there is a low perception of the value of their role. The 2008 survey will attempt to provide a partial answer to what profile and skills are required to do the intranet manager job well.

“What are the top skills required, what are the barriers to entering/leaving the industry, what type of people are best suited to being intranet managers.”

5. The value of customisation and personalisability is still being questioned.

The 2006 and 2007 survey data indicated that both customisation and personalisability are increasing. In addition, 2007 showed that organisations in Stages 2 and 3 had higher degrees of role-based customisation and personalisability in their intranets.  Yet…how far should you go?

“We also wonder about the degree one should customize the intranet. How many roles are good to handle and make sense. Does it work to let the author decide who is the target group of his information? Or should their be represantatives of the target group who decide? And after all, how much personalization makes sense? You often read, that most employees don’t personalize their homepage. Is it worth the effort for the intranet team?”

6. Social media concerns are primarily on behaviour, not tools.

The buzz is decreasing and now intranet managers are looking at how organisations are managing their social media  implementations. For example, how do you encourage user adoption? How do you manage in highly regulated environments?

“On one hand people are requesting Web 2.0 features – and on the other hand it is very difficult to get people away from e-mail and shared drives.”

“Regarding social networking, what is the general attitude of organisations to the use of social networking by employees on company time. My company blocks all social networking sites and I am interested to know if employees who are allowed to access these sites abuse the privilege.”

“You’ve indicated that you might focus on employee directories / profile pages / org charts — please do, this is highly relevant and is a killer app that is often poorly done. With the new social media aspects to this — seeing who is a colleague of your colleagues — it’s a timely subject for a lot of focus.”

7. Defining priorities and keeping up the momentum is a major challenge.

Where are people spending energy and money? And how do they change the mind set from “an intranet project” to “a dynamic work tool”?

“Given that so many things regarding the intranet are important, where will companies focus their limited time and money?

“Breaking down projects is always an issue. It’s easy to create a strategy, to develop requirements, to prioritize and to implement a first step – but what happens then? How do you create and maintain awareness of the big intranet picture in order to avoid repeating questions like “Are we there yet?”, “We did already sponsor a project last year, why do you again need some money?”, “Is it still not finished?” -> the image of intranets needs to be transformed from a static one-time-project (been there, done that) to a growing, living and permanently changing tool for daily work.”

Total of 114 organisations of all sizes  participated in the Quick Poll.

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