Recently my colleague Janus Boye shared his take on the 5 key intranet trends for business managers in 2010:
- Metrics: Absolutely necessary if you want to improve on your intranet. Figuring out what should be the key metrics is not easy though. One place to start is Jane McConnell’s excellent post Intranet metrics: which indicators?
- Mobility: Mobile access to the intranet is in increasing demand, yet not many case studies can be found.
- Social: User-generated content, collaboration and participation; no longer just buzzwords, but the de-facto state on many intranets.
- Task-based: Not a new trend, but nevertheless important. Gerry McGovern for one has talked about this for years, e.g. back in 2007 when he published Intranets: what staff really want.
- Usability: Making your intranet easier to use is a big goal for many intranet managers these days.
Intranet expert Jane McConnell has her own list of the top 5 intranet trends based on her annual Global Intranet Trends survey, which offers a different perspective:
- Front door: Organizations are positioning the intranet as the entry point into the organization’s ensemble of information, applications, collaboration and communication tools.
- Team oriented: Supporting the daily work of teams.
- People oriented: What others might term “social”, McConnell describes as “giving room to the employee voice on the intranet”.
- Real time: Technologies such as presence indicators, instant messaging and web conferencing are beginning to show on more intranets.
- Place independent: Home access is possible in over one third of the organizations and smart phone access is just starting.
You can hear what these trends could mean for your work as an intranet manager at Jane’s keynote presentation on the intranet track at the Philadelphia 2010 conference. For more details on Jane’s intranet trends take a look at her slide deck on highlights from the Global Intranet Trends for 2010.
What is topping your intranet priority list in 2010?
