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Jane McConnell, well known intranet software expert and analyst just published her much awaited Global Intranet Trends 2011 report. The study incorporated inputs from 440 organizations from around the world. This sample pretty much includes organizations across the spectrum as it included mega enterprises with more than 100,000 employees and smaller organizations with less than a 1000 employees. Jane identified 5 mega trends impacting intranets in 2011 1) The intranet is the front door to the workplace web: The intranet is the "front door" to the workplace web - a set of communication and collaboration tools, and information that help employees do their jobs. "Business needs" and "productivity" are number two intranet strategy drivers after communication. 2) Team oriented and collaborative: Intranets of yesteryear, which were static and sometimes jokingly referred to as "the place where information comes to die" have become collaborative and focused on team activities. 10% of survey participants said their intranets were totally collaborative, 20%  said they had integrated collaboration tools into the intranet, and 40% integrated with external collaboration systems. 3) People centric: Rather than being information centric, intranets of today provide the tools for employees to connect and network with each other, and create communities across all levels. Social media was found in 70% of the organizations, blogs and wikis in 55%, and 30% had some sort of ideation process in place (a way to generate new ideas) 4) Real time: Intranets are becoming a platform for real time communication, speeding up connections and decision making. 26% of the intranets had social networking, and 23% had twitter like "activity streams". 5) Place independent: Now employees no longer need to be confined to the office to have access to intranet information and tools. 90% of organizations said that the intranet could be accessed from outside the office and at home, while 30% of organizations said that accessing the intranet from home was a "common practice" for employees. 25% said they were currently running pilot projects to enable mobile or smartphone access to intranets. Â
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