Jane McConnell (NetStrategiesJMC) tells me that the 2008 Global Intranet Strategies Survey (now in its third year) will remain open until 31 August. Companies and organizations with intranets who participate will receive a free advance copy of the Intranet Trends Report when it is published in October 2008.

The 2008 data will provide the latest information on a number of current hot intranet topics. For example will "Search" be in better health this year? 2007 showed that it is a major pain point not yet being properly dealt with. Another followup to 2007 will be to see if social media projects have matured into value-added services In 2007 over 70 % of the organisations said they are experimenting with social media in their intranets. IT will also be interesting to see if the planned investment in user-centred design and usability actually happended. This of course is the value of an annual survey. Although  many surveys have recently been published on a range of information management topics these inevitably provide just a snapshot of the current situation and give no sense of whether a point of data is on an up-slope or a down-slope.

The 2008 survey also looks at some new areas. Is the often vague role of "Intranet Manager" becoming a new profession? What expertise and skills are required? What is the future of this role? And how are companies facilitating the work of virtual teams made up of internal and external people who need to share information that is behind firewalls?

To participate in the 2008 Survey send an email to Jane McConnell at jane@netjmc.com for more information. Include your name, title, organization and number of employees. You'll then receive your personalised link to the online survey platform.

Martin White