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How does your intranet compare with those of other companies? It can be difficult to know, since intranets are typically inaccessible to those outside the company. That's why a recent survey of global intranet use and trends compiled by Intranet Dashboard should find interest with any developer.

Intranet Dashboard timed the Global Intranet Benchmarking Survey to coincide with the 2.0 release of its award-winning intranet creation software. The company surveyed a global audience, with over half of respondents (53 percent) in Australia, where Intranet Dashboard is based. Only 18 percent of respondents were in North America.

Cautious about new features

The Intranet Dashboard survey asked questions about what features companies offered on their intranets, what tools were most useful, what they plan to add, and who at their company controls the intranet. As a whole, the responses suggest that most companies are cautious about adding new features -- even collaboration tools that generate a lot of hype in the press -- until they're certain they makes sense for their business.

If your intranet is decidedly low-tech, it turns out it's not the only one. The largest group of respondents said their site was made of static HTML pages, while far fewer said they use a content management system or an all-in-one intranet creation tool.

When asked about current features and their popularity, these proved the most popular: content management, document management, search, news, and shared calendars. Despite all the attention they've gotten, blogs have not become a mainstay on the majority of intranets, with only 11 percent of respondents saying they were very popular on the company intranet.

On the subject of challenges that developers planned to overcome for their intranets in the next 12 months, the most popular answers were to improve internal communications, improve content management, improve overall usability, and to work on knowledge management. Despite all the social tools available, it appears that people view the intranet primarily as a practical tool that needs to enhance collaboration among workers.

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