The Digital Workplace survey from Jane McConnell, NetStrategy JMC, has evolved from the highly respected Global Intranet Trends survey which ran from 2007 to 2011. The 2012 survey (published at the end of 2011) was a significant and very timely change of emphasis away from specifically focusing on intranets and instead seeking to define and characterise the digital workplace. The survey for the 2013 survey has now been released so now is the time to download the form (today!) and allocate 45 minutes or so to completing the survey before the deadline of 12 October. The scope of the survey includes digital workplace context and capabilities, leadership & management, social collaboration, mobile, cloud computing, security in the digital workplace, and budget policies & plans. This year the Digital Workplace Advisory Board has been set with of 20 leading intranet and digital practitioners, and they have played a strong role in defining the survey scope and questions.
A welcome change this year is that participants are able to download a Word document containing all the questions. This is for two reasons:
- In the past many participating organization organize internal strategy audits using this survey as a basis. By having a Word document it is easier for them to do so.
- Participants may need an easy way to consult other colleagues in their organization to get answers to some of the questions. Again, the Word document makes this easy as either specific questions or even the complete survey can be cut and pasted into an email for circulation or posted on a social media application.
Any type of organization from multinational company to government agency to NGO and of any size can participate but the respondent must be the person who has some degree of responsibility or involvement in the intranet or digital workplace. Survey participants receive a free copy of “Digital Workplace Trends 2013” when it is published in December 2012. The value of this report is in helping to build business cases, benchmark progress and levels of innovation with other organizations and gain an invaluable perspective on future trends. As in previous years the survey also highlights the characteristics and achievements of “leadership class” organizations, identifying what they are doing today and what they are planning for the future.
I would strongly recommend participation in the survey, not just from the value you will gain from the report in due course but because the process of completing the survey will almost certainly provide you with a fresh perspective on the opportunities and challenges for digital workspace adoption in your own organisation.
Martin White