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About Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell, founder of NetStrategy/JMC, thought leader on intranet strategies and trends.

Type of workforce and intranet services

I'm often asked  "How can we reach people in the field?" or "How can we extend the reach of our intranet to all employees?" or "Does it really make sense to offer intranet services on a smartphone?".

This year's Digital Workplace Trends report will provide guidance on these challenges. After consultation and feedback on this blog and in several LinkedIn groups (NetJMC&Co, WIC, Intranet Professionals) we have settled on 5 types of workforce we will use for this year's Digital Workplace survey.

We'll be looking at how organizations serve these types of workforces:

1. Floor / front line / non office-based
Examples: manufacturing, shop floor, sales floor, restaurant
People work on site in a single location, computers are not primary work tools
Probable: access to shared computers/kiosks

2. Frequent travellers
Examples: salesforce, consultants,
Different locations within a working day or week
Probable: individual laptop, tablet, smartphone

3. Field workforce
Examples: field workforce, logistics, transport, service engineers
Almost always on the road, different locations within a working day or week
Probable: dedicated, customized, individual device

4. Desk / corporate workplace
Examples: bank, call center, office staff
Individual computer/laptop belonging to the organization
Computer is primary work tool, available during most of working day

5. Home-based
Examples: Worker based at home most of the time
Individual computer/laptop belonging to the organization
Computer is primary work tool, available during most of working day

Thanks to many of you for your input, specifically Brian, Chuck, Franklin, Greg, Jonathan, Luke, Mike, Petra, Riikka, Roel, Shawn, Sherry and Susan.

What is your vision for intranet & digital workplaces in 2015?

This year's Digital Workplace Trends survey (open in the second part of June) will be taking a look at some future scenarios. Organizations often need to provide goals and plans for 3 to 5 years out. Knowing what other organizations are thinking about can help!

(Sign up for the survey now. Participant requirements here.)

What scenarios would you like to add to this list?

What comments do you have about this list?

Cloudtop - always on, always there
Accessing information from everywhere, and no longer dependent on a single device. Cloud-computing and web services (e.g. service-oriented architecture, software as a service) are making this possible. People are no longer tied to their physical location or devices. They can access the information they need when they need it. Staff, clients and partners can share spaces in the cloud for smarter, faster collaboration.

My Apps - the ultimate user-centric intranet
The overall intranet as we know it today is extinct. Instead, people select what they need from a collection of apps. They define their own mashups. (Mashups combine information from different sources into a single application.) The intranet has become a highly customized collection of apps where people download what they need to do their jobs to their computers, tablets or smartphones.

Smart systems
Decision engines (search engines that use input from the user) and smart systems make the user experience highly relevant. For example, the search results go beyond filtering and actually evaluate and rank the results based on the user's past behavior.  Another example: the system is aware of when the user last read a policy document and alerts the users the next time they embark on a process where the policy has changed.

On-demand teams and expert networks - corporate crowdsourcing
Teams are formed quickly based on people's skills, availability, current workload and location. Through real-time access to experts, a team can find and consult experts as their project advances. Presence indicators (including skills and expertise) are integrated into business process applications.

Super search
Advanced search technologies allow searching structured and unstructured information from difference sources and applications across the enterprise. Semantic search, faceted search and search-driven menus give people greater relevance and control over the vast amounts of information inside and outside the enterprise.

Tell me what you would like to investigate via this year's survey.

This survey is your survey, so please contribute!

Sign up now. Participant requirements here.