Intranet Futures 2015

The next research paper coming from the IBF will take a close look at the future of Intranets, based on some identified trends in business, culture, and society over the next 7 years.

We're still working on the final editing tweaks, but we wanted to post this teaser  to encourage early discussion on the topic. As with any "futures" research - there are always so many different and interesting opinions. In this paper I've tried to identify patterns and likely outcomes, as well as take a "big picture" approach to understanding how Intranets will likely evolve in the next seven years.

The paper should be complete in early May, so check back for the whole thing then. Meanwhile, we would love to hear thoughts on the statements below.

Intranet future trends

• Intranets as we know them will cease to exist, as firewalls become porous to allow for open, horizontal and networked environments.
• Enterprise knowledge creation will be fully democratized, creating a “global public commons” of information driven by and for the employee, and any other interested party. Accordingly, traditional controls of company information channels will continue to weaken.
• To succeed at global business, companies will “shapeshift” according to business demand. This fluidity will challenge traditional definitions of employees, work, values, mission, and culture.  Intranets must become more open and interoperable, yet at the same time increasingly authentic and trusted.
• Work will be at once more global and more local, as environmental challenges restrain commuting and air travel but global integration expands.  Intranet applications and work processes will increasingly support mobile, flexible and global users.
• Increased awareness of environmental sustainability will bolster the “ecoprise” and a growth in supporting Intranet-related processes and technologies.
• The rise of the Semantic Intranet  will see semantic technologies applied to enterprise data, enabling powerful new ways of mining, sharing and analysis of massive amounts of shifting global business information.
• Mobile device use will grow dramatically as bandwidth costs drop and interfaces improve, along with mobile Intranet applications that leverage semantically enabled information.
• Accordingly, virtual, collaborative work technologies will thrive and improve, including growth in telepresence technologies and web-enabled integrated application suites.

For more information about the IBF Research Programme please visit the services section of www.ibforum.com