Jane McConnell has started to share the conclusions of the 5th Annual Global Intranet Trends report and survey, including the five key megatrends.

1. The intranet is becoming the front-door into the “workplace web” (the overall landscape of content, services, tools and applications people need to do their jobs). “Business needs” and “productivity” are the number two intranet strategy drivers after “communication”.

2. The intranet is becoming more team-oriented, as project and collaborative spaces are being integrated. 10 % of the organizations say their entire intranet is collaborative; 20 % have integrated collaboration into the intranet; 40 % have linked their collaboration spaces to the intranet.

3. The intranet is becoming a platform for near “real-time” communication, accelerating the speed at which people communicate and do business together. 26 % of the participating organizations have some degree of micro-blogging, either in pilot, limited deployment or enterprise-wide. 41 % of the leaders have micro-blogging.

4. The intranet is now place-independent, extended beyond corporate walls and beyond the computer. 90 % of the organizations say it is technically possible to access the intranet from home and 30 % say that for many employees, working from home is “a common practice”. 7 % have optimized their intranet for access by mobile devices such as smart phones. 25 % of the organizations are planning or currently running pilots for this. In the leader segment, 8 % have done it, and 33 % are in planning and pilot stages.

5. The intranet is becoming people-focused, a place where people can comment directly on published content, connect to others and build networks and communities.22 % of the participating organizations have social networks, either in pilots, limited deployment or enterprise-wide. 41 % of the leaders have social networks, and half of these are already enterprise-wide.

My overall summary is that leading firms are changing their Intranets from being a “place to post corporate stuff” to a “place where people get their work done.” The megatrends above explore what that means – (1) it’s the frontdoor to the workplace web, (2) there is more collaboration and (3) real-time interaction, and (5) it’s more about people – and a consequence of the change – (4) location independence.

Read more about the 2011 Global Intranet Trends survey and report.

(Great work Jane – awesome to see the 5th edition of this survey and report.)