There are so many things that we just don’t know in the realm of collaboration. There is some data available, but it’s a constantly changing landscape. That’s one reason why I find Jane McConnell’s annual Global Intranet Trends report so critical to my work.

Jane’s just released the 2010 trends report, and while it gives great data on a whole raft of intranet related topics, I found the following especially helpful:

• Exhibit 58 (page 83) on the current status of regulating collaboration and discussion places, including set up and tear down policies. This talks directly to points in my books, Seamless Teamwork and SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration.
• The five underlying trends include ideas that tie directly to my collaboration frameworks — the 7 Pillars and 4 Foundations. Those are the team-oriented intranet (and go-forward challenges with this), the real-time intranet, and the place-independent intranet. It’s good to see additional validation of my frameworks.
• The proportions of organizations with team spaces and community of practice areas, and the degree of integration these have with the intranet today. It’s helpful to see how big the problem remains.

There is so much else in this report … so here’s my net-net: If you are involved in shaping how people at your firm use communications, coordination and collaboration technologies to support work, then Jane’s report is a must-have .

As a final point of interest, Jane sought my assistance earlier in the year to frame the collaboration questions in her survey. My thanks to Jane for “collaborating” with me on her survey, and I appreciate the mention on page 148.

Details on purchasing a copy of the report will be published on Jane’s web site shortly.