世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

Over four days at the end of November and start of December last year, goo Research carried out a closed internet-based survey of 2,207 businesspeople to find out about the use of intra-company communication tools and blogs, and other related matters.

This is one subject I’d love to wax lyrical on, but sadly I suspect I’d probably get sacked if my boss read what I want to say! Suffice to say I am unaware of a blog by our prez; most of his communications are by PDF files. About a year ago we did try to introduce a community-based service that failed, perhaps partially due to it being seen as a gaijin thing, but more importantly … I’d better self-censor this post now.

The main problem people report is regarding information overload; either simply too much data or inability to highlight the new information. Interestingly, almost two-thirds are interested in work-related blogs, yet only just over half are interested in a community site, although the survey does not make clear what definition of “community” was used.

First, the basic demographics.

Number of employees at workplace

Employees
9 or less	22%
10 to 49	14.2%
50 to 99	8.0%
100 to 499	18.8%
500 to 999	7.6%
1000 or more	29.3%

Annual turnover at workplace

Up to 100 million yen	24.6%
100 million to 1 billion yen	17.4%
1 to 5 billion yen	12.4%
5 to 10 billion yen	7.1%
10 to 50 billion yen	11.4%
50 billion yen or more	21.4%
Other	5.7%

Q1: What electronic means are used for company-internal communication? (Sample size=2,207, multiple answer)

Email	81.8%
Intranet (BBS, etc)	50.5%
Groupware (Notes, Cybozu, etc)	35.3%
Internal blog	5.5%
Other	1.3%
No tool used for internal communication	15.5%

Q2: For groupware or intranet users in Q1, how do you use the tool? (Sample size=1,302)

Use most of its features	52.5%
It has lots of features, but only use a subset	42.6%
Hardly use it at all	4.9%

Q3: What problems do you have when you use the company internal communication tools? (Sample size=1,865, tool users, multiple answer)

There’s too much info, so cannot quickly find the desired data	29.2%
Awkward to view the latest information	25.4%
Many misunderstandings, duplications, and other unnecessaries	19.3%
Difficult to use because of too many features	15.9%
Other	5.8%
Nothing in particular	36.6%

Q4: What is the level of knowledge sharing within the company? (Sample size=1,865, tool users)

Can share knowledge very well (to Q6)	16.7%
Cannot really share knowledge effectively (to Q5)	45.0%
Each department or team, etc, separately analyses information (to Q5)	24.8%
Can barely share anything at all (to Q5)	13.5%

Q5: What sorts of information cannot you share internally? (Sample size=1,554, tool users with problems in Q4, multiple answer)

Business information	73.6%
Sales information	43.6%
Rules, manuals, etc	38.2%
Management vision, business direction, etc	37.6%
Management, financial information	31.8%
Other	1.2%

Q6: What would your intentions be for usage of a company-internal community site? (Sample size=1,743, non-blogging tool users in Q1)

Want to participate, both viewing and content creation	13.8%
Might be best to participate in both viewing and content creation	39.1%
Want to view information, but wouldn’t want to create content	20.3%
Don’t personally need anything in particular	26.9%

Q7: What would your intentions be for usage of a company-internal information-sharing blog? (Sample size=1,743, non-blogging tool users in Q1)

Definitely want to use (to Q8)	15.3%
Perhaps want to use (to Q8)	50.4%
Don’t really want to use (to Q9)	24.8%
Don’t want to use at all (to Q9)	9.5%

[part 1] [part 2]