The well-known intranet consultancy Step Two, based physically in Australia but active around the world, is organising the Intranet Innovation Awards. (NetStrategy/JMC is participating as a member of the international panel of supporting organisations.) Note that James Robertson who writes the intranet industry reference blog Column Two, is managing director of Step Two, and the key thinker behind the Intranet Innovation Awards.
The awards will be given to recognise "new ideas and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of intranets". Step Two specifics that "The goal is to find these ideas (whether large or small), and to share them with the wider community."
This new competition is unique in that it does not deal with intranets as a whole, but rather specific functions, services, concepts within an intranet that bring value to the organisation or to the users.
The reason I am very pleased to support this award is that I have always felt that prizes awarded to individual intranets as a whole are highly misleading. The ones I am familiar with are usually the result of political decisions. 'Let's give it to X this year. Last year it was Y." Etc.
How can one intranet be outstandingly better than another? True, many intranets are better than many others, but designating the top 1 or 5 or 10 intranets in any given category is a dubious venture.
Intranets should support user, organisational and business needs. It is impossible in my opinion to determine that one is doing it notably better than another unless you include analysis on
- what the needs are,
- how the intranet supports them,
- and whether or not the intranet makes a difference to the people and the organisations.
Mission impossible unless you have access to extensive internal information from the organisations.
Benchmarking is a risky activity. The word is used too loosely. Consultants and agencies like it because it is a good source of business. However, unless you are able to find an organisation similar to yours in terms of user profiles, business challenges, organisational issues and sector / industry and regulatory requirements, you cannot draw meaningful conclusions from comparing the intranets.
What companies who embark upon what they call "benchmarking" really want to do, is get good ideas from other intranets and see if they make sense for their own intranets. That is something that can come from simple exchange of ideas and clear thinking about what can work for you.
Hopefully - if enough organisations participate, this will be something the Intranet Innovation Awards will help you do.
I encourage you to take a look at the information pages on Step Two's web site, where you will find more information and the entry form. The deadline is 15 May.
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