Conference – Intranet Now

Intranet Now postponed until 2021

@Wedge — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 06:37:00 +0000

The next Intranet Now conference won’t be this autumn – we’ve postponed it until October 2021.

Lisa and I had hoped to do something this year, but even if distancing restrictions lift, we recognise that people will make their own decisions about where they feel comfortable going. As Intranet Now is managed by just the two of us (with support from partners and the venue of course), we don’t feel confident enough this year, considering the workload, financing, and indoor distancing rules at the venue.

I mean, Lisa’s working long hours in her day job, while I never leave the house and am supporting some large projects in my job. We want to have the confidence and zeal needed to put on the near-first-class event you expect.

Real life and virtual

I launched Intranet Now back in 2015 to bring digital comms and intranet managers together in discussion; not something easily done via webinar or virtual event. So Intranet Now, itself, must be a real-life event, even if Lisa and I do some kind of online event to facilitate sharing and learning in the meantime.

There’s some appetite to do Intranet Now in the spring of 2021, but having a fallow year and trusting our usual autumn spot feels better.

Now and next year

We’ll confirm the 2021 date in a few months. It will either be the 1st or 8th of October 2021, and for some reason, we can’t decide which. Maybe our platinum partner will help us plump for a date!

Please sign up for our newsletter and join our LinkedIn Group so we can let you know about the date and theme – we’ll start looking for in-house practitioner speakers around March or April I imagine.

We’ll also invite you to any webinars or half-day virtual events we might produce! We’ve had interest for such from intranet platform vendors and comms agencies, so we’ll have a think.

Lisa and I are too busy to be sad just yet, but as the summer cools into autumn, I know we’re going to pine for the frenetic excitement and miss our partners, volunteers, and the community terribly. I know I shall frequently wake with the urge to buy nice shirts and critique PowerPoints.

We are really sorry to miss you this year, and we hope you’ll help us create the best experience next year when Intranet Now returns to London.

Save the date

@Wedge — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 06:27:33 +0000

A date for your diary – block out the 9th of October 2020 for next year’s Intranet Now!

Yep yep, Lisa and I are (still) keen to do another conference, providing we can keep the ticket prices down by engaging sponsor-partners and can attract top speakers to the stage. Shouldn’t be a problem!

It’s too early to ask, but keep in mind that we love inviting in-house practioners to talk about their work – around all the topics that touch on comms, engagement, adoption, and the digital workplace.

Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list to keep up-to-date with our ‘call for speakers’ and our ticket sales next year.

See all the photos from autumn 2019 – and the presentations; we had a busy, day of talks and discussions.

A meeting of many minds at Intranet Now

Lisa Riemers — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 23:27:47 +0000

The seventh Intranet Now conference happened last friday. On behalf of Wedge and me I’d like to thank our sponsors, volunteers, participants and venue team for contributing to a brilliant day.

I’m still processing everything that went on. It was certainly a day packed full of people talking about strategic digital workplaces. A day of sharing what works, and what doesn’t. And what to think about when you’re planning your next move.

Two out of three of our top-rated speakers were from sponsor partners – which is a real testament to the quality of minds we have right here in this community of comms, content, intranet and tech people. And we had some brilliant feedback from the workshops from Invotra (and DWP Digital, hi Louis!), Cloud2, Interact and Scarlett Abbott. Not to mention some interesting conversations at our table talks.

It’s hard to be definite when there are no straight lines

Fintan from Invotra kicked us off with a keynote, which left me and Simon Thompson pondering about where to draw the line when you’re trying to define your strategy. Intranets by their very nature are the most flexible systems in any ecosystem, so deciding what it is (and what it isn’t) is important.

The content dogsbody?

Get your content in order

Kelly and Annette both gave brilliant content-related presentations. Annette’s quip about an audit being the Spanx of your intranet strategy (as they get you in good shape) was absolutely my Quote of The Day. Kelly’s slide about the content dogsbody as a way of prioritising your content was my Slide Of The Day.

Do the hard stuff, not just the low-hanging fruit

I particularly enjoyed hearing about the Spark Trajectory Task Trajectory framework, which covers how to prioritise the top tasks in your digital workplace. It’s easy to try and go after those quick wins, but the things people will really thank you for are the hard things they have to do a lot. Like access the right travel policies and find the right guidance they need right now.

Governing the governors?

Governance works

As I mentioned on the day, governance is a hot topic for me right now and I enjoyed thinking it through with people in the room. I thought it was interesting to hear the different approaches from Tanya, Tony and Chris. While it felt at times like we all agreed Governance is A Good Thing, the actual shape of it, rules and management of it varied considerably.

Perhaps a question / scene-setter which defined *what* we were governing would have been a good idea, as our debate switched between the policies within the core intranet, to wider content on enterprise social networks (ESNs). I’m still considering my thoughts around this and look forward to hearing more from those of you listening on the day.

You're going to need a bigger case, Kurt

Diamonds in the stream

It was brilliant to be able to award Kurt the Intranet Now Diamond Award. We had lots of nominations – (check out Wedge’s post about the shortlist. Kurt has worked tirelessly to bring together the intranet community across Europe. We had some lovely comments from the Diamond alumni who helped us make the final decision.

Lots of new faces, and old friends too

While we had a handful of people that have been to all seven Intranet Now conferences (I’ve been to 6!) we also welcomed lots of new people on Friday. I’m always pleased to meet new people but I’m terrible at remembering if I’ve met someone before. Sometimes (like with Annette!) I’m convinced I *have* had lengthy conversations in the past, but usually I can’t remember if we had a chat in person last week.

Smoothly does it (in the main)

The best rewards don’t (always) come easily, right? As you (may) know, organising Intranet Now is something that we do around our day jobs. I started out this year with a broken foot, and a new contract – two things that don’t usually go together brilliantly. This is also the year we ran not one, but two Intranet Now events. We had an absolute blast at our summer event and really enjoyed Autumn. I’m tremendously proud of what we achieved and am supremely grateful to Wedge for the phenomenal amount of work he put in to make it a success. We may have had a few tech gremlins on the day but I think (and the feedback on our forms suggests) that it was a good day for intranerds.

Check out our photos on Flickr

View stream on flickr

Over to you

It can be hard to take in all of what happened and I’m looking forward to reading your write-up if you were there! Let’s keep sharing our experiences post-event and continue to learn from each other.

Too busy working to be strategic

@Wedge — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 12:35:40 +0000

Your task list only grows

New urgent things have to be done on a daily basis. You respond to emails quickly because you don’t want to hold up anybody else’s work.

You know your employee communication channels are creaking, but you don’t have the time to revamp or replace them as that would become a whole project-thing.

You’d love to say ‘no’ to ‘please send this’ requests, but showing them how to publish things themselves would take longer than just doing it. So ‘just do it’ becomes your mantra as you eat lunch at your desk, because having a meeting about processes and quality would overwhelm your team — now’s not a good time, what with all the change already going on.

You can’t remember when you weren’t firefighting.

Is there a strategy?

Is there a comms strategy? Is there an intranet strategy (that isn’t four years old and doesn’t start with ‘launch new intranet’)?

Being strategically minded is valued by most colleagues, but you have to get things done. The trick is to get the things that matter done, and have licence to avoid and delay the things that don’t truly makes things better.

But how do you, how does anyone, decide what matters?

Personally, I struggle with judgement calls about other people’s priority tasks, and I can be swayed to deprioritise my own in order to be helpful. After all, this thing is important to them, and they’ve come to me for help. Are we not all about collaboration and meaningful progress…? But stop all that!

Everything that we do should move us, the project, or the organisation closer to defined goals. Goals that are genuinely shared and clearly communicated (for the most part), and part of the specific or overall strategy. Elsewise, what are you doing? Who are you working for?

You’re definitely an expert adviser, but are you strategically minded?

There’s a cost involved to setting strategy; best to be up-front about the time needed to develop and explain a strategic direction for your team, department, overall function, or main communication platforms. Good strategy is costly because it’s valuable.

But who has time for the dull documents, the drawn-out approval processes, and the many, many meetings needed to set, agree, and understand ‘the strategy’?

Understandably this means that some would rather invest cold hard cash into strategy than time, because time and energy are so obviously undervalued and in such short supply. But a solid strategy – that’s a touchstone, that’s shared, understood, and oft discussed – directs our most valuable work. Solid strategy ensures we know what is in scope, what to delegate, what to say ‘no’ to.

Strategy is important to senior managers

The value of our comms and engagement work isn’t always immediately evident to stakeholders. They see ‘stuff happening’, hits, views, engagement scores et cetera, but they don’t directly link all that employee stuff to revenue, to costs, to new customer acquisition. Harsh, I know.

We want leaders to be involved, and we expect them to have a wide view of the organisation, but if our digital and people work is to be valued we have to be able to express that value – the outcomes – clearly enough so they get discussed in the board room.

Align your tactics to your strategy

To create value for stakeholders, audiences, customers, users, and our colleagues, we need to align our tactics to the stated strategy.

Don’t let anyone call their action plan a ‘strategy’, and never let anyone dismiss your tactics as being low value. We need high-quality tactics to achieve our strategic goals.

All of this and more is going to be discussed at our Intranet Now conference on the 4^th of October, in London. You should come along – not only do we have some amazingly experienced tacticians and strategists from the Wellcome Trust, the AA, Willmott Dixon, Scottish Natural Heritage, the NHS, Standard Life Aberdeen, and Affinity Water, but we also build time into the day for your contributions and conversations.

Take a look at the agenda, the lovely venue, and get a high-value low-cost ticket.

Diamond Award 2019 nominees

@Wedge — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 14:54:58 +0000

For remarkable contribution to the intranet community

Our Diamond award is for an individual who contributes to the intranet community – the community that’s a big Venn or Euler diagram that includes in-house practitioners, consultants, and vendors across internal communications, change, collaboration, information technology, design, and the whole digital workplace environment.

Everybody on the short and long lists works to improve things for others – we highly recommend that you connect with every one of the following stars on Linkedin and Twitter.

Short list

First name links to Linkedin, second name links to Twitter.

Andrew Wright — runs Worldwide Intranet Challenge as a free benchmarking service, and curates the two biggest LinkedIn groups in our area (Intranet and DW Professionals, and Digital Workplace and Intranet Employee Benchmarking).

Elisabeth Marsh — for her thought leadership within DWG, and recently her superb work on digital literacy. Long career in research and academia, adding to the formal knowledge we have.

Kurt Sorensen — has tirelessly run an intranet community in Denmark, with a genuine passion for the space, and conferences (with wide influence), intranet awards, and posting collections of articles.

Lau Andreason — for connecting people and ideas around intranets for more than a decade.

Paul Miller — a long history, but also books and a current podcast and expansion into America.

Richard Hare — someone who’s been bringing intranetters together for years and is generous with his time and knowledge.

Steve Bynghall and Chris Tubb — for thoughtful blogging and ideas which improve the professional standards of intranet managers.

We will announce the winner a few minutes before 5pm on the 4th of October at our Intranet Now conference.

Long list

While not up for the Diamond Award this year, each of the following people work to contribute to the community and are well worth connecting with and following.

First name links to Linkedin, second name links to Twitter.

Hanna Karppi — for her practical but creative approach to helping people get work done.

James Dellow — who blogs, presents and joins in the global community from Australia.

Jed Cawthorne — for his generosity with his time and knowledge and willingness to help. Has also acted on the CMSWire reader advisory board, judged digital workplace leaders awards.

Jesper Bylund — sharing his journey to create a good council intranet [and creating the intranet governance card game].

Larraine Solomon of Monster — for inspiring conversations on all aspects of internal communication, intranets, and employee engagement.

Mark Morrell — a role-model for the intranet community for his work at BT and his earlier blogging.

Matt Jukes — for considered counsel in this space but also for curating his digital jobs list.

Nigel Williams — his insight has helped many companies achieve intranet success.

Rita Zonius — for ESN Chat, blogging, conference work.

Suzie Robinson — started blogging as an intranet manager and has now become an intranet platform expert at ClearBox.

Tom Chippendale — a digital manager who shares company insights on his blog, which is a big deal.

Tony Stewart — for his thought leadership on how to link intranets with bots. He understands the challenges companies face when migrating from static intranets to ESNs on to cognitive bots.

Before you start @ing me, remember that Martin White, Sam Marshall, James Robertson, the Intranetizens, Brian Lamb, and Ellen van Aken have already won the Diamond award! And of course, the dozens of nominations that come in for me on a monthly basis are simply deleted.

We will announce the winner a few minutes before 5pm on the 4th of October at our Intranet Now conference. You should come!

Tickets

How to succeed at life (and intranets)

Lisa Riemers — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 21:54:09 +0000

Why are you here? Why are any of us here? What drives you?

I love introducing groups of friends who have things in common. And that feeling of community I get bumping into people I know, for example in my lovely local pub The Rusty Bucket, or the Kidbrooke Beer and Cider Festival which I volunteer at. Or, you know, Intranet Now. Sometimes those circles overlap (hi Kathryn, hi Paul! And a shout out to Anna who doesn’t give a fig about intranets but goes above and beyond in her community and shares our stuff generously.)

I’ve also always liked trying to make it easier to communicate. Whether it’s setting up our teaching course’s first email distribution list at university, linking friends and colleagues together to learn from each other if they’ve got a similar problem, or helping people find what they need on an intranet.

“Where is this ramble going, Lisa?” I hear you think? We were talking in the pub the other night about our various careers (actually, mainly mine). And even though I’ve worked in a variety of environments (in sometimes unpopular organisations) there have been common threads throughout.

5 ways to succeed at life and intranets

In the words of Rizzle Kicks, let’s skip to the good bit.

Don’t just stand there, do something.

Simple things can help make a difference. It doesn’t always have to be a Big Technical Thing. While I was at university I remember being infuriated by the methods of internal communication – putting posters and signs up on a notice board in a building nobody used. I helped set up a basic email list by handing around a sheet of paper, and started the ball rolling.

Bring your experience with you

My first corporate role was teaching bar and restaurant staff how to use their new ePOS till systems to get the information they need to do their jobs. A combination of the skills I learned teaching, with knowing what bar managers need to understand.

I went on to work at a mortgage lender, taking my admin and comms skills to a new level giving intermediaries the information they needed to do their jobs. And then took those comms skills into working at a security company, getting my CIM qualification along the way.

Each role building on the things I learned before. I’ve only met one person who deliberately went into intranets (hi Sindy!). But even if you think you’ve left them behind (hi Brian) you might find your previous experience adds a lot of value to your future. Think about how you can bring your unique insights (whatever they may be) into your work life!

Stay curious and ask questions

I went on to specialise in digital after working on a website project as part of an external comms role. I remember in my first week hearing two people in the *same room* working on two separate yet identical projects and helped them connect and reduce duplication. And saw that amplified when we introduced an enterprise social network (ESN) where anyone could share what they were working on.

Find your tribe (or tribes)

I had no idea that intranet people even existed. There are a few super-connectors I know (hi Wedge, Richard, Sharon, Kurt, James, Catherine, Simon, Steve) and those tangentially linked communities (Martin, Helen, Rahel) who help bring the right people together. I remember walking into Intranet Now and feeling weirdly comfortable. I mean, I was slightly intimidated by all the expertise in the room, but found that I was also able to contribute and share my perspective.

Anyway, Chris Tubb summarised it in his inimitable way in this tweet:

We are even stronger and versatile when mixed with others.— Chris Tubb (@christubb) September 19, 2019

Intranets (and, well, life) can feel a bit lonely sometimes. But if I can help someone else (or many people) not have to repeat the same mistakes, to feel more connected, then I’ve succeeded. And I’m lucky enough to be in a position to able to do that. Whether that’s at formal events, meet-ups or the social bits that come after and between.

Join us at Intranet Now next week and share your experience!

The Intranet Now experience

@Wedge — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 11:07:27 +0000

Easy registration

Join us early to pick up your name badge. No ticket needed, we have you on the list!

Head into the exhibition space for coffee and carbs, and grab yourselves a sticker – or 7? It’s our 7th conference and this autumn we’re encouraging conversation starters by talking about a neutral ground – us! Will it be your first time, or have you been coming to Intranet Now from the very beginning? What are you there to find out about? What should people expect?

Even if you don’t leave with a new friend, you’re certain to meet people with similar responsibilities to you. Not something you can always say, considering the diverse skillsets within the digital crowd.

Your name badge awaits you.

The Wall (and James and et al.).

Exhibition space

The venue is dissected by the old Roman wall of London, so take a selfie with a genuinely historic backdrop, before swanning around our exhibitor stands with a hot beverage.

The place will soon fill up, so get in early to meet friends, acquaintances, and new people before the conference begins. Take a look at the workshop outlines and table talk topics – if you’ve got a question about them, we’re sure our partners will be happy to help!

Kick off with a keynote

The conference opens with a sharp keynote (only 18 minutes) from our platinum partners – more on this to follow!

Key note.

Lightning talk.

Lightning talks

There’s much discussion about the optimal short-talk length, but we know that 9 minutes is the sweet spot! We started Intranet Now in 2014 with 5-minute talks, in later years we experimented with 7, and now we know that 9 minutes is perfect. It’s just enough time to lay out a problem, explore the solution(s) and discuss the impact upon people and the organisation. Plus, and this is not being uncharitable at all, if a talk doesn’t interest you, well, we have like a dozen other talks coming up in just a few mins! The agenda covers many aspects of communications, engagement, and collaboration within the digital workplace.

SNAQs

Lightning talks are so fast-paced, there’s no time for your questions. Or is there?!

Before lunch we’ll hand the mic over to you for your 60-second hot take, or question you’d like to talk to people about throughout the afternoon. You’ll have just heard from some great presenters throughout the morning and now it’s time to add your hot_reaction_.gif — Start by saying “This is more of a statement, not a question” (SNAQ, get it?) to be sure of a warm reception.

Get on stage for 60 seconds.

The exhibition space during a break.

Breaks

Each break is a chance to catch up with your peers and friends, and make new acquaintances. There’s a good bunch of digital-types that always come to Intranet Now, but I don’t mind telling you that there were loads of brand-new people at the last conference.

We want everyone to feel welcome, and to feel comfortable and confident in discussing their own experiences and challenges. With so much expertise in the room, it’s a brilliant opportunity to connect with people who understand the digital landscape. [Insert promo of IN LinkedIn and Twitter here.] Use everybody’s elemental sticker to start a conversation – debate the pros and cons of typecasting.

Workshop

Straight after lunch, head to either your chosen workshop, or back into the conference hall for table talks.

While there are multiple workshops available, we ask that you choose, and register, for only one.

The workshop leaders will be on stage just before the first break to ‘sell’ you their workshop, and you register on paper during the break (or lunch).

While the workshop is only 40 minutes, it’s great to slow the pace and explore one topic in more depth.

A workshop in a break-out room.

Table talks - small group discussion. Informal and semi-structured around a topic.

Table talks

When not in a workshop, you’ll be in two informal discussions at tables in the conference hall. Pick your topic, or simply sit with your favourite speaker, and discuss your real-life digital challenges with a small group of peers for 20 minutes.

We’ve tried to take as much pain as we can out of ‘networking’ – with stickers, breaks, table talks and a workshop — you’re not sat in the same chair all day, and you’ll naturally meet new people and get into fresh conversations. If you’re an introvert (or a tired omnivert / ambivert like me), you’re welcome to step outside for a breath, but we hope you’ll take the opportunity to learn with peers outside of your usual circle for at least one table talk.

The debate

We’ll be discussing the best way to govern a digital workplace, with three speakers giving alternate points of view.

It’s more than a panel discussion, as each debater gets to set out their approach in a mini-presentation first. We hope that seeing the success three people have had with different approaches illuminates your intranet choices.

And we hope the debate sparks additional thoughts and concerns from you, as we’ll throw out a roving mic to you in the audience for your questions (and statements) for the debaters to consider. Like I always say, nobody at Intranet Now is an attendee, everybody is a participant.

Three debaters will present and then discuss.

We hope you have questions and observations.

Not the end

The roving mic brings us to the end of our summer conference; hopefully, we’ll have not only seen some presentations that stick in the mind, but will also have heard some insights from the crowd that we can all reflect upon and take back to the office on Monday.

We’ll publish the photos from the day, and many of the presentation files, so we’ll email you with details and continue the conversation within our LinkedIn Group.

Will you join us?

If you haven’t already got your ticket, Lisa and I invite you to check out our tickets and consider the benefits of bringing teammates from across your organisations. Lessons are easier to learn (and implement) when more than one of you ‘gets it’.

If you’re working to improve communications, collaboration, and productivity across your organisation (and care about people) then Intranet Now is an invaluable experience that will boost your knowledge and energy.

Agenda

Tickets

Venue

Intranet Now is brought to you by the letters d i g i t a l and w o r k p l a c e by Lisa and Wedge with the support of our sponsors.

October’s conference theme — it’s strategy all the way down

@Wedge — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 11:00:58 +0000

Intranet Now has always been the conference for comms and intranet people, but of course we talk about the wider digital workplace, engagement, and the employee experience. It’s about work, and so it’s about life.

The impact of a strategic digital workplace

The tools and tactics to align your intranet with your organisation’s strategy

This October’s theme, so eloquently summarised above, is about showing the strategic value of your tactical work – demonstrating how projects and business-as-usual work supports organisation goals.

We’ve got some very strategic speakers lined up, including Mark Owen and Kirsty McEvoy of Affinity Water, Martin Stubbs-Partridge of Scottish Natural Heritage, Hannah Moss of Willmott Dixon, Kurt Kragh Sørensen of IntraTeam, Tanya Burak of Savills, Baxter Willis of WM Reply, and many more that we mean to announce next week!

Each speaker brings their practical experience to the stage to showcase their work and illuminate the problems we all face around new ways of working, reaching remote workers, and the technology that must support colleagues’ needs and business goals.

(If you’re an inhouse practitioner, we invite you to submit a presentation idea.)

Our theme is wide enough to include employee engagement and of course digital internal communications, but specific enough to ensure that everyone who comes along to Intranet Now goes back to the office with renewed confidence in the value of their work. We want everyone to lbe able to convince stakeholders of the strategic importance of the digital workplace, intranet, and internal communications.

Please pop the 4th of October in your diary now, but get your tickets asap.

Our tickets are very well-priced, and exceptional value for teams that come together.

See all tickets

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Fantastic event with lots of valuable ideas to take back with me

Ayesha Graves

Digital Product Manager, Federation of Small Businesses

Helped me achieve better business outcomes and provided a network of new connections

Larraine Solomon

Global Vice President of IC, Employee Engagament, and Change, Monster

I came for the lunch, I stayed for the content

Paul Chapman

Intranet Manager, Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts

A great day full of insightful digital workplace experts

Neil Morgan

Digital Workplace Consultant

Intranet Now taught me about engaged colleagues sharing good practice impact business behaviours

Anna Kelly

Internal Communications Channels Manager, Tarmac

I never knew there was so much to know about intranets

Dale Massey

Head of Technology Services, Department for International Trade (DIT)

Strategic call for speakers

Lisa Riemers — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 14:21:02 +0000

We’re gearing up for our 7th Intranet Now conference and we’re looking for practitioners who can express the strategic value of their digital work.

If you’ve a good story to tell, step forward and share your experience with around 155 people on the 4th of October (in London).

The lightning talk format gives you just 9 minutes to lay out the problem, solution development, and the strategic value / business impact. It’s (hopefully) an enjoyable challenge, and the time limit certainly hones your message.

We’re particularly keen to hear about the tools and tactics you’ve used to align your intranet with your organisation’s strategy — and how your digital workplace helps people work better, and be better.

You don’t have to be an ‘intranet manager’ and in fact, lots of our speakers aren’t – we’re looking for digital specialists, comms professionals, content designers, technical architects, governance and strategy planners, and those involved with collaboration and employee engagement.

Submit your talk idea

The conference is on the 4th of October 2019, in London. We’ll pay your (reasonable) travel expenses and you’ll get a ticket to what we think is the best digital workplace event in town!

Nominate your digital hero for the Intranet Now Diamond Award

@Wedge — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 11:15:29 +0000

The (massive) Diamond Award is for someone’s remarkable contribution to the intranet community.

What does ‘contribution’ mean? What does ‘community’ mean? Honestly, you know.

The Diamond Award recognises individuals who share their work, knowledge, experience. People who are involved, engaged, and helpful.

It can be about publishing books and speaking at conferences, but it’s often about blogging, about deep and frequent conversations on LinkedIn, or the quality of sharing on Twitter.

It may be about helping connect and bring people together in person to share their experiences.

It’s definitely about influencing how people perceive and use intranets, but it’s also about doing good work – knowing your onions and having the work to prove it.

So while there are many consultants that spring to mind, we should be open to recognising in-house practitioners who share their internal work externally; who leave their desks and engage; those who publish their ‘week notes’ or tweet out their employee research conclusions or blog their digital workplace projects.

Obviously there is a whole load of expertise across our industry, but we want to recognise those ‘digital types’ who share their expertise.

Our past winners include Sam Marshall, Martin White, James Roberson, The Intranetizens (Dana Leeson, Jonathan Phillips, Sharon O’Dea, Luke Mepham), Ellen van Aken, and Rupert Bowater.

They won because of their commitment to sharing their experiences with others. Their presence online helps shape our community, and supports the work people are doing in-house.

So, who has influenced your approach to digital? Nominate now.

Nominate now

The award is mine and Lisa’s to give, after advice from our past winners – the Diamond alumni.

Winner announced on stage at the Intranet Now conference in London, 4th October 2019.