Short list

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.

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.

The 2017 Diamond Award for remarkable contribribution to the intranet community was awarded to Ellen van Aken.

Follow @EllenvanAken on Twitter, read Ellen’s ‘MyDigitalWorkplace‘ blog, and browse Ellen’s extensive collection of intranet and ESN launch videos.

After a couple of years of the ‘intranets are dead’ refrain, there’s now a renaissance, as intranet managers either become part of new digital teams or work closely with digital workplace leaders.

The digital workplace is an important concept, and the intranet’s place within it is still emerging for many organisations. Those intranet and comms people who only consider the intranet to be a broadcast channel will find their budgets and headcounts cut, while those that embrace digital and consider the intranet to be a collaboration and productivity platform will see themselves elevated.

This journey, this digital transformation, is not easy for the organisation or the comms and intranet people who find their roles must change.

We are looking for people who share their journey. We want to recognise them and award one person the Intranet Now Diamond for their remarkable contribution to the intranet community.

Who has influenced your approach? Whose blog do you read? Who do you listen to on Twitter? Who makes the most sense on LinkedIn? Who do you love to see at events?

Our past winners include Martin White, Sam Marshall, James Robertson, and the Intranetizen crew (Dana Leeson, Luke Mepham, Jonathan Phillips, and Sharon O’Dea). 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.

Who will you nominate? Does your intranet or digital person blog externally?

Simply tweet me on @BLamb or email me on Brian@intranetnow.co.uk – let me know your nomination reason and the online details of the person.

The award is mine and Wedge’s to give, but we take advice from our past winners – the Diamond alumni.

The winner will be announced on stage at the Intranet Now conference in London, 5^th October 2017.

Our Diamond Award had a stellar shortlist this year and when we talked with previous winners, Sam Marshall and Martin White they shared our view that this year we would need an extra diamond.

First off James Robertson got a special award for his consistent erudite thoughts on intranets and the sharing of them online and in real life. Just about everyone in the intranet world acknowledges his contribution and we were delighted to be able to give him a special diamond at the Intranet and Digital Workplace Awards Live event in London.

But we were not finished;  we wanted to give this year’s diamond to practitioners – those who work in organisations, managing, editing, writing for and supporting intranets but who still find the time to write and share online with the wider community. It was a short step from this idea to selecting Intranetizien as our collective award winners.

Dana Leeson, Luke Mepham, Jonathan Phillips, and Sharon O’Dea are all very much still involved in their respective digital workplaces but find time to maintain the Intranetizen blogsite as one of the go to places for best practice, stimulating debate, and news about intranets. When Wedge founded Intranet Now and I joined him to try and make it happen we both agreed that the conference would be all about learning from others’ real experience. Intranetizen embodies this approach in their continued flow of useful articles and resources.

Hopefully, winning the diamond award will give them a small boost to keep finding the time and energy to provide us all with a great resource. Lately they have been very much encouraging other intranet folk to submit ideas for publication and it’s our hope that their example will inspire people to publish more and share more.

Take a look at Intranetizen’s own Award blog and review of the conference.

The list of nominations has been published. Please check it out.

Intranets are curious things, reflecting, as they do, the incredible diversity of the organisations that they serve and all the ups and downs and general vicissitudes of organisational life.

Organisational attention on the intranet also waxes and wanes as HR, IT, or Sales departments all take their turn at getting very interested for a while in the intranet and what it can do for them. People who work on intranets are often on their way to other careers, learning about comms or web technology then taking their skills on to the next challenge.

But for some, intranets are an endlessly fascinating world which they do not want to move on from. They return to again and again to intranet projects; they build many great parts of the digital workplace; they ride the waves of new technologies harnessing each one to create business impact; they build their career in this corner of the corporate world.

If we are lucky along the way these people share. They share their knowledge, they publish articles, they blog, they discuss, they attend events. Everything they do promotes the potential of intranets to have real business impact. These are the long-term heroes we seek for the Diamond Award.

The Intranet Now Diamond Award is for remarkable contribution to the intranet community

Our two past winners, Martin White and Sam Marshall, clearly meet all the criteria for the award. Self-confessed intranet addicts, each of them they have been making intranets better for decades. Along the way they have shared what they have learnt in books and articles, at countless events, in casual conversations and in meetings big and small of intranet people everywhere. Martin and Sam, our past winners, will join us this year to create the shortlist for the award making sure we pick a genuine diamond.

So if you know an intranet addict (or perhaps you are one) who has stuck around and made a long term contribution to the world of intranets this is your invitation to nominate them (or yourself) for the Diamond Award.

Its really simple to put someone on the longlist just contact me or Wedge with your nominee and a sentence about how they’ve contributed to the intranet community. In due course we will publish the long list for the award and of course we will announce the winner at Intranet Now in London on the 30th September.