Of these, the flagship is our yearly Intranet Innovation Awards. These attract worldwide entries, and the winners are given considerable prominence. The details and insights are then shared in a 200-page high-quality report.

To date, we’ve been running the awards in-house, but the demands of our consulting work means we are offering a ongoing part-time role for an experienced writer and editor, to run the awards and to create the associated report. There will also be the opportunity to edit and publish other reports key to the global intranet community.

We are looking for a super-star who can propel our publications to the next level, both in terms of professionalism and reach.

Outline of the job

• Managing the yearly Intranet Innovation Awards, including handling entries, writing the report, and helping to promote the winners.
• Editing and publishing other best-practice reports.
• Ongoing part-time role, suiting those seeking a long-term and satisfying position.
• Guaranteed work, with pay commensurate with experience.
• Option of working in our office or remotely.
• Opportunity to build expertise in marketing and communications.

(We would be happy to provide samples of our reports on request, to give an idea of what’s involved.)

Your skills and background

• Professional writing or journalism experience, for a minimum of 5 years.
• Demonstrated experience in magazine writing roles, or equivalent.
• Experience in broadly technology fields would be desirable.
• Ability to build a body of knowledge about the subject matter.
• Great communication, project planning and time management skills.
• Ability to work independently.
• Experience with desktop publishing tools (we can train in the use of Framemaker if required).
• Located in Australia (strongly desirable), or potentially internationally (for the right person).

Apply now

Please send your CV and samples of your work to jobs@steptwo.com.au. (Hint: we want to see examples where you’ve been responsible for writing magazine articles or similar, rather than editing existing content.) Don’t hesitate to email us if you have any questions, or would like further information.

Our unique mix of consulting, publishing, workshops and community building has helped us establish our international reputation. Through our passion for our work we have developed an unrivalled body of knowledge which we share widely. Best of all, we’ve got a great team, not just experts but also super friendly!

We’re now looking for another consultant to joint our team. Working in the enterprise space, you’ll be helping organisations succeed at intranets, knowledge management, collaboration and beyond. Further progressing your professional career, you will help teams to innovate, exploring the leading edges of the enterprise experience for staff.

If you’ve read our work or seen us present, you know where we’re coming from. Take this opportunity to join this exceptional team of professionals, and play your part in helping organisations be more successful in their information activities.

What we can offer

We can provide unique opportunities:

• Work as part of a globally recognised team of experts.
• Environment and work mix where you’ll gain three years of experience in a year.
• Fascinating and challenging mix of projects across a wide range of clients and industries.
• Clear growth map for the business, outlining the opportunities for staff.
• Defined “pathway” for new starters, with ongoing mentoring and support from day one onwards.
• Encouragement to build your “personal brand”, via speaking at conferences, running workshops and writing articles.
• Friendly and flexible working environment.
• Sensible working hours and a real focus on work-life balance.
• Playing a leadership role in the community and industry, with world-wide visibility.

Your journey

While our consultants come from a very wide range of backgrounds, we’re particularly interested in the following backgrounds for our new team member:

• You’ve been a user experience professional for a few years, but can’t face the thought of another whole month of wireframing. Building on your UX skills, you’d like to build your expertise in user research, business strategies and intranets.
• Or, you’ve been working on SharePoint projects for a few years, in either a technical or BA role, but you’re tired of implementation work. Instead, you’d like to work more strategically, helping organisations set their their direction, and helping them to succeed once they’ve got the right technology.
• Or, you’ve been a successful intranet manager, and would like to spread your wings and work on many sites, not just one.

(These are just a few possibilities, feel free to tell us your journey!)

The right person for the job

You will be:

• Already based in Australia (we can’t accept overseas applicants at this point).
• Located in Sydney or Canberra.
• Friendly with a strong interest in the “people side of the problem”.
• Outstanding in your communication and writing skills.
• Able to work independently.
• Seeking to build your professional knowledge as well as learn new skills.
• Ready to play a visible role in the community and industry.
• Experienced, with a minimum of five years in business roles and/or as a consultant.

If we’ve got your attention, send your CV to jobs@steptwo.com.au. In addition to your CV, we’d like to know why you want to join Step Two. Package commensurate with experience.

We’d be happy to also talk through the role if you’d like further information, just email us to arrange a confidential chat.

The Government Information Technology Contracting Framework Version 5 (GITC V5) contains standard contractual terms and conditions for use in the acquisition of Information Communication & Technology (ICT) products and services. By signing the GITC Agreement, suppliers pre-agree to utilise these standard terms and conditions in their commercial dealings with Queensland Government Agencies.

Don’t forget that we have a Brisbane office, headed by the ever-capable Rebecca Rodgers. We’ve also done plenty of work in Queensland, including Brisbane City Council, Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Caloundra City Council, Ergon Energy, Powerlink, Queensland Health, QUT, RACQ, RSL Care and UQ.

So drop Rebecca a line to say hi!

I’ve set up a new blog, Lewisham House, covering our household efforts to save the environment and to grow our own food. Having just moved to Lewisham in inner-west Sydney, we finally have enough space for some serious gardening, mostly in our front yard.

The blog is still in its infancy, and you’re welcome to keep track of what we’re up to.

Also: please do add a comment if you know of any other “backyard gardening” blogs that I should be following.

Uniquely, the awards recognise individual intranet improvements, and not intranets as a whole. The awards are about improving all intranets, by sharing great ideas and increasing the pace of innovation across the whole of the intranet community.

With an international judging panel, this year’s awards have raised the bar, demonstrating very clearly the benefits that intranets can deliver.

Platinum award winner

• “Partner Dashboard and more”
  Fuller Landau (Canada)

Gold awards winners

• “Location Finder”
  Syngenta (Switzerland)
• “Speaking Intranet News”
  Swiss Post (Switzerland)
• “Team Sites in a Box”
  Transfield Services (Australia)
• “Crew Community Forums”
  British Airways (UK)
• “Competitor Wiki”
  Scottrade (USA)
• “Project Finder”
  Urbis (Australia)
• “Juice”
  Janssen-Cilag (Australia)
• “Meter Reading Application”
  YHA (UK)

Learn more

Full details on all the winners can be found in the 148-page Intranet Innovations 2008 report. This includes screenshots and detailed information on how the innovations were designed and delivered, along with judges’ commentaries and more.

Download the Executive Summary (2.6mb PDF) for an overview of the awards, as well as full details on two of the winners (Scottrade and Janssen-Cilag).

Serena also has a public-sector background, which is very useful in the context of the many government projects we have been (and will be) involved in.

So welcome to Serena!

• Commenting: you can now comment not just on this blog, but also on the articles themselves. This has been the biggest point of pain for a long time now, ever since the old copy of Movable Type was overwhelmed by spam.
• New design: the site is hopefully looking fresh and new, in keeping with modern design principles. There’s more work to be done on this, but at least the rounded corners have gone!
• Clean code: all the nasty 1996-era spacer images have been killed, and the site is now presented using clean code and CSS.
• Better functionality: there have been a range of incremental improvements to the site, including better navigation to (and between articles), and a number of blog enhancements. More to come, watch this space.
• RSS feed for articles: yes, there is now an RSS feed just for articles, which is something that a few have asked for.

Consider this a work-in-progress release for the site. Now that we finally have the site on a supported and manageable platform, there are a raft of enhancements planned for the coming months. Watch this space!

Oh, and please do provide feedback on the site (you can add comments to this post, or to any of the articles). In particular, I’m sure there are some bugs and teething problems to fix, and we’ll need your help with that.

Onwards and upwards.

This is a transitional move, just the start of many more improvements. (Just setting expectations.)

All going well, this will be my last blog post on this version of the site. If you experience some problems during the transition, please be patient. I’ll do a post as soon as the new site is up, detailing the changes and asking for input

Wish us luck!

I’d looked after these headphones very well, and they’d been used lightly (pretty much only on long-haul flights). So I was naturally not happy with their demise.

Still, I’d had them for 4 years, which is 3 full years past the 1 year warranty.

So with no particular expectations, I rang up my local BOSE store to find out what I could get done. A friendly salesperson gave me the details for the BOSE Service Centre, and suggested I send across the headphones with a covering letter explaining the history and current situation. I was then assured that they’d “see what they could do”.

That was Friday. Today (Tuesday), I hadn’t heard anything, so was going to ring me just to check that the headphones had arrived (I’ve got another round-the-world trip coming up shortly). But first a package arrived in the mail.

Inside was a brand-new pair of headphones, with a shipping sheet simply saying “Replaced as a gesture of goodwill from BOSE”. No big fanfair, no lengthy explanation, no complex procedures or bureaucracy. Just “here’s a new pair of headphones, enjoy”, with the implicit recognition of the quality and standing associated with the BOSE brand.

Now that’s what I call customer service. Just wanted to say thank you as publicly as I could. Back to regular programming…