Step Two Designs

Enter the 2010 Intranet Innovation Awards

The Intranet Innovation Awards are the premier awards for intranet teams. Drawing on the best of intranet work around the world, these awards are unique in their recognition of individual improvements, and not intranets as a whole. Winning teams obtain widespread visibility, a magnificant glass trophy, and more support within their own organisations.

How to enter the 2010 awards

How the awards work

The Intranet Innovation Awards have been established to recognise great ideas and individual improvements to intranets. The awards are not given for the intranet as a whole, but rather for specific innovations that tangibly benefit the organisation it serves.

This is how it all works:

1. Intranet teams submit their innovative approach or design. This may be just one element or aspect of the intranet, and is typically not the intranet as a whole.
2. Each submission can be listed in one or more of the categories. (When necessary, the judging panel will shift entries between categories to ensure that every submission is given the best possible chance of winning.)
3. Organisations that have made a number of innovative improvements are encouraged to submit more than once (using separate entry forms), and each entry will be judged on its merits.
4. The entry form is then submitted, along with the supporting screenshots.
5. All entries will be judged by a panel of global intranet experts, and scored according to the criteria listed below.
6. One or more Gold Award winners will be selected in each of the four categories.
7. Out of these winners, one or more submissions will then be selected for the overall Platinum Awards. These will be selected by the judging panel, to recognise the most extraordinary entries for the year.
8. The results of the awards will then be announced. (See below for more detail on the recognition received by winning entries.)

Submission details

When preparing and entering your submissions, please carefully read and abide by the following guidelines:

• All submissions must be received by the closing date of Friday 23 April 2010.
• The results of the Awards will be announced in September 2010.
• Submissions must be emailed to: awards@steptwo.com.au
• Submissions should be zipped into a single file that includes this submission form and supporting screenshots.

  This file should be named according to the organisation name and the year of the awards, eg: OrgName_2009.zip

• We will confirm receipt of your submission. If you have not had a response within 48 hours, please contact us.
• If the file is too large to email, please use www.yousendit.com (a free service).
• There is no cost to enter the Intranet Innovation Awards.
• Contact details will be kept confidential and will not be shared with any third party.
• You are welcome to provide more than one submission. Each submission will be judged on its merits, and each must be accompanied by an individual entry form.
• If needed, we may contact finalists for clarification or additional information on their entry. This will only done when absolutely required, so as to minimise the impact on the submitting organisations.
• Where needed, we will edit submissions for clarity, or to fit available space.

Submission acknowledgements

• Submitting organisations give full permission for Step Two Designs to use the content and screenshots in the Intranet Innovations 2010 report, as well other publications and presentations.
• As the results of the awards will be communicated widely, please ensure that no confidential information is included on screenshots.
• When used or published by Step Two Designs all submitted ideas and screenshots will be fully credited to their respective organisation.

Tips for submissions

When judging entries for the Intranet Innovation Awards, we’re looking for submissions that clearly demonstrate the benefits they have delivered. The more you can describe how the innovation has helped the organisation, the greater the chance you will have of winning.

In order get the best possible understanding of the awards, we recommend you:

• Review winners from 2007-2009 to get ideas on what’s likely to succeed.
• Write more rather than less when filling in the descriptive sections of the entry form.
• Provide concrete examples of where benefits have been gained.
• Focus more on how the change has helped the organisation, rather than on what was done (or the technical details).
• Consider providing ‘before’ and ‘after’ screenshots where appropriate.
• Remember that submissions are for specific improvements to the intranet, not for the intranet as a whole.
• Make sure you are submitting for your own intranet, not on behalf of someone else.
• Don’t be shy! Even small innovations have a good chance of winning if they are unique, or if they provide big benefits for staff.

Award categories

There are four categories for the Gold Awards, and organisations can submit for one or more of these categories.

1. Core intranet functionality

There are many improvements that can be made to the core aspects of intranets, including the design, content, navigation and functionality of the site. For example, improvements to the core functionality of the intranet could include:

• innovative staff directory (phone directory) capabilities
• effective personalisation of the site to target key user needs
• unique uses for the intranet home page
• innovative search engine
• new ways of helping staff finding intranet content and tools
• use of Ajax-based tools to provide new methods of user interaction

Note that while entries submitted in this category address core intranet issues, innovative approaches are required. ‘Best practice’ projects such as user-centred redesigns of the intranet will not be judged.

2. Communication, collaboration and culture

Intranets can do much to support communication and collaboration, as well as strengthening corporate culture. These improvements may include:

• innovative use of team-based collaboration tools
• integration of social networking tools into the intranet
• implementing knowledge sharing facilities across multiple business areas
• innovative approaches that enhance corporate culture
• integration of instant messaging or SMS into the intranet
• effective use of wikis, blogs or other user-generated content mechanisms

Entries in this category will show new ways of connecting staff within the organisation, enabling one-to-one and one-to-many communication (and collaboration).

3. Frontline delivery

More than just providing corporate policies and procedures, intranets can directly support the day-to-day work of frontline and field staff. For example:

• delivery of content and tools to mobile devices
• use of the intranet to support field staff or other out-of-office workers
• creation of an innovative call centre knowledgebase
• delivery of powerful functionality to target a key staff role

These innovations target specific groups or roles within the organisation, and provide capabilities and content that significantly improve staff productivity or effectiveness. Note that these improvements should assist frontline (operational) staff, not back-office (support) staff.

4. Business solutions

Beyond being just a publishing platform, intranets should strive to become an effective ‘business tool’. This involves making the intranet into a ‘place for doing things’ (rather than just a ‘place for reading things’), such as integrating applications and interactive functionality directly into the site. For example:

• end-to-end task completion
• streamlining a common admin process
• implementing highly-usable portal capabilities
• seamless integration of key applications into the intranet

All of these innovations will demonstrate that applications are not delivered separately to the intranet, but are included as a key aspect of the site as a whole.

Scoring

Criteria	Weighting	Description
Originality	30%	How is the submission innovative? Submissions should demonstrate new ideas or innovative approaches. While ideas do not need to be unique, they should show an uncommon or original approach.
Staff impact	30%	How has the innovation changed the way staff or the organisation work? Submissions must show how they have directly changed the way common tasks or business processes are done. More than just being of novelty value, innovative approaches help to reshape the organisation.
Organisational benefits	40%	How has the innovation tangibly or measurably benefited the organisation? Submissions must demonstrate the direct organisational value or benefits that were delivered as a result of the new functionality or content. This may be measured quantitatively (in dollar terms), or qualitatively (describing how the innovation has delivered improvements).

Please note that it is up to those submitting for an award to demonstrate how they meet these scoring criteria, via their written submissions and supporting screenshots.

The judging panel will rely solely on this information when assessing the winning entries. You are therefore encouraged to provide a good amount of detail when filling in the entry form.

The judging panel will then choose one of the submissions to receive a Platinum Award. This will recognise the most extraordinary entry of the year.

Benefits of winning an award

As the comments in the sidebar show, there are many benefits to winning an Intranet Innovation Award. Winners receive global recognition and visibility, as well as:

• receiving a trophy that can be proudly displayed by the team
• receiving printed certificates recognising their success (with enough copies for each of the team members)
• being showcased in the Intranet Innovations report published each year
• receiving a full copy of the Innovations Awards report
• being showcased in articles, YouTube interviews, online presentations, and major industry journals.

(Only winning entries will be shared, and we will publish only positive comments on entries.)