Participating judges
Winners of the Intranet Innovation Awards are determined by an international judging panel of intranet experts, located in Australia, France, UK and USA.
James Robertson (Australia)
Managing Director, Step Two Designs
James Robertson is a global expert on intranet strategy and content management. In 1996 he founded Step Two Designs, which has become the leading vendor-neutral intranet consultancy in Australia. In that time, James has worked with a wide range of high-profile organisations in both the public and private sectors.
He has written over 200 articles on intranets and content management, as well as producing the Intranet Roadmap, Improving Intranet Search, Staff Directories and 6×2 methodologies for intranets reports.
James was listed as one of ‘20 leaders to see in 2003’ by CMS Watch, and is a founding member of the Content Management Professionals Association. Step Two Designs has been listed three times for an EContent 100 award, recognising the work done and resources published.
James speaks professionally on intranets, and has keynoted conferences throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and the US.
Catherine Grenfell (Australia)
Manager, Intranet Leadership Forum
Catherine Grenfell is a senior member of the team at Step Two Designs. She has a background of managing highly successful intranet teams and IT projects in the corporate sector. In the last 8 years she has been dedicated to leading and supporting a wide range of intranet, internet and eBusiness solutions in financial services and legal organisations.
She is the manager and full-time facilitator of the Intranet Leadership Forum, the professional community for intranet teams within Australia and New Zealand.
Catherine has had significant success in guiding and assisting communities and teams to demonstrate business value, attain business commitment and implement sustainable change. She is also passionate about developing organisation-wide initiatives such as collaboration teams, innovation groups and change communities.
Alex Manchester (Australia)
Senior Consultant, Step Two Designs
Alex Manchester is a senior member of the team at Step Two Designs and coordinator of the 2009 Innovation Awards. He joined in 2008 from corporate communications research organisation, Melcrum.
He brings specialist experience on the topics of intranets, internal communication and social computing and enterprise 2.0, having authored and edited several best-selling reports on the subjects, including How to use social media to engage employees (Melcrum) and Transforming your intranet (Melcrum).
Alex has strong analytical, research and interview skills developed from benchmark-setting research programs. He brings a pragmatic approach to intranet projects, combining experience, enthusiasm and creative ideas with an ability to quickly understand business requirements and determine possible solutions.
Martin White (UK)
Managing Director, Intranet Focus
Martin White is Managing Director of Intranet Focus Ltd. and consults on the design and management of intranets, the development of enterprise information management strategies, and the implementation of content management and enterprise search software.
Since 2001 Martin has written the ‘Behind the Firewall’ column on intranet management issues for the US magazine EContent and is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Information Management. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield since 2002 and is also a member of the Publications Board of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Martin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
He was Chairman of the Online Information Conference from 1999-2006 and is the author of The Content Management Handbook and Making Search Work, both published by Facet Publishing.
Jane McConnell (France)
Founder, NetStrategy/JMC
Jane McConnell is an intranet and portal strategy specialist. She founded NetStrategy/JMC in 2001 and works primarily with companies and organisations with complex intranets and challenges.
McConnell’s expertise in the following areas: strategy roadmaps, audits and evaluations based on stages of maturity, governance and intranet management issues, localisation and customisation strategies as well as how 2.0 concepts applied internally can bring value to organisations. Clients include the United Nations, ArcelorMittal, Suez, Areva, Alcatel Lucent, Lagardere.
She initiated the Annual Global Intranet Strategies Survey in 2006, and publishes the annual results each October. In 2009, 300 organisations participated, and the results were published in the 4th annual report Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report.
Based in the south of France, she has a working base in Paris and travels to client locations in Europe and North America.
William Amurgis (USA)
Manager, Internal Communications, American Electric Power
William Amurgis is manager of internal communications at American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest electric
utility companies in the United States and winner of an Intranet Innovation Award in 2009.
He has managed the corporate intranet since joining AEP in 2000. However, he helped found the intranet at a large gas
utility company back in 1995 – before the term ‘intranet’ even existed.
In 2007, AEP’s corporate intranet was recognized as one of the world’s ten best by the Nielsen Norman Group. Later that same year, the evolution of AEP’s intranet design was featured in the Wall Street Journal.
William has a Bachelor of Science degree in Statistics, and a Master of Arts degree in Education (with emphasis on instructional design and technology). He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and five children, and enjoys speaking at conferences around the world.
