Intranet awards offer the rare gift of reflection
If you’re interested in competing for an intranet award, there is no shortage of opportunities. Entering an intranet competition can be an important exercise for your team, even if you don’t win. And, more broadly, intranet competitions provide a helpful pulse check for the industry.
Intranet awards abound
- We recently wrote about the Intranet Innovation Awards (IIAs), which closed for entries on May 31st.
- Last month we showed a live tour of Amgen’s intranet, which won a PRSA intranet award.
- In September we featured Quintiles’ intranet, which won Ragan Communications‘ best social intranet award.
- On DW24 we saw a live tour of Weston Solutions’ intranet, winner of the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC).
- In January we announced the winner of DWG’s My Beautiful Intranet (Goes Social) competition.
- Entries are open through June 27th for the Nielsen Norman Group’s Intranet Design Annual 2014 competition.
Validating hard work
Intranet awards come from many perspectives: usability, design, employee engagement, communication, creative problem solving.
These awards typically validate the hard work of intranet teams and help those teams communicate their value to company executives and other stakeholders. External feedback on your intranet can go a long way towards supporting your often back-breaking efforts.
Of course, this is a benefit that only the winners receive.
Initiating helpful reflection
Awards also lead every team that submits an entry to cast a thoughtful gaze upon their efforts. You must step back and reflect in order to explain in a contest submission exactly why your intranet solves problems or is a big improvement on its predecessor.
This reflection is, frankly, a rare treat for intranet teams (and many other hard-working people) and lets you see the forest for the trees. By this measure alone, submitting an entry for an intranet competition can be well worth the effort.
Why you should enter the NN/g design annual contest
And one of the most prestigious of all is the original and highly respected intranet award: the Nielsen Norman Group’s Intranet Design Annual competition.
NN/g has conducted this competition annually since 2001 and winners garner tremendous respect (see the 2013 list of winners). This is because NN/g has a long-standing reputation for professionalism and consistency.
So take some time to think about what your intranet team has done over the past couple of years and consider submitting an entry. I’m sure you’ve worked hard enough to deserve this important validation and reflection.
Call for entries: Intranet Design Annual 2014 (Deadline: June 27th)
Need the critical feedback of intranet benchmarking?
There is one important element intranet awards lack: critical feedback.
Intranet awards provide very little feedback on how you can improve your intranet. If you don’t win, you typically get no feedback at all. If you do win, you find out only the good stuff about your intranet.
An intranet benchmarking evaluation will explain how your intranet compares with other companies’ intranets and provide targeted recommendations for improvement. This independent expert set of recommendations, which in DWG’s case is based on a sophisticated evaluation model, informs intranet roadmaps and plans.
Intranet awards are important for intranet teams and for helping the entire industry understand its evolution and current direction. I highly recommend you enter the competition nearest you. And, if you’re also seeking a critical and expert independent eye, look into intranet benchmarking too. Learn more about DWG’s intranet benchmarking.
Categorised in: ROI & Business Case
