For the past few years, Step Two Designs in Australia have facilitated a global awards program to uncover innovative work being done by intranet teams around the world. Step Two has recently released the results of its award programme for 2010.

Here’s how Step Two position the program:

“The Intranet Innovation Awards are global awards that celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the enhancement and delivery of intranets. The goal is to find these ideas (whether large or small), and to share them with the wider community. Uniquely, these awards recognise individual intranet improvements, and not intranets as a whole.

Intranets must innovate in order to prosper; they must constantly grow and evolve to better meet the needs of the organisations they serve. While there can be no single ‘best intranet’, there are innovative ideas and approaches that warrant recognition.“

Based on the 50 entries, a number of key themes were distilled by Step Two and the judging panel:
– Content is no longer the primary purpose of the Intranet.
– Social media is a ‘standard’ part of the Intranet.
– Personalization is back on the agenda.
– Intranets can help with gaining access to the right data.
– The overall Intranet experience is very important.
– SharePoint is a significant technology in the Intranet landscape.
– Gaining support and buy-in to the use of the Intranet is essential.
– It’s possible for the Intranet to do many things within the life of an organization.

I read most of the report on my flight between Hong Kong and London. It features many ideas that can be applied within any context, but more importantly, shares the vision and thinking behind innovative intranet ideas. The report costs US$189, and is a great investment in your intranet and collaboration work.

Links:
– Alex Manchester from Step Two blogs on the key themes, and includes screen shots
– Buy the report (US$189)

Thanks to Step Two for gifting me a copy.