The team at Step Two have re-branded their annual Intranets conference to the Digital Employee Experience conference, or DEX. I have attended Intranets three times. DEX 2018 will be held in Sydney on June 6-8, 2018.

Digital employee experience considers every touchpoint between staff and their employer. Intranets continue to play a critical role as the enterprise front door (and more), increasingly sitting within a broader digital workplace. To accelerate progress, this conference brings together intranet teams, digital teams, internal comms, IT and HR.

It’s a hard thing hitting the right level with the name of a conference. As was said of eCommerce, the presence of the “e” becomes irrelevant after a while. It should be just “commerce,” not something managed differently from the rest of what the organisation does. Same with DEX. “Digital” employee experiences are a sub-part of the wider “employee experiences” approach, which would also include the physical aspects of work (building design, interior layout (work spaces, collaboration spaces, meeting spaces, etc.), and office furniture) plus the organisational and cultural aspects of work (career development, mentoring, and leadership). But trying to get all that in a two-day event is too hard – the focus would be diffuse and the topics shallow. Hence, I think the new name is a good step up.

I wish the Step Two team all the best with the planning for the new conference – pulling along all the good things of the previous seven conferences, and incorporating new ideas into the new superstructure.