Ten years ago, I attended my first intranet community event, the appropriately-named Intranetters. Looking back, as plans take shape for a 2020 revival of the meet-up, I can see it as the starting point of a chain of events that is reasonable to call life changing.
I actually felt nervous, a fraud almost, as I stepped out of Temple tube station on my way to the event at British American Tobacco. My boss, the director responsible for the company intranet, had just let me know he wasn’t going to make it and I felt rather exposed.
The welcome, of course, was warm, and I quickly found myself in conversation. Even so, it was hard to shake the view that these people were doing bigger, more important things. Then the talks began, and they felt bigger and more successful too.
Slowly, though, I began picking up details that I could use, realising these experiences weren’t so different from my own. And the principles I’d learned from years of building websites, thinking about user experience, of wrangling SharePoint and running an intranet, meant I felt I had something to contribute.
Over the course of 2010, I’d attend a number of community events and jointly organise four more. At work, I’d ask to move from information-led websites to a new role building and running the intranet.
This career change was largely inspired by the people I’d met, and their friendliness and desire to contribute. Few things delight me more than watching someone realise, as I’d done, that their problems aren’t unique and there is a whole community ready and willing to support them.
Through this community, I have been able to do more. Through these connections, my work on SharePoint was highlighted in a report by StepTwo, and later appeared in Essential Intranets. My first roles as a contractor came via people I’d met and paved the way for ongoing work over the last eight years. Conversations and connections led me to developing the idea behind my Lessons from Learning talk for Intranet Now, and it was a professional highlight to be asked to take it to IntraTeam in Copenhagen last year.
And it’s not just me either. Through this likeminded, supportive community, I’ve seen other capable people find new opportunities and do amazing things.
So it is particularly exciting to see a revived Intranetters group getting together. At the time of writing, there is a survey asking for your feedback, please complete it at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Intranetters2020
For news of events, please follow @intranetters on Twitter