If nothing else you will have to admit it’s an unusual title for a blog post. If you are a relative newcomer to the intranet community you may be unaware of the role that these people play in supporting the exchange of knowledge and good practice. Without exception the major consulting companies pay little attention to topics such as intranets, information management and search. Some do offer advice on social networking and collaboration but at a level that is targeted at senior managers who are probably the last people to network socially and collaborate. As I was writing reviews of outstanding reports from Jane McConnell and Sam Marshall yesterday their commitment to the wider community was very obvious. This post lists some of the people who in various ways and for many years have transformed our understanding of intranets, team working and digital workplaces through publishing reports and promulgating good practice and who have to make a living whilst doing so.

• Agnes Molnar is an enterprise search evangelist with a very good knowledge of SharePoint search
• Ellen van Aken curates a collection of 300 intranet promotion videos alongside her consulting work
• Jane McConnell understands digital workplaces better than anyone else and publishes and annual survey of progress
• James Robertson writes books, runs workshops and conferences, gives out awards and challenges conventional wisdom
• Janus Boye runs communities of practice in Europe and North America and an annual conference in Aarhus
• Kurt Kragh Sorenson also offers communities of practice and runs the IntraTeam event in Copenhagen
• Kristian Norling is developing an excellent range of books and is the Swedish representative of IntraTeam
• Mark Morell focuses on intranet governance as an author and consultant
• Michael Sampson writes books and blogs about all aspects of collaboration and digital workplaces
• Paul Miller set up the Intranet Benchmarking Forum and transformed it into the Digital Workplace Group
• Sam Marshall publishes reports of an exceptionally high quality
• Susan Hanley writes blogs and books on SharePoint with a strong intranet and portal focus
• Tony Byrne sets the standard in assessing the performance of digital applications
• Wedge Black and Brian Lamb are the entrepreneurs behind the Intranet Now conference

The Intranetizen team also deserve recognition.

Any list like this runs the risk of missing someone obvious. If you feel you are that person please let me know.

Martin White