One of the features of the redesigned Intranet Focus Ltd web site is a list of intranet consultants. I can’t say that this was something I had been planning for some time. The initial idea came to me shortly before the IntraTeam Event in Copenhagen. I realised that many of the UK intranet consultants would be participating in the event and that would give me the opportunity to test out the extent of support for the list. If there had been any concerns I would have dropped the idea, because I did not want a partial list just for the sake of having a list. Fortunately the reaction was very positive, and many of the consultants took time to email me names of people who they felt should be included. It is not easy for consultants to find ways of promoting their skills, and although the list create a convenient list of competitors my sense is that there is much more business out there from organisations who know they need help but do not know how to go about finding someone.

From the outset I wanted to set out some rules of inclusion and these are set out on the listing page.  Initially I had thought of including how long each consultant had been working on intranets (not just in a consulting capacity) but my wife, Cynthia, pointed out that length of experience and quality of consulting performance were not necessarily related. So I kept it simple, limiting the entry to name, the country of origin and a web or LinkedIn address. At the present moment most of the consultants are based in the UK but I hope that will change over time. I’m sure there are intranet consultants in all European countries, and often UK consultants are looking for partners in Europe who bring local expertise, a local contact for the client, a knowledge of organisational culture and of course language skills. When working on multi-national intranets (and that could just be two countries) these skills are very important.

In the event I have been quite surprised how many consultants there are already on the list from the UK. However, I have a suspicion that many of these are unware that they have been listed. When building the list I did not have the time to contact everyone first. I am of course quite happy to delete anyone who does not wish to be included. If you would like to be on the list it just takes an email to me, a message through LinkedIn or a DM on Twitter.

Martin White