What’s your #insidestory?

Are you an award-winning internal comms pro? Now’s your chance to find out as CIPR Inside, the sector group for people working in IC has just announced the return of its #Insidestory awards.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am Deputy Chair of the group, which is part of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and works on behalf of IC pros to strive for better, well everything! – standards, training, opportunities and chances for people in the profession to meet and learn together. I asked our Chair, James Harkness (pictured) to share his thoughts on the awards, what you can expect and why you should consider getting involved.

James HarknessOver to you James…

What’s your #insidestory?
I am delighted that we’re accepting entries for CIPR Inside’s #insidestory awards 2014.

Last year we had huge success and believe there is real hunger from communication professionals for a set of awards that recognise the work involved in internal comms.

We want to go beyond the tactics and recognise internal communication that drives employee engagement and positively impacts organisational performance.

We’ve reviewed the feedback from last year and have gone bigger and better.

Last year we had seven categories; this year we have increased this to 11. We’ve added:

  • Best use of video
  • Best training course
  • Best use of research and measurement
  • Best contribution to IC by an individual

So why go to the effort of entering?
Well, we believe outstanding work deserves recognition and the best form of praise comes from your peers. It’s also about sharing best practice and demonstrating effectiveness.

CIPR Inside awardsToo often internal communications is behind the scenes, quietly making it all happen. But in recent years with the increased focus on engagement, greater leadership commitment, never mind the growth of the profession, it’s useful to take stock and be recognised for the work we all do…and being recognised as award winners can of course reap huge dividends, not just for the individuals involved, but for our organisations, helping us all by putting great work on the map.

We’ve worked hard to make the entry process simple, so most of the content you should already have in some form in your reporting and project outlines.

Our criteria is simple: We are not looking for lots of self-promotion, but great examples of work that is delivering impact. 

Who should enter?
Anyone who has some great work to show for the past year. We’ve added new categories to help give you more choice to fit your work. Some are channel focussed, some are programme focussed and others are more general, such as best in-house team.

Have a look at last year’s winners here. And case studies here

AwardsWhat should you include?
We’re looking for strategy, objectives, tactics, budget, outputs and outcomes, and it’s 1,500 words maximum. For full guidance go to www.ciprinside.co.uk

The details
Deadline is 28 November, the cost is £85 +VAT and late entries are open until 6 December at £105 +VAT.

We’ll be judging over the Christmas break and New Year and will be announcing the finalists in late January 2014.

The party to celebrate is being planned as I write, so I can’t share that with you yet, but we’re also going for bigger and better than last year.

We’re going to keep the informal spirit but go for a venue that will enable us to celebrate in style. So check out our website and follow @ciprinside on Twitter for all the updates. (You can see pics from the 2013 #insidestory awards on this page – Rachel).

We’re also on the lookout for people to sponsor the categories, so if you’d like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you.

Post author: James Harkness.

Thanks very much James. Want to know more about the awards? See my Storify from the ceremony that took place in February this year and article.

One of the #Insidestory award winners was Gatwick Airport in London. A few months back I looked at how they are using Yammer and also invited Linda Mortimer from Gatwick to come and share their story at the CIPR Inside IC conference in September, which I’m delighted to say she did. If you missed the story, you can read it here and get a glimpse into what made for an award-winning campaign.

Best of luck if you decide to enter the awards,

Rachel

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