Thursday, July 14, 2011

Australia and NZ Internet Awards Not Online

The Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) recently sent around a note about entries for the Australian and New Zealand Internet Awards (ANZIA). These are sponsored by the non-profit auDA and InternetNZ bodies, which help run the Internet in Australia and NZ. It was therefore curious to find that it was not possible to get the entry form for their competition via the Internet. Instead it is necessary to be sent a CD-ROM in the post.

About five years ago it was common to be send a CD-ROM with documents on it, due to limited Internet bandwidth, but this is no longer the case.

ANZIA's use of CDROMs seems to be a vote of no confidence in the Internet. This impression is reinforced by a message on the ANZIA web page saying "Haven't received your info pack yet? Call us +61 3 ...". As well as not trusting the Internet for documents, it appears ANZIA doesn't trust it for messages either, preferring to use the telephone.

I suppose I could see what is on the CD-ROM, but I would have to get the USB CDROM drive out (my sub-notebook computer has no CDROM drive built in). If it is this much trouble just to read the competition details, then filling in the application form is likely to be more trouble than it is worth. Also I am not sure that I want to win an Internet award from an organization which is unable, or unwilling, to use the Internet.

My suggestion is that if auDA and InternetNZ want to promote the use of the Internet, then they should demonstrate that they know how to use the Internet and are confident it can be used for business, by putting the award entry process on-line.

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