Next week, we open the 2016 Intelligent Community Awards to nominees and make big changes in the Smart21 nomination form.
For years, we have asked communities to answer just six questions about their background, challenges, strategy, programs and results. It sounds simple enough - but communities wrote between 10 and 50 pages of content in response, which involved a huge amount of work on their part and created a heavy load for our analysts. It also gave unfair advantage to native English speakers - especially those who involved a public relations agency in producing their nomination - and it put too much reliance on the informed judgment of reviewers.
