Up against three other agencies with extensive experience in intranet development, we knew it was a creative, brand-led, and most of all human solution that the world’s second largest independent global PR agency was after. Grayling has 900 staff in 70 offices in 40 countries across Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia Pacific and the intranet is one of the first parts of Grayling’s global branding implementation and rollout by VGroup. We’ve done all we can to make the intranet everything but the dry, functional applications that they tend to be.
Using Microsoft Sharepoint as an underlying framework, we’ve used Web 2.0 principles, RSS and Flash to create a dynamic, social and ever-changing portal that will enable people to get to know people on the other side of the world, and share links, thoughts and experiences simply by tagging things in social media tools such as Delicious that are already part of people’s daily workflow. Those that are not using these tools will have the opportunity to engage and learn through others.
For the design we took the new Grayling ‘Line of thought’ visual concept and created a flash header that centred around a global map but pulled in helpful thoughts into modules along the Grayling line extended from the logo. This along with the continual updating of content keeps the site fresh on a daily basis.
We’re planning lots of interesting additions for phase 2 of this project this year which we’ll let you know about when they’re live. Until then you’ll just have to enjoy the sneak peak at the image of the new Grayling intranet above.