Hi there,
Imagine a small group of nerdy tech engineers. Heavy Hungarian accents. Grungy clothes and sunglasses. Fully, unironically committed to crushing their own cover of Nickelback’s “Rockstar.”
Now imagine that video, filmed entirely in office, shows up on your company intranet — completely unprompted. And it is everything.
It went viral internally. It even prompted a follow-up Kelly Clarkson cover led by one of our female Hungarian engineers.
And you want to know how much time, effort, and planning I put into it? Zero.
My secret? Building relationships with administrative assistants and office managers.
You see, when I built this intranet, I knew it couldn’t feel like a policy repository or a company news wasteland. It needed to feel alive — human, current, worth opening.
But I knew I couldn’t do it alone. With around 20 global offices spanning four continents, I needed to tap into people who already knew the culture, the leaders, the unwritten rules.
So I went straight to the people who know how things actually run — not what’s documented, but what’s real. Who’s really in the office (not just on the calendar), who needs to order lunch, which conference room is always double-booked, and how to pull together a last-minute moment without anyone noticing the scramble. Unsung heroes.
I showed them what the intranet could do for them — and they ran with it. They became my greatest champions and best source of the kind of day-to-day content our people were craving. Music videos. Talent competitions. Latte art experiments. Video office tours.
If you haven’t built strong relationships there yet, it’s not too late. I’ve got tips on where to start.
