Corporate desktop communicator

Overview

During 2006, Turtlez were commissioned by the foreign exchange department of a large bank to write an internal communications tool.  This was to take the form of an animated caricature of the departmental managing director.   The purpose of the application was to deliver sales and internal 'teaser' messages in an eyecatching way, and in doing so, alert people to the presence of new articles and news updates within the corporate intranet.  The application was originally envisiaged to have a two month lifespan, as it was felt that after that period enough traffic would have been drawn to the intranet to generate a head of steam, and that the initial novelty of the desktop animation would by then be wearing off.

Design and development

During initial consultations with the bank, it was determined that while the messaging service was a confidential internal tool the content of the messages themselves were not critical enough that they could not be hosted by a third party.  It was agreed therefore that Turtlez should provide a server that would host the messages, and also provide a hosting service for the content management system;  the mini-site that allows publishers to create and distribute messages to the user's desktops.

The look and feel of the application was agreed together with the client, and some test animations of the M.D. were produced by Turtlez' team of animators and subsequently approved.  An eight week development cycle followed, and the application was delivered on time and on budget.  A specific need of the client's was that the desktop application be available in a form that installation to user's computers could be managed centrally.  We were happy to provide that service.

Uptake and usage

Once it was in use, the desktop communicator turned out to be far more popular than had been originally anticipated.  Messages sent to the user's desktop containing links to stories published on the intranet were highly successful at generating traffic.  The caricature was also extremely popular; it's animations were designed to be appropriate to the nature of the messages being delivered, but were irreverant and varied enough that the arrival of messages produced interest, rather than them being ignored or being treated as a distraction.

Early on, the decision was taken to extend the life of the communicator, first to six months, and then eventually to eighteen.  During this time, the communicator remained reliable and continued to drive intranet traffic.  The application was only retired after a change in internal policy.

Conclusion

For a low cost, and without significant impact on internal IT policies, Turtlez were able to deliver an application which boosted traffic to important internal messages, raised staff morale, and provided an alternate - hard to ignore - source of internal communications.  Such was the popularity and success of the communicator that it's working life was extended to nearly ten times it's original brief.