Celerity Helps National Geographic Win Intranet Site of the Year Award

BOSTON, May 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Celerity's premier Digital Experience team has helped National Geographic win Ektron's Site of the Year award in the "Intranet" category. To select the winners, a panel of judges looked at candidates' use of Ektron to deliver measurable business results, integration with enterprise applications, multichannel visitor engagement and overall visitor experience.

During a year-long project engagement, Celerity helped build "ngconnect," a highly visual, social and content-relevant intranet experience that has made employee collaboration easy and exciting. The intranet unites over 1,500 National Geographic employees, opening information-sharing and content ownership to the entire user population.  The site conveys the organization's brand attributes of exploration and adventure through stunning photography and unique storytelling.

"Our employees are now connecting and engaging with each other and the organization in entirely new—and more relevant—ways," says Keelin Vaccaro, Director of Internal Communications at National Geographic. "Celerity's problem-solving techniques and collaborative partnering strategy helped us make informed project decisions each step of the way."

To make the new system intuitive, Celerity's user experience design focused on best-of-breed social enterprise components that allow employees to have open, real-time conversations, follow/like one another's customizable profiles, and build common circles. Integration tools with LinkedIn allow employees to automatically load contact and background information, and add directory information like skills, interests, and languages.

The site also boasts distributed content capabilities so users can easily generate and maintain relevant content. Employees can provide feedback and ideas on defined topics using online forms, and access curated content on their home page through an external news feed. And thanks to Celerity's enhancements to site administration capabilities, everything from background images to promotional banners and organizational charts can be managed via the CMS.

"The Ektron Site of the Year awards acknowledge innovative uses of the Ektron platform to provide personalized, engaging experiences for online audiences," said Bill Rogers, Ektron CEO and Founder. "National Geographic's intranet is a great example of a site that connects employees and other stakeholders to the organization and each other, while providing the tools they need to do their jobs."

Earlier this year, the site also won the Nielsen Norman Group Award for World's 10 Best Intranets.

SOURCE Celerity