Celebrating a DWG Alum’s quiet masterpiece

Dear Diary. 

During a review of LinkedIn activity, I had a lovely exchange with a former DWGer and Member Alum, Ellen van Aken , who recently reworked her intranet launch and promotion video library. It brought me to today’s ponderable:    

How can I celebrate this quiet masterpiece of craft, curiosity and community?  

Well, here I go!

Ellen’s long-running collection is a true labour of love that has benefited intranet and digital workplace practitioners alike for well over a decade. It is fitting to pay tribute to Ellen, not just for the sheer scale of her work, but for the way it has helped define ‘what good looks like’ in intranet storytelling for not only the DWG community but our wider industry circle as well. 

Ellen’s curatorial craft 

Ellen began collecting intranet launch and promotion videos many years ago and kept going until the collection ran into the hundreds, carefully cataloguing them as platforms and hosting locations changed over time. When one tool became impractical, she migrated the collection – with hands-on help from her husband – so that the resource could live on in a sustainable form rather than disappear. 

Her current curated set of Ellen’s Intranet Promotion Videos brings together launches, re-launches and digital workplace introductions from around the world. Although it covers 150+ videos across many sectors and platforms, Ellen has made it easy to scan, sample and learn from different formats and styles. The collection has become a go-to reference for consultants, intranet managers and vendors alike. It is frequently cited and linked to as a benchmark library of intranet promotion practice, including on the DWG member extranet-to reference for consultants, intranet managers and vendors alike. 

Why this labour of love matters 

Ellen’s collection matters because intranet launches are high-stakes moments that can either cement the intranet’s value or reinforce cynicism and fatigue in the blink of an eye. (By the way, this can equally hold true for other digital workplace channels too!)

By providing practitioners with a broad gallery of examples – from cinematic teasers to simple ‘talking heads’ explainers – Ellen has helped organizations move beyond generic feature tours toward more human, story-led communications. 

The videos she curates often surface patterns that are easy to miss in one-off examples, such as recurring intranet names, common metaphors (connection, hub, workplace), and evolving expectations around mobile, search and self-service. Her commentary and tagging over the years have also highlighted practical considerations like pacing, subtitles, platform clues (for example, SharePoint glimpses) and the importance of making content feel locally relevant. 

12 key insights as a good-practice checklist 

Drawing on the themes emerging from Ellen’s extensive collection, here are 12 insights that form a practical checklist for intranet and digital workplace teams: 

1. Anchor the story in people, not features. The strongest videos lead with people’s work and needs via leaders, frontline employees or composites rather than a tour of menus and widgets. Featured walkthroughs still appear, but as supporting actors in a narrative about solving real problems or making daily work easier. 
2. Give the intranet a memorable identity. In many of the best examples the intranet has a distinctive name – sometimes even a person’s name. This humanizes the platform and makes it easier to talk about in everyday conversation. This identity often carries through in the visual branding, taglines and video tone, helping the intranet feel like ‘someone’ or ‘somewhere’ employees want to visit. 
3. Use video across the whole launch journey. Ellen’s collection shows that video works not only at the launch moment but across the full intranet rollout: teasers to build anticipation, ‘big reveal’ clips for launch day and short demos to support adoption afterwards. Don’t treat launch videos as one-off artifacts; think of them as campaign assets that help keep momentum and reinforce key messages over time. 
4. Blend emotional appeal with clear utility. Many of the standout videos strike a balance between emotion (purpose, pride, connection) and utility (how to find documents, people, processes). They show how the intranet supports culture and community while also being the place to get work done while avoiding the trap of feeling either too ‘fluffy’ or too technical. 
5. Show real screens doing real tasks. Screen captures and simple UI flythroughs remain a core ingredient, especially when they are anchored in realistic scenarios like finding procedures, booking leave or accessing learning. The most effective clips keep these sequences short and focused, helping employees picture themselves using the intranet without overwhelming them. 
6. Feature voices from across the organization. Interview-style videos (featuring executives, managers and employees) are common and powerful when tightly edited. Including a mix of roles and locations reinforces the message that the intranet is for everyone, not just office-based staff or the headquarters. 
7. Use leadership wisely, not excessively. Many organizations put leaders on camera to signal sponsorship, explain why the intranet matters and invite feedback. The better examples keep leadership segments concise and authentic, avoiding overly scripted ‘talking heads’ that feel more like corporate commercials than genuine invitations. 
8. Design for global and local audiences. Ellen’s collection includes videos in multiple languages and with subtitles, reflecting global organizations and diverse workforces. Good practice examples make intentional choices about language, captions and visual storytelling so that the message travels well across regions and roles. 
9. Keep ’em short, focused and replayable. The videos that age best tend to be concise, with a clear purpose: teaser, announcement, demo or welcome. They can be reused in onboarding, embedded in the intranet itself or shared in campaigns without feeling dated or overly long. 
10. Invite participation and feedback explicitly. Many videos end with calls to action: explore a particular area, complete a profile, try search, or share stories and ideas. This framing positions the intranet as a co-created space, where ‘the more you put into it, the more you get out’, rather than a finished product handed down from on high. 
11. Mind the technical and platform signals. Some videos reveal intranet platforms in subtle ways, e.g. glimpses of SharePoint, navigation pattern or mobile layouts. In combination, they help practitioners benchmark their own environments. At the same time, the videos that resonate most keep the focus on outcomes rather than tools, making platform details almost incidental. 
12. Curate, sustain and evolve your own library. Ellen’s multi-year curation journey is itself a lesson in good practice: maintain a living library of examples, learn from what works, and revisit your own launch content over time. Organizations can follow this lead by capturing their own intranet stories – launches, refreshes, major feature rollouts – and using them as internal learning assets for future initiatives. 

A tribute from the digital workplace community 

Ellen’s intranet promotion video collection has become a global touchstone precisely because it is so clearly a labour of love, maintained over many years and through multiple tools and formats. Her work extends the reach of every intranet team whose launch video appears in the collection and gives every new intranet team a richer starting point for their own storytelling. 

For DWG members and the wider digital workplace community, this archive is more than just a set of links. It is a shared memory bank of intranet history, trends and creativity at work.  

Celebrating Ellen as a former DWG colleague and Member Alum acknowledges not only her contribution to DWG’s story, but also her enduring impact on how organizations introduce, explain and humanize their digital workplaces.  

Take a moment to share your support via a quick LinkedIn comment or repost as a way of extending this tribute to Ellen’s masterpiece.    

P.S. Be sure to also stop by the DWG member extranet or our website for your window into our topical research around intranet futures. 

— Nancy 

Categorised in:   → Diary of a She-E-O