Kitesurfing on rough ocean

Ideas, updates and case studies from Tangowork on creating better digital experiences.

We built Beagle+, a legal AI chatbot for BC. It's scary good.

We combined proprietary data with OpenAI language models to create an AI chatbot that answers questions about the law in BC.

Overview photo of Vancouver, BC

Tangowork redevelops BC Unclaimed’s brand and website

9-month project included rebranding, design and UX writing, user testing and website development.

BC Unclaimed logo on blue

BCUPS to BC Unclaimed: Rebranding the BC Unclaimed Property Society

“The Society” was vague, and the acronym “BCUPS” sounded like a delivery company or a bra size

Before: a stack of bills with a dollar sign on top. After: an outline of a shield with mountains, leafs of paper, and a subtle checkmark.

Is this legit? Establishing legitimacy through design

On first glance, some people were dismissing BC Unclaimed as a scam.

Chart showing 99 out of 100 performance score on Google PageSpeed Insights

Performant and accessible: How we achieved near-perfect scores on BC Unclaimed’s website

We used Jamstack development with Contentful and NextJS, accessibility audits, and blind user testing.

Enhancing security by moving beyond Wordpress

We designed a serverless architecture on AWS with Cognito, VPC, WAF and Lambdas

Chart showing hockey stick growth upon site launch. Visitors: 58,019

Tracking website success with surveys and dashboards

BC Unclaimed has access to troves of data. But how could they turn that data into actionable insights?

RSL launches new intranet powered by Teams, Viva and SharePoint

Tangowork helps RSL leverage their Microsoft 365 investment with intranet that promotes communication and collaboration

Real-time data dashboard answers the biggest question for People’s Law School

Tangowork worked with the lawyers at People’s Law School to answer the question: are we making a difference?

Write my rights home page

Consumers create demand letters with Write My Rights

Tangowork worked with the lawyers at Write My Rights to build a software product that generates demand letters for consumers.

Enhanced Google Sheets integration for Docassemble

When our client needed robust data collection and reporting, we wrote a custom Python module for enhanced Google Sheets integration

Screenshot showing People's Law School DocuMoose project for creating draft car sale agreements

Tangowork launches improved document builders for People's Law School

The new document builders are easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, and generate legal documents in Word and PDF formats

Great products are useful, usable, and beautiful—in that order

Visual design isn’t nearly as important as whether your product solves a real problem.

How Tangowork helped People's Law School measure performance

Tangowork built a data dashboard that integrates qualitative and quantitative data for People's Law School. Google Ads, Google Analytics, YouTube and a custom satisfaction survey all feed data.

Performance data from credit union websites in British Columbia, Canada.

Integris tops list of fastest credit union websites in B.C.

An analysis by Tangowork revealed that Integris has the fastest credit union website in BC — faster than all the big banks, too.

How you can grow your website traffic 51%—overnight—by radically increasing speed

We rebuilt a public legal information website, Dial-A-Law, with one focus: increasing performance.

How we used Contentful to build a chatbot that helps with everyday legal problems

We used Contentful and Rasa to build a chatbot that helps people get information to solve common legal problems.

Running an intranet workshop: sharing the agenda (or “Hero’s Journey”)

The Hero’s Journey is a great way to share the agenda for your intranet workshop.

Coast Mental Health clubhouse musicians

Intranet Case Study: Coast Mental Health

Tangowork helped Coast plan, select, configure and launch a new intranet for 700 staff.

Running an Intranet Workshop: How to Warm Up the Room

Try Hopes and Fears or Trading Cards to get creative juices flowing.

Chatbot Case Study: Event Bot for Intranet Now Conference

Learn how Tangowork helped Intranet Now deploy an event chatbot for their conference

Use chatbots for employee eLearning

Chatbots are ideal for eLearning. Use them to nudge, train, and educate your workforce.

Chris McGrath presenting remotely at DEX 2018

Chatbot webinar series

3 webinars for 3 kinds of chatbots: HR, Intranets, and Events. Features chatbots in action and “lessons learned”.

Chatbot confusion matrix

5 best practices for deploying an employee or HR chatbot

Focus on a narrow domain, have 1 killer feature, and 3 more best practices for HR chatbots.

Phone showing conversation with a chatbot

When a chatbot is better than an intranet—and when it’s not

7 scenarios where a chatbot beats an intranet, plus 4 scenarios where an intranet beats a chatbot

Slack to intranet connector

Make your intranet available on Slack with a chatbot

Heavy Slack use reduces intranet use. Fix this by connecting Slack to your intranet via a chatbot

A child being held with sand on its feet

Chatbot Case Study: Bupa, an International Healthcare Company

Learn how a global healthcare company used a Tangowork employee chatbot to support an office move

Chris McGrath speaking at a conference about chatbots

Deploying a chatbot at a global insurance company (webinar)

Learn best practices for deploying an employee chatbot, including tips for Skype for Business and a suggested project plan

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When the chatbot doesn’t have the answer: Tangowork Chatbot Accelerator v13

New options for when the chatbot understands, but doesn’t have the answer

Chart showing how we overestimate people's computer skills

Chatbots succeed because employees’ computer skills are worse than you think

Only 5% of employees have “strong” computer skills. But all of them understand chatbots

Chris McGrath - chuck chats

Interview: Chuck Chats

Chris McGrath and Chuck Gose discuss chatbot personality, user testing, AI and more

A phone sitting on a chair with an open chat with a chatbot

Interview with Marginalia Magazine

Chris McGrath and Gloria Lombardi discuss the present and future of chatbots in the digital workplace

Example chatbot transcript

Why a slow-growing pilot is vital for chatbot success

Pilots are vital for chatbot development. Small teams can’t anticipate all the questions users will ask the bot

Example utterance for a chatbot "Show me yesterday's financial news"

Chatbot Vocabulary: 10 Chatbot Terms You Need to Know

Chatbot development has its own vocabulary. Learn about utterances, intents and entities.

Event bot

How to Build an Event Chatbot (Webinar)

Skip the conference app! Learn how to build an event chatbot to connect with attendees.

CNN chatbot

Webinar: How to Create a CNN-style News Chatbot for Your Organization

Learn how to create a news chatbot to help you share news & alerts at your organization, internally and externally

#tooMuchWinning

When Your Intranet is Too Successful

Some would kill to have this kind of intranet usage. But for those that do, it’s killing them.

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Podcast: Chatbots Will Change Employee Communications

Learn why and how companies are using chatbots to communicate with employees, plus where chatbots are headed.

Citadel chatbot

How To Build a Chatbot Just Like CNN’s For Internal Comms

CNN has one of the best news chatbots out there. Use Tangowork to build one just like it for internal comms.

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Interview: Chatbots and the future of intranets

In this brief interview, Chris McGrath discusses the future of intranets and chatbots.

Chris McGrath presenting at instrateam

Webinar: Why Chatbots Will Transform Mobile Intranets

In this 30-minute webinar, learn the 9 reasons why chatbots will power the next generation of mobile intranets.

Chris McGrath Lee Bryant, Hans-Jürgen Sturm and Emanuele Quintarelli

What I learned at Denmark’s IntraTeam Event

“Free beer is a great motivator” and 9 other takeaways from the 2017 IntraTeam Event in Copenhagen.

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Videos of Basic Tangowork Chatbot Accelertor Features

Check out these four super-short videos to get an overview of the basic employee chatbot features in the Tangowork Chatbot Accelerator.

People putting sticky notes on a window

Webinar: How to Design a Chatbot For Your Organization

Learn the key steps to planning a chatbot. All attendees receive a Project Plan template they can use for their own chatbot projects.

Chris McGrath sitting in vancouver

Webinar: Why Chatbots Are the Next Big Thing for Internal Communicators

If you’re an internal communicator, sign up for our upcoming webinar. You’ll see examples of real chatbots and learn about the 5 best ways you can use them.

FIR Interviews

Podcast: Shel Holtz & Chris McGrath talk chatbots

Shel Holtz and I recently discussed chatbots on his For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast network. We discuss: The rise of chatbots How chatbots will enhance internal communication and more

Chris McGrath quote

Podcast: Chatbots for Internal Communications

Listen to a podcast about what chatbots are, how they’re used, and where they’re headed. All within the context of internal comms.

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How to Run a Chatbot Strategy Workshop

An effective chatbot strategy session can be conducted remotely with screensharing, SurveyMonkey and careful facilitation.

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10 Reasons Why Chatbots Will Save Internal Communications

Chatbots are a transformative technology for internal communicators for the 10 reasons listed in this post.

Chris McGrath and attendees discuss chatbots

Take a Tour of the Tangowork Chatbot Accelerator on Wednesday, April 19

Enjoy a group demo of the Tangowork Chatbot Accelerator in a relaxed, low-pressure setting. Ask questions via chat.

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Fit your intranet features into one of these buckets: Gamechangers, Showstoppers, Entanglers and Distractions

When designing your intranet, spend as much time as possible on Gamechangers — the features that delight your users.

View from the ground looking up at skyscrapers

Merging? Retain employees by over-communicating

In a merger, there’s no such thing as too much communication, and intranets play a vital role.

Placemaking's collaborative intranet

Enterprise Social Software Case Study: Intrawest Placemaking

A case study of the social intranet of one of my clients, Intrawest Placemaking. Eight screenshots are included.

ThoughtFarmer, SharePoint, Wikis, and the lack of good intranet software

There is a lack of good intranet software in the world.