Pictured Above: Hurricane 1000 with the top off focusing on the problem part, which was the pump.

Recently I received a brand new Chauvet Hurricane 1000 Fog machine. I opened the box, filled it with fog juice, plugged it in, let it heat up, then all it did was make an odd rattling sound. After a lot of research and tinkering I have fixed it and it's a pretty simple fix. I have posted this page and video in hopes of saving someone some heartache of their machine not functioning on arrival.

And here's a video talking through what I did to get it working

The solution consulting team at Simpplr has given tons of demos over the past few years. These demos have all centered around one main topic - employee engagement. While old-school and out-dated intranets are still easily found in the wild, modern intranets that drive employee engagement for distributed, agile, and mobile workforces are alive and well. And those aren’t my words - those are the words of analyst firms like Gartner & Forrester!

Trends in the Questions Asked on Demos
Over time, our team has noticed trends emerging from the questions asked by organizations who are looking to drive engagement in today’s modern era. These questions provide insight into the top internal engagement challenges that leaders are looking to solve. So let’s look at the top 5 questions we get asked on demos...

The Top 5 Questions We Get Asked on Demos

1. How do you authenticate users?
   User authentication is always asked because organizations not only store their user’s information in various types of identity and single-sign-on solutions, but they want to make sure that logging in to an intranet environment is as frictionless as possible. The first barrier to engagement is being able to easily authenticate, which is why this question always comes up.
   
   
   
   
2. Can we create targeted content without needing help from IT?
   The term “targeted content” translates to mean personalization. Nobody wants to spend time sifting through content that’s not relevant to them. To keep engagement high, intranets should remove the clutter and provide an efficient experience through personalized content. The phrase “without help from IT” is code for please give us an easy to use system and remove our dependency on the IT department. Who wants to create content if you have to wait on IT to approve it before it can be seen? If you’ve got a system that makes content creation easy and provides automatic personalization then you’re on the right path.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Do you have a mobile app?
   As companies become more distributed and mobile in nature, the ability to connect from any device, at any time, and in any context is critical for success. Having a responsive intranet is good, but it’s not good enough. Modern intranet solutions ship with a mobile app that leverages the device’s native capabilities to drive the highest levels of engagement. For example, can you one-click tap and call or email your co-worker from the org chart in your mobile app - or - can you take a picture and instantly upload it to your intranet?
   
   
   
   
   
4. What integrations do you ship with?
   Organizations are using cloud tools, products, and services now more than ever. Along with being able to have a frictionless login process, organizations want to provide seamless access and integrations with the tools, services, and file shares that they use every day. These are integrations with systems such as Okta, AD, Workday, ADP, OneDrive, SharePoint, Box, Teams, Slack, ServiceNow and the list goes on. Given that we’re using so many services and tools these days, the ability of your intranet to easily integrate with external solutions is critical for success.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Do you have an org chart?
   As companies embrace the trend of a more distributed workforce, remote employees are more prevalent. Whether your organization is large, distributed, or both - the ability to easily locate co-workers and find information about them is crucial. Dynamically created org charts help employees understand where they are located in the hierarchy of the organizational structure and helps them easily find and connect with employees who can give them info they need. Have you ever struggled to find the contact info for someone in your organization? If so, this is where a dynamic org chart could have saved you time.
   
   
   
   
   

In Today’s Modern Workforce Engagement Matters Now More than Ever
The questions I’ve just outlined are frequently asked on demos and they reveal what’s important to modern employees. They also relay that leadership understands that ease of use, clear communications, targeted messaging, and driving positive culture are critical factors for success in today’s competitive market.

Luckily for our team, Simpplr makes it really easy to answer these questions and more!