Easter eggs are abound within Google Street View, from references to Doctor Who, to being able to select the Loch Ness Monster as a method of transportation, or even finding directions from the Shire to Mordor! Who says a little levity hurts?

Let’s flashback to 2012 in Coveo history, when we moved into our new Quebec City headquarters we thought it would be fun to showcase our great new office in an innovative way… innovation is kind of our thing. When Guy Couture of Maps360, reached out to us to suggest we utilize the power of Google Street View to show off our new home, we couldn’t resist. Together with Guy, our R&D team started brainstorming ideas of how we could take this project to the next level. We wanted to incorporate our colleagues, but due to the rules of Google Street View, we couldn’t show any faces or visible brands. Then the eureka moment struck! Why not use Morphsuits and a collection of props to spice up the 360 tour a bit? The project was a hit.

As with any growing company, a lot changes in 6 years and one of the biggest changes for us was our headcount, nearly tripling in size worldwide. As the team at our HQ grew, the office we had simply became too small. As renovations for our new office began and our footprint in Quebec City continued to grow, one thing became clear: we must get out the 360 degree camera and morphsuits out once again!

Interested in initiating this fun project for your organization? Here are 3 tips:

Build out your roadmap

Your 360 shoot is as good as the plan behind it. It’s not as simple as someone showing up with a fancy camera. Think about your working space: what are the best places to highlight? With a floor plan in hand, map out the path of the 360 camera. For every room you are planning on shooting, think about how to best utilize the space around you! Computer monitors, desks, and TV’s could all include little easter eggs, or product information.

Find some crazy colleagues to help you

This is the easiest part of the whole process (in our opinion), there is no shortage of wacky individuals within our organization willing to lend a helping hand. We ensured that every department had a voice in the project – whether it was submitting ideas, to making cameos in the shoot itself.

Take a tour of the office, send an email to your peers and find people that are crazy enough to participate in this project with you. More importantly, you need to find people that are creative, ambassadors of your organization and ones that will be comfortable bringing their own signature style to each scene.

Lights, camera, action!

With our roadmap and volunteers in place, we chose a shoot date. Our team banded together to ensure the office was clean and ready to make our vision come to life.

On the shoot date, you’ll need to be available for approximately 4-5 hours for the shoot, preferably outside of office hours, as your hard working volunteers have a regular job to do as well. Not to mention, you don’t want to disturb anyone who’s hyper focused on their work.

After days of planning, we’re pretty excited to share the final product with you.

Experience the 360 tour here.

Bonus tip: just join the Coveo Life! We’re always looking for innovative and creative people to join our fast-growing team. Visit our careers page, we have plenty of open positions, so tell your friends too!