For a company that “believes the power of the Internet lies not in the technology, but in it its strategic use,” The Bivings Group isn’t giving much thought to how Yammer can help support its internal communications. #
In a post today, The Bivings Group (TBG) calls Yammer pointless and a little sketchy. My company is coincidentally giving Yammer a spin right now so this peaked my interest. Today I experienced the first “ahha” moment. #
As mentioned in today’s post by TBG, Yammer’s functionality is very similar to Twitter. The key differences are its secret handshake entry and its ability to create public or private groups once you’ve gained access to your Yammer circle. #
To access my company’s network, you must have a company email account, however, once you’re in, you are free to create a profile, create groups, upload files and annoy your coworkers. Our network includes 85 newspapers and 23 broadcast stations plus numerous other technology groups that are often working towards the same goal but often way too busy to respond to email and often not in the same building – or state! #
The “Ahha” Moment
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A network like Yammer assists in innovation when you have tweeple-like conversation amongst like-minded individuals working towards a common goal. Just as with Twitter, people feed off of each other and iterate in real time. #
Each day, my coworkers that drank the Yammer Kool-Aid, update their “status” on Yammer and let the company know what they are working on at that moment. Today, a developer in Cincinnati was discussing a new RSS string he was hoping to experiment with in the coming days. This peaked the interest of someone on the network from Des Moines. From there, the ideas started flowing. #
No email. No voicemail. No meetings about meetings. Only ideas and innovation. #
The main takeaway – as with any social network – is that you must be connecting two communities that wouldn’t otherwise be able to rally around a topic or project in such a seamless fashion. This sort of community might not make sense for The Bivings Group because they are a smaller company, but I wouldn’t write it off forever. There’s something genius about only allowing your coworkers 140 characters to explain an idea. #
on Apr 10th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for reading and linking to my story, and I’m glad you are having a good experience with the product.
I probably was a bit too dismissive in writing it off as pointless in the headline, and should have have written a more substantive analysis of the uses cases where Yammer could succeed.
I didn’t do this because my bigger issue with the tool is its business model, which I think is aimed at coercing companies into signing up for their paid services.