We’ve just started using Yammer at work. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s very similar to Twitter. Users write a question or a short update on what they’re doing that can be read by everyone who ‘follows’ them. Everyone who reads the update can write their own response and gradually a community conversation starts. A bit like in the picture above.
Unlike Twitter however, Yammer is only for internal communications within one company – you must have a Carphone Warehouse email address to sign up for our group. In theory this eliminates the background noise and constant interruptions from Stephen Fry that can make using Twitter a bit like wading through a pile of someone else’s mail.
And so far I’m very impressed. Carphone is a big company based in several sites across the country. Obviously, this can make communication difficult – no one who works on our Preston site is going to ‘pop down for a quick chat’ with me in London. But on Yammer such geographical trifles aren’t a problem.
The other day I needed some feedback on a web page I’m writing about BlackBerry App World. I wanted to know if customers were having problems using it and what sort of questions they were calling our contact centre to ask. Previously getting this sort of feedback would have been a nightmare – I’d have had to track down the right person and then exchange a series of emails or phone calls with someone hundreds of miles away.
Instead of all that, Yammer let me type out a short question and chuck it out to everyone who was logged on. Within half an hour three or four people (several of whom I didn’t know before) had come back to me with suggestions about what I needed to consider.
It wasn’t just the speed that impressed me. The inclusive nature of Yammer means that everyone who could help with my problem did – even if I didn’t know who they were. That’s some pretty efficient social networking – if only someone could find a similar use for Facebook.
4 responses so far ↓
I’m Yammering away… « UK eInformation Group // May 6 2009 at 8:37 am |
[...] Yammering away… Rob Wood’s posting I’m Yammering away describes how he obtained feedback from fellow Carphone Warehouse employees about a web page he had [...]
Brett Markin // August 11 2009 at 4:24 am |
Ya, http://www.Yammer.com is very cool. One thing it is missing that http://www.twitter.com has and also http://www.snipia.com has is the ability to coordinate outside the organization. Twitter is a bit basic in terms of security in that regard. Snipia does a better job with the permission levels, sub groups, etc, but the disadvantage is that it is not private to a domain like Yammer. That brings up security questions as well.
Rob // August 11 2009 at 3:55 pm |
The best thing about Yammer is is secure, and that it does give you control over who’s listening to conversations. This tends to negate all the useless blethering that makes Twitter so tricky to use.
I’ve not used Snipia but I will investigate…
Creating a clamour for a Yammer « Rob writes // August 11 2009 at 3:45 pm |
[...] with Yammer, it’s a bit like Twitter, but open only to people within a certain company – read more about what it does here. We’re hoping it will help people in different parts of the business share [...]