Getting Technical : Yammer

I’m going to take a little break from the personal stuff and offer up some completely non-personal, “it’s-all-business” thoughts. One of the common things I’m asked about is what tools I use in my daily workflow.

For today’s entry…let’s talk about Yammer.

First off…ever heard of this little website called Twitter? No? Well…trust me, I think it’s going to be big. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and call it’s potential HUGE. Well, Yammer takes a different twist on the basic functionality that Twitter offers and brings the corporate environment oh so much more.

So, what’s this Yammer thingy?

Yammer is a free online tool that allows you to create an internal corporate communication system. It works with some of the basic functionality of Twitter except for some very important differences.  Here are two of the biggest differences.

1. It doesn’t have a 140-character limit like Twitter.
2. It’s closed to single organizations by being tied to a single domain name.

All communications flow in a single feed but you can divide things out with the use of groups. So…you can view a master feed list or create/access a particular sub-group tied to your department, team or topic.

We’ve implemented Yammer at my day job at Portland Christian Center and it’s been slowly getting more ingrained in our communication flow. The hardest thing is getting people to break the long-time addiction to email. But the problem with email is that you quickly get buried in a never-ending sea of comments on top of emails on top of comments on top of emails which tend to lead to frustration in finding that one thing you remember someone asking or saying. You know it’s buried in a CC: or and RE: or a BCC: somewhere…but where?! Folder? Inbox? Sent? Deleted? Junk? Ahh!!!

Yammer, on the other hand, allows for a constant flow of information in a way that you can either add to the team-wide flow of communication and/or focus your message at certain individuals by using the now-familiar naming convention of the @name_here method. There’s also the option to Direct Message or “DM” if you need to take the conversation “off-line” and outside the team-wide message flow.

For my team, I’ve often used it to send out concept previews of designs we’re working on for feedback. Others on my team can either “Like” the post or comment on the post. Comments can be set to track under actual conversations for easy reference and dialogue.

Where my day job has been slow in implementation, a company I consult for has really taken to the system and it’s become the de-facto mode of communication. I can hop on at any time and track things and see where any trouble-spots are at…and interject as needed. From watching that evolve, the big advantage of this system is that everyone can “be in the loop” very easily by merely keeping an eye on the flow of information being posted. Win.

While the service is free, they do offer a Premium service that costs $5/user/month. The premium option gives you the ability to brand your Yammer feeds with some other additional resources. I’ve been just fine with the free versions myself and haven’t seen the need to recommend the premium versions.

I know there are other similar communication tools out there but this is the one that I’ve been using a lot. If you’ve used Yammer or any other similar communication system, what are your thoughts?

LINK: Yammer.com

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