I\u2019m going to state right up front that I am an old fart \u2026 I don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d Facebook, Twitter and all the rest of the always on, always plugged in social networks.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t understand the need to be constantly informed.\u00a0 Of course my younger colleagues just look at me totally askance when I say things like this and then quickly turn back to their phones for the latest updates on their social feeds \u2026<\/p>\n
But I do have to say that I\u2019m slowly starting to \u201cget it\u201d when it comes to Yammer.<\/p>\n
We (itgroove) have been getting our heads wrapped around Yammer for the last few weeks, with the charge being lead by Sean, our El Supremo.\u00a0 Today we had a big lunch meeting to delve more deeply into Yammer and the light bulbs (or should I say, LED\u2019s) started to illuminate as we discussed and poked and prodded.\u00a0 I would not say that I totally understand what Yammer is (that would mean that I grok it and that just ain\u2019t so) but I am beginning to see the possibilities Yammer can give to organizations willing to give it a whirl.<\/p>\n
Yammer appears to be many things and I have heard it described as \u201cFacebook for Business\u201d.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that is a fair description but it certainly is a platform that organizations can use to capture and maintain information that flows between members of the organization without applying too many constraints in the process.\u00a0 It can certainly be a great replacement for a lot of email discussions because, as we all know, email is a rotten<\/em> way to communicate with a group <\/em>of people; it is asyncronous, disjointed and too much data can get lost along the way.\u00a0 Yammer conversations (or discussions or posts, pick your terminology) arrange the information flow chronologically with timestamps, allow for files to be attached, and information can\u2019t be lost<\/em>.\u00a0 Yammer posts can incorporate files and links and video and \u2026 well, you name it.<\/p>\n I like the idea that a conversation that might have been contained in email pre-Yammer can now be captured with only one<\/em> copy (the Truth) being held in Yammer in the chronological order in which it was generated.\u00a0 And, yes, I know that a Yammer conversation can still be construed as asyncronous because you are not actually talking in \u201creal time\u201d (that is what Lync or a phone or even, horrors, face-to-face in-person conversations are for) but it feels <\/em>more fluid than email.\u00a0 And. like SharePoint, there is just one copy of the truth which beats the pants off the confusing array of \u201ctruths\u201d that can exist in a fragmented group email conversation!<\/p>\n I guess the real \u201cproblem\u201d with Yammer is trying to figure out what it is and where you would use it in place of other tools that you already have in your quiver (like the aforementioned Lync).\u00a0 I certainly shied away from Yammer for the first little while.\u00a0 (OK, that isn\u2019t exactly true \u2026 I HATED it when I first looked at it.)\u00a0 You do have to kick the tires and be willing to give it a chance.\u00a0 I\u2019m doing my best to do so and will blog again down the road to describe our internal experience with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"