Yammer... anyone used this?

[northernseagull]

A friend of mine has recommended professional social network Yammer... an office based internal facebook platform. Initially set this up for my team today, anyone got any experience of using this or any bug bearing issues? Also, are any of the apps worth integrating?

 

[Stumpy Tim]

Used to use it a fair bit - Microsoft bought them for well over a billion dollars. Like most social networks it needs to be driven from the bottom up. If you log in, you'll probably find some of your team are already using it

 

[northernseagull]

Big purchase by Microsoft! But hopefully that leads to new features and tools etc. Any one managed to successfully integrate calendars from outlook into notifications toolbars?

 

[MattBackHome]

Yep we use it here. I reckon it's not bad, but it's universally hated amongst most people here who view it as utterly pointless.

Good for communication across multiple offices. We don't integrate outlook.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Used it for a few months before our company binned it. Total waste of money on Microsoft's part IMO. It just doesn't do anything particularly well.

 

[browneggsandham]

We use it at the Home Retail Group and I've found it brilliant. Helps awareness of what's going on in the business and opens you up to a wealth of knowledge from across the company.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

We use it at the Home Retail Group and I've found it brilliant. Helps awareness of what's going on in the business and opens you up to a wealth of knowledge from across the company.

We use it here and agree - our retail stores use it to keep in touch/motivate etc and our marketing team use it to advertise latest offers and new product.

 

[northernseagull]

We use it at the Home Retail Group and I've found it brilliant. Helps awareness of what's going on in the business and opens you up to a wealth of knowledge from across the company.

Have you used any of the add ons? Most of the team are loving the platform since its mobile based too... And given lots of us work in and out of office I thought that could prove useful!

 

[Hamilton]

We use it at our place. Very useful tool. It has helped to reduce email traffic as we shift most of the knowledge sharing content onto Yammer. I also use it to Yammer from board meetings which keeps everyone in the company up to date on stuff they need to know and makes things more transparent.

 

[tinycowboy]

Used it for a few months before our company binned it. Total waste of money on Microsoft's part IMO. It just doesn't do anything particularly well.

We were similar to this - we were all encouraged to use it for ages, no-one really did except IT people and the odd person in marketing. As far as I could see, people were having short discussions on complicated issues that didn't really help anyone's understanding of anything. It was much better for sending pointless, but jokey messages to people who were on the same floor as you. I think we still have it - I get a message every few months alerting me to new friends I can link in to. I've no idea what serious application it is supposed to have, so, if you do use it, make sure that people understand what it can be used for and why it could be more effective than meeting people face to face, calling them or emailing them - I don't doubt that it can help people, I've just never seen it used efficiently.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Not Yammer but my company has recently begun a remote office trial using a piece of software called Sococo. It has increased productivity as we expected people to work longer in exchange for not having to pay for or go through a commute and, the way we use it, it is in some ways more effective than being in the office. Before people would work from home at any old excuse. Some valid - trains for example. Some not - "have to take my Auntie to the doctor" type thing. It comes with multiple offices and the option to add floor(s) for clients. Meetings are done over VoiP and you can open and close virtual doors. We use the status to tell people what we're up to and have mostly replaced emails with video conferences, screen sharing and IMs.

It has absolutely transformed my life. I can now fit in a 9 hour working day around a run and still see my kids. Win / win

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

We were similar to this - we were all encouraged to use it for ages, no-one really did except IT people and the odd person in marketing. As far as I could see, people were having short discussions on complicated issues that didn't really help anyone's understanding of anything. It was much better for sending pointless, but jokey messages to people who were on the same floor as you. I think we still have it - I get a message every few months alerting me to new friends I can link in to. I've no idea what serious application it is supposed to have, so, if you do use it, make sure that people understand what it can be used for and why it could be more effective than meeting people face to face, calling them or emailing them - I don't doubt that it can help people, I've just never seen it used efficiently.

Exactly the problem right here. You can't make people be social. Nobody has time for it.