Yammer Reviews

As one of Yammer's first paying customers (albeit not in HE) I have quite a lot of experience with it. In general, it certainly appears to be the best of this growing group of internal micro-blogging tools. It's free for any size of network (as long as you don't need the additional security features).

I saw our network grow very, very fast organically – but there comes a point where it has to 'cross the chasm' in order to become a valuable business tool for everybody. And that's where the rubber hits the road, because – just like any other tool, system or process – it then needs management support, proper communication, use cases, and people who look after the community that it creates.

So, my take would be: trial it (it won't cost you anything), but don't expect it to have any meaningful impact without further thinking, resource and investment behind it.

I have had a love hate relationship with Yammer. There are indeed both guidelines and governance in play. Most of the processes in place are concerned about ensuring client confidentiality and compliance rather than expected use. For internal comms Yammer was being used as another channel to reach employees, however how they used Yammer was and is still maturing. Initially it was used to republish content that was already available through the Intranet, however this has now changed to one where they are more active in engaging in dialogue and supporting leaders in getting their message out (for example helping to host Yammer sessions). It has been a powerful tool, and one thing that I think it does very well is to empower employees from across the organization to contribute content and though leadership. I think that internal comms roles will shift slightly as they begin to support and encourage content from within, rather than having to be the sole authors and creators of content.