Yammer as the New Twitter for Businesses to Keep Employees Connected

Despite it being an aging comic strip today, Dilbert is still devastatingly funny and accurate in describing the lack of proper communication in corporations. With so much of that getting progressively worse in just about every corporate office setting, it's really no wonder many major corporations have problems in quality control as just starters. The problem behind that, of course, is still in the interior design of the corporation itself where the head honchos reside in their upper suites and the hard-working employees reside down the floor hierarchy within their nightmare cubicle mazes. Amid all that chaos resides an inability to know what the other is doing, even during meetings that fail to consolidate and only leading to disgruntlement.

Other than sending boring-looking emails (something probably being lessened due to upper brass reading all that talk about sex), employees in a business or corporation have yet to master the art of consolidation in productive communication.

If some of you think Twitter was the most useless invention in internet history, you might think again when you see what it may influence. Now microblogging is the hottest new trend worldwide as the long-winded learn how to be terse and the terse learn to be even terser. Whether you find typing a thought into 160 characters or less is annoying, it can be a money-saving venture for a business trying to stay alive in a faltering U.S. economy. And when you have a microblogging network in a business, knowing what everybody is doing concurrently without having to spend fifteen minutes reading about it becomes a miracle in the business world.

It's a wonder someone didn't think about doing that ten years ago. Well, they probably did, but someone else beat those ill-fated inventors to the patent. Inevitably, it was an internet innovator with considerable influence to get it done first. David O. Sacks is probably best known for creating that genealogy site called Geni and producing the successful satire film "Thank You for Smoking." Making a film satire successful is enough of an accomplishment, but he may eventually be better known as the creator of a microblogging system that helped the corporate world finally get a concurrent picture of what every employee is doing at any given moment.

With perhaps a slightly dangerous title of Yammer as a way to compare it to Twitter, the design of this microblogging network is more than just a simple message box for employees to relay what project they're working on. Yes, it does have the Twitter feature of the follow so fellow employees who happen to be close friends can keep in touch every minute. The good news there is that you don't have to worry about writing a message and immediately getting a follow from someone who doesn't care anything about you other than wanting your business.

The differences on Yammer are in its similarity to an online forum through a separate section where threads can be created with fast replies. This still doesn't mean writing several paragraphs. Overall, the point is brevity and a chance for upper brass to see who the most productive members of a company are via their Tweets...or, uh, let's say Yammers.
_____

Some might insinuate that the suits regularly checking messages from employees on what they're working on could eventually create a terrible bias leading to unfair terminations. For those who work in office settings, they'll say getting away with some unproductive days without being found out is one of the more tolerable aspects to that world. Should Yammer become diffuse in every business or corporation, the incentives to communicate on it will be too great to avoid, which means lying about what you're doing causing a lot more problems.

Really, the invention of the program fosters more productivity and through clever ways. According to Sacks, inciting that drive to keep busy doing something worthwhile for the company only leads to more personal rewards--hence parlance in corporations for career advancement. Every possible communication method will be incorporated into Yammer, including IM's and even enabling supposed private conversations within the system. Whether that means employees getting away with talking about sex and other naughty things will remain to be seen.

Every indication is there that the top brass at the company would have godlike control over the program if they so choose. You should also know that a semi-threatening feature of Yammer is that they have a prominent place where employees can be visibly removed when they no longer work for the company so everybody will know when someone gets a pink slip or, hopefully, just decided to work elsewhere.

With a sometimes sluggish work ethic that goes through all offices, Yammer has a good chance of bringing fun back to work. Communication might sound distracting, yet it keeps ideas flowing without having to meet around a giant oak table where the devouring of donuts is the only action taking place.

The only thing Yammer won't fix is the final word creativity of the suits themselves. While many lament the lack of true, innovative creativity in corporations of late for the sake of making a quicker buck, it's a shame Yammer can't have control via the employees. In that alternate universe, the joy of getting rid of and replacing top brass with someone who thinks creatively at a higher level would make the program one of the most useful ever created for Web 2.0...

Yammer's official site:

https://www.yammer.com