Yammer Is Twitter for Organizations
14 Jan
Many people don’t see the value of Twitter and the microblog community. I’ve heard people say, “I don’t want to know what others are doing!” Well, that might be true when it comes to casual friendships, but in a work environment, knowing what your co-workers and colleagues are doing can be productive. If you are working on projects or collaborating on ideas, Yammer.com provides one central place for everyone in your organization to communicate.
The beauty of it is that people outside of your organization are not able to join your private network. This keeps communication free from external distractions and allows tracking of important conversations. Another feature I really like about Yammer is the ability to create groups. For instance, during our leadership retreat, I created a group for ideas and the minutes of our meetings. I had several people with laptops join the group and begin documenting the meeting with short posts. All posts were saved in that group and are easy to find when I need them. You can create private groups for more sensitive conversations as well.
You also can use hash tags which help you search for posts later with keywords. For example, one of my posts looked similar to this: “#todo09 Increase the soda machine price to $.75 from $.50.” Yammer then gives you a link to all the hash tags you create and with one click of a button, you have a list of every post where you used that tag. By the way, I haven’t changed the price yet, so come by for a cheap soda.
Last, but not least is the portability of this app. They have a desktop software that is simple to use as well as the basic web interface. You can post just like using Twitter or an IM service. They also have an iPhone and Blackberry app that allows you to submit posts on the go. Receive SMS updates on your phone or right in your IM client. This is a free service for companies and organizations. There are a few paid features that you might want to check out. If you need to centralize your team’s communication, sign up for an account and check it out. You have nothing to lose.
Here are a few ideas for using Yammer in churches:
- Creative meetings
- Event planning and coordination
- Weekly staff check-in with posts about what’s going on in their ministry this week
- Corporate to-do lists of things needing completed around the church
- Personal prayer requests group for staff members
- Microblog about missions trips
- Traveling pastors can update staff with minimal effort.
