The following is a blog post that i released on one of the companies that i work for. It’s about the transition that is going to happen to a company if they take the leap from email/IM based messaging to a system like yammer, wordpress based prologue2 or twitter.
This post was meant to engange people within the company to start using yammer more and more.
Summary:
Using more yammer is good for us. It fosters open communication and community! Move more of your discussion from email and skype to yammer, use it on a daily basis and answer your direct messages (received tab in yammer). It will make us stronger!
Here more in depth:
First: A reminder of the real value of twitter or yammer. Especially in relation to email and skype and also how it can actually DECREASE your email load / information overload.
What one has to understand is the big advantage of open (or open company wide) communication. This is something you can only grasp fully if you actively engage in it.
Soooo… what are some of the big advantages:
The team can answer for you
If you drop a message on yammer it’s very likely that if you are not around the team will answer it for you. One of your colleagues or someone else who knows it.
No more catching up with email.
ITS A STREAM. you are not supposed to read everything. The stream is more forgiving. This co-relates to people answering FOR YOU. You dip in, read, and go out. Nothing happened if you miss something. Obviously with yammer we’d appreciate it if you could check it daily. 
OPEN direct messages.
If someone asks a direct question (via the @name function), chances are other people are interested in your answer. Next time this question is being asked you can almost be sure someone else in the stream read your answer before and in case of your absence, can answer it for you —> true hive mind! The information is stored in the hive/community.
Yammer messages (and twitter messages of course as well) are shorter by nature.
Although there is no limit on yammer people don’t write excessively. You don’t want to spam the stream. Keeping it short is good for everyone. As some famous president once said: I only write a long speech when i am too lazy to write a short one
Messages have less overhead
Compare writing an email to writing a yammer post
email:
step 1: open gmail
step 2: press compose
step 3: start typing recepients
step 4: decide on subject
step 5: write text (NO LIMITATION)
step 6: press send
yammer post:
step 1: open yammer
step 2: write message (that may or may not include direct adressing via the @name)
step 3: press send
It may not sound like a lot but doing this on a daily basis many times adds up. you get my point.
You can see that you can continue this list on and on.
My point is this:
———–> I want for everybody to treat yammer with the same importance (or even higher) as email/skype.
We have vowed anyway to be an open company that doesn’t have secrets. So we can only gain from a more open communication.
Check your direct messages daily
It’s called Received in yammer and theres a link on the right hand side.
Write direct messages instead of email
Unless its something that absolutely HAS to be written in privacy post it on yammer instead of writing a mail. Chances are that someone of you COULDN’T think of answers is for that person the question was originally directed to. This happens already ALL the time on our yammer. I just want it to be for the topics that we for some reason keep in email.
Don’t forget yammer has attachments.
Unless like twitter (which uses short urls to make up for it) you can actually attach stuff. So no excuses here
Move more and more communication from skype and email to yammer
Don’t just use it for “just getting started – got a lot of mails”. By all means keep doing it. I like to know whats going on with you all. But also post IMPORTANT stuff there.
A lot of people in this company take an active interest in technical development. If more stuff would be discussed via yammer then people would be up to date AUTOMATICALLY.
And this is the big one: Stop being afraid of information overload!
What EVERYBODY needs to realize is: Information overload is a MINDSTATE. Don’t tell people not to post something. The stream has NEW rules. And you need to get with it. If you are upset by information overload it is the same thing as if you would be upset by being stuck in a traffic jam. its YOUR CHOICE!
The stream as i pointed out above doesn’t want to be read completely. You go in and you go out. Become cool with missing something. Trust that the community can (to a certain extend) make up for the stuff you miss -> hive mind!
I hope you can see how this all will strengthen our communication!
For more information on this topic:
- Could you work without email?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5GRzeIIoZM[/youtube] - I freed myself from E-Mail’s Grip
