There’s a history feature with Skype, it’s under the “clock” icon. The problem with it is that like the rest of the program it’s on a per contact or contact group basis so you can look at a conversation you’ve had last month with Jim but if you want to see previous conversations you’ve had with Anne then you’ve got to close Jim’s history first.

The issue is conversations disappearing/fragmenting/stalling. People forgetting to reply-all, people being on different part time schedules/leave/sick so that conversations get stalled for weeks at a time and other people don’t know what’s going on.

As far as cultural change goes, that’s my remit as my job is Digital Transformation Officer

The problem we found with Skype is that when the person who originates a group conversation leaves, the entire thread disappears, irretrievably. we lost some massive discussion threads because people left the company.

yourguitarhero – Member 
As far as cultural change goes, that’s my remit as my job is Digital Transformation Officer

One for http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stupid-job-titles 😀

^ I know right?
It’s a one off contract – in, do the job, leave. Annoyingly they wouldn’t take me on a freelance basis but made me become an employee so I get to go to mandatory equalities training and fill in questionnaires about stress

Would rather have 2.5x the hourly pay thanks

you have to ask yourself “what is the problem we’re trying to solve?” and be VERY clear on the answer before you start introducing tools to solve it.

If your answer is “communication”, then a) you need to work harder to find a more specific answer and b) you’re probably looking to solve a cultural, not technological, problem, so new technology is unlikely to be the solution.

Well put. If people can relate to that defined problem, they will buy into – and possibly even get excited – by that solution.

The oldest I remember using was ICQ, which was 1998 or earlier (I remember had an installer named icq98.exe and I think there was 1cq.exe before it). It ended up getting sold to a Russian company, it’s still very popular over there I believe. I was an early adopter – the user ID (“UIN”) was a number issued sequentially, and I’ve never seen a lower one than mine. It made me a bit of a target for Russian hackers for a while, a low UIN is considered a bit of a status symbol in such circles it’d seem.

How low was your UIN? I had a reasonably low one (sub 500K) but it got compromised so I lost it (luckily after everyone had switched to MSN Messenger / Skype!)

The Scottish schools yammer is impossible because it includes everyone in education.

There used to be subject/facility specific ones for staff only behind a “secure” page where assessments etc could be discussed.

Replaced by open access crap.

The problem we found with Skype is that when the person who originates a group conversation leaves, the entire thread disappears, irretrievably. we lost some massive discussion threads because people left the company.

So no-one’s using the ‘Persistent Chat‘ feature in Lync/Skype? It would do what you want but it’s definitely one of those technologies that suffers from what Cougar describes about people only using it if people use it.

Persistent Chat is ok but I think it is not available on mobile devices?

Yammer? We had that. Microsoft-owned now isn’t it? Chatter is the Salesforce equivalent. Neither is as good as the real Facebook for work: Workplace. Familiar facebook features but tweaked very effectively and securely for work use.

I still don’t get how Yammer fits in with Microsoft Teams, which seems to be the same but they say they aren’t. Well, except Teams is a blatant rip off of Slack.

Yammer = open by default, large groups of people, response time from others several hours, most people will just read. So broadcast comms, questions to large groups of people.

Teams = smaller groups of people who tend to collaborate on a specific topic or subject. Closed groups, limited to 600 users. Expect response in a few minutes. Most people will contribute. It’s a group based persistent chat tool.

Part of the challenge is that people have historically used Yammer groups for what Teams does now. It’s a cultural/behaviour change if people are using Yammer fir chat in small groups. Teams is much, much slicker and better for that.

(Disclaimer. I work for Microsoft and advise big companies on anything Microsoft at a high level. I can quite happily run a Teams demo/discussion including how it fits with Yammer, Skype for Business, email, Groups)

Frankly I’d put Yammer in for six months, then have a look back at the usage over that period during work hours and sack the top 10%.

Two reasons.

1. You can’t be doing the work you’re paid for if you are basically spamming people with all your bullshit ‘achievements’.

2. You are clearly a trendy pillock.