Yammer

I knew it was a mistake to go on my company’s yammer site. All the fake enthusiasm and faux-interest in work related matters is nearly making me puke. I’m half tempted to go on there and start being my usual cycnical and abusive self as I am on facebook but I fear I might get the sack.

Anyone else’s employer using it?

Briefly. I mostly enjoyed the “Happy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, may jesus be with you” posts from our international colleagues.
It was closed down after a short while.

googles yammer…

Yammer provides collaborative software that empowers employees to be more productive and successful.

…still has no clue…

works well for international groups contributing to a discussion so long as rule 1 is followed – don’t be a dick.

googles yammer…

Yammer provides collaborative software that empowers employees to be more productive and successful.
…still has no clue…[/quote]

Facebook for internal company use. About as useful, but fewer pictures of cats.

EDIT: Some positives – our systems can be quite slow to ALT-TAB away from the internet browser in order to look productive when someone important appears. Ctrl-Tab away from STW onto Yammer is much faster and looks like you’re “collaborating” rather than loafing..

We’re not but have been using sales force, which has a fb style wall for employees to post on. Largely it is used for a couple of the guys to try and seem like they are busy by calling out people and posting how busy they are. Look at me type shit. We are dumping sf so may end up on yammer. I can’t wait.

Edit, what mike said about not being a dick.

I’ve been thinking about going back to full time regular employment recently (currently a self employed homeworker) but I know that a couple of days this sort of shit would drive me nuts and i would end up being labelled as the grumpy new fella that doesn’t join in. Either that or on a manslaughter charge.

Is it possible to go to work and just do a good job with having to pretend like everything is awesome? Even the job descriptions I’ve been looking at are making me want to vomit.

It’s a big old pile of steaming dog eggs.

I’ll be contrary and say I like it. It’s pretty much replaced email lists for us and anything that keeps stuff not directly relevant to me out of my mailbox is welcome. Previous discussion are all nicely searchable for new people or when my memory fades.

It’s still work. So if your workplace is a terrible soul-sucking place then your company Yammer probably will be too.

Yep, company I used to work at use at, and really promote it. Cyclist group was quite good (big enough company for it to have a worthwhile membership), and the photographers group yielded some interest. Generally a bit shit though, although like Simon I like that it stopped all the “bake sale this Friday” emails. Seems people did use it to solve problems too – when you really don’t know who/where to ask something.

I left 2 months ago but my account is still live, could go and cause mayhem…

It’s great for project collaboration, sharing creative solutions etc, I find it a very useful tool.

We use yammer too. I have an account but haven’t really spent much time on there.

Working for a French company means there are lots of French language threads.

We had different ‘networks’ for different countries. Seemed to work. You could post in “All Company” which had loads of Columbians (weirdly, not that much of a presence there) or could stick to the UK ‘site’.

Only place I’ve ever seen it in us it was full of ” All the fake enthusiasm and faux-interest in work related matters” as per your experience, OP.

Oh, and the owner of the company (He really wanted everyone to call it, “The Firm” like it was something more professional) openly swearing, insulting and bitching about employees.

I don’t work there any more.

We have an organisational Yammer site. Six people are registered (out of several thousand), of whom 4 are part of the IM&T dept. I dare say it would probably help if the organisational firewall didn’t block Yammer as a social network…

Yep, our company (global outfit) use it to share all kinds of stuff between markets. Probably have 50+ boards. The ones I’m a member of include discussions that either i) I understand, can participate in and find valuable or ii) I don’t have a clue about, don’t participate in but can see other people finding them of value. I and my team start threads in the former quite regularly.

All in all, I think it’s great for what we do.

We have one. I get weekly updates from it. I’ve no idea what it’s about.

I really like Yammer but then I also like my job and my colleagues so that helps. It’s a very useful resource.

Isn’t a yammer somebody who comes from the Black country.?

Following on from this thread, I have just had it opened up to our company. I hadn’t thought about having groups related to hobbies on it. That’ll keep all the American football discussions on one place.

We used to have Yammer. Now we have Chatter (salesforce.com). They’re forum-like software with notification features.

I’ve found both invaluable for cutting email traffic and serendipitous contact with folks with common interests in e.g. text analytics, data analysis, social media analysis, research, and reference materials. It’s also been very good for exchanges with folks in other, diverse, parts of a 40,000+ person organisation that spans the globe.

Folks use it for all sorts of things, some very corporate, others less so. The diversity of people and posts is just part of the experience. Usage isn’t as widespread as I think some folks would like but not everyone likes internet forums and social media.

the standard language for exchanges is English. I’d like to see it shift to local languages but with the option to auto translate to your locale settings. Maybe that’s a few months off.

The groups stuff can be handy but can also lead to balkanisation of topics. The topic/tag adding features are handy though.

We have it. It’s time consuming and full of shite #all1bigteam. But it seems to be high up on lots of our senior management’s PDR objectives for the year. Therefore I suspect it will be promoted (by threats and bullying) for at least two PDR cycles.

Most things follow this cycle.

Year one: The management cycle- most important thing EVER!

Year two: The sycophant cycle – embrace fully or face disciplinary action.

Year three: Everyone else finally finds a way to make it vaguely useful cycle – only to be used with manager’s written permission. #luvmypdr

It’s a shame that these days success in the corporate world is all about “look at me aren’t I fantastic?” than actually doing a decent, worthwhile job.

Our team briefs are always on about yammer , never heard of it outside the waste water place i work?
havent even looked let alone comment !

An external organisation I work with mentioned their Yammer page in a briefing. They seemed to be unaware it’s internal and not publicly visible…

muppetWrangler – Member
I’ve been thinking about going back to full time regular employment recently (currently a self employed homeworker) but I know that a couple of days this sort of shit would drive me nuts and i would end up being labelled as the grumpy new fella that doesn’t join in. Either that or on a manslaughter charge.

Is it possible to go to work and just do a good job with having to pretend like everything is awesome? Even the job descriptions I’ve been looking at are making me want to vomit.
Funny that cus thats me and ive been labelled as the grumpy new fella with a bad attitude , all i want to do is my job without all the bullshit !