For the past week or two, folks at my employer (Utah Valley University) have been trickling into the school's Yammer site. For those of you not familiar with Yammer it is basically an intranet Twitter. Only people from your company's domain (in our case, uvu.edu) can join. You can create various groups, follow co-workers, tag and index topics, and fill out things like organization charts.
The strength of Yammer is that unites people who face similar problems (in our case a massive state-run bureaucracy running on a skeletal budget) who might not normally converse with each other. My role in my office might be unique, but chances are there is another person doing a similar job for a different department on the other side of campus. Yammer allows me to shout out an issue or question and watch the crowd come to my aid.
What is interesting about UVU's Yammer right now, and this seems to be the case with most social media channels in their infancy, is that the community is small enough to be helpful. Twitter was downright hospitable in the early days of its evolution when you were just happy to find somebody else using it. Once the spammers and the phishers and the marketing trolls got a hold of the system it changed the nature of the conversation forever.
Yammer has a built in limit to its size that should prevent it from devolving into the Twitter of today (I still love Twitter and use it everyday, but I wouldn't consider it really helpful). The only comments you see on Yammer are from folks with your same domain address. It would be nice if the collective knowledge base was broader, right now the participants are the typical early-adopters (nerds like myself), but the small size seems to increase people's willingness to share what they know.
But I fear if it gets too big the candid nature of typical twitter-like conversations will be hindered by a fear that everyone is watching. This subject came up today when my buddy Don and I were talking about one of the school's vice presidents jumping on the Yammer-wagon. What happens to a social network when the boss is watching? Are the same kinds of conversations possible? Is their a chilling effect?
Recently there has been a movement among some forward-thinking companies to use the tools of Web 2.0 to increase workplace candor.
"Microsoft–once the epitome of the faceless monolith–has softened its public image by encouraging employees to create no-holds-barred blogs, which share details of upcoming projects and even criticize the company"
(Wired Magazine, April 2008)
If employees are allowed to be honest in their complaints about their environment, those in charge can be more responsive to their needs. As an employer I would want unfiltered access into what my employees really thought of my latest initiative. This kind of candor is only possible when folks feel free to speak without fear of retribution.
Of course this kind of free-flowing dynamic also depends on a community that is committed to a constructive attitude. Think of the Yammer network as a Wiki–an environment that is constructed, maintained, and some cases policed by its own members. Right now that vibe exists on my company's network, but it will be interesting to see if it continues as usage increases. The
Geeks Greeks said a perfect democracy could only exist amongst a limited amount of participants, it will be interesting to see what that number is on Yammer.
VEG
