For the last year I have found the Twitter-like tool, Yammer, a productive tool in my work at Novo Nordisk. Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups. Anyone with a company email address can join the Yammer network for that respective company. I recommend this video to get familiar with Yammer.
In ways, I did not initially intuit, Yammer has benefited my work. It is not just a pasttime but a results driving tool. Here are a few examples which I hope you can also realize in your own work.
1. Meeting fellow employees with common interests. I have met more fellow employees with common interests via Yammer in a year than I could have met otherwise. We have thousands of users in my company though the 1/9/90 rule is at work as usual, where 1% originate posts, 9% comment on posts and 90% just watch. This is not a problem just a reality.
2. Researching relevant topics and projects throughout the organization. I have had several situations where I have found out about relevant projects going on in other parts of my organization via a Yammer post, or I have posted my interest in a certain type of project or resource only to have someone read it and answer. Yammer has saved me time and ignorance in these instances.
3. Locating & sharing organizational expertise. By posting requests for certain types of expertise, I have also gotten good answers and connections via Yammer. Additionally, I have been able to lend my own expertise to fellow employees both actively and passively via my posts which tend to focus on social media, Health2.0, storytelling and CRM.
As you can see, Yammer is not a waste of time but can be used to enhance your performance at work. I encourage you to join Yammer at your respective company and to benefit from as well as contribute in all the ways I have described above.
