Yammer - a new level of corporate communication

On Habré, Yammer service was already mentioned, but for some reason it is more perceived by users as a Twitter clone. I totally disagree with this and try to prove it, and maybe someone will decide to register an account and implement this creation in his company.

Everything in this world is relative, and in order to understand all the advantages of Yammer, you need to consider the current situation in companies. Take, for example, a large company developing websites (for me, this is closer). Take into account the following personnel: director, project managers, designers and programmers. Any director is interested in what is going on in his company, and for this he usually tra tortures his managers, who in turn learn from the developers at what stage the company's projects are, distracting them from their work. Also, programmers have to distract designers in order to find out what and how with the layout of the next design. In some companies there are weekly / daily reports on the work done (nonsense, but he once worked in this), and usually nobody likes it (you have to strain, invent something, remember)! I do not claim that this is the case everywhere, but I have often come across this.

And now what if we add to this all of the annoying web-dancers? What if you combine email, messenger, reports and project reports into one system with a pleasant interface, all the necessary functions and arrange this “miracle” in the form of microblogging (apparently because of this and compare it with Twitter) ... Apparently, the creators Yammer and made a "coup" at least in his company!

Let's start in order.
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To register will be enough mailbox on your domain, with all employees of the company must have mail also on this domain (it is on him and is the identification of the company). Registration is quite simple and some mega manipulations do not have to. After registration you fill in the following data about yourself: name, position, photo, additional contacts and everything in this spirit.

After registration, you invite colleagues by mail (they themselves can register in principle), and you can indicate to whom you are reporting, and who is reporting to you.

Communication in the system is the same as in Twitter. You write a message, read it and can respond if necessary. You can also follow certain people. The only difference from Twitter is that you can attach any file (not only a picture) to the message and the number of characters in the message is unlimited!

Groups A very convenient feature, by the way. Groups can be both open to everyone and closed to curious managers and other departments. It is very convenient if you want to make a separate closed communication channel within a particular department for some discussions or events.

Now you can go directly to how I see the company's relationship through Yammer.
Let's start with the lower level of organization - programming departments and designers. For each department, you can create a closed group to discuss projects, substantive conversations, preliminary assessments of the team, as well as just to share experiences or report on the completion of work on some part of the project. Also, each employee writes what he is working on now, how soon before graduation and can upload sketches or developments for public viewing.
Managers in this case is easier - there is no need to tug at anyone, because and so you can see who is working on what and at what stage, which excludes from use the phrase “Petrov, are you reading Habr there or are you working on a website ?!”. Again, managers unsubscribe about the processes in the company, which eliminates the need to report to the director, who already sees and reads everything himself, and if necessary can make a comment, amendment or collect a consultation in his office like “All managers to the office. " You can write this in a separate group of managers without having to call everyone, copy the same message to everyone in ICQ (and still have to find all of them in the contact list) or strain your handsome secretary who has no time for that - she still has varnish on nails not dried.

About human communication, too, do not forget - who's stopping to write "Who is for lunch in a cafe around the corner?". One message, but they see everything, and who wants to in the cafe will just unsubscribe.

It should be noted that the service has three levels of administration.
Free - allows you to add a company logo to all pages and change the color of the header.
$ 3 per month - statistics are different and the ability to invite individuals with mail on other domains.
$ 5 per month is the only plus that I saw is the ability to merge domains into one company ... Sometimes it will be necessary, but I think the hospital will have enough $ 3 fare.
Minus - payment by credit cards only (and even for a free tariff you need to enter all the data), and as you know, in Russia payment by credit cards via the Internet is not common and even not all banks seem to offer this (VTB24 supports this).

From all the above, we can conclude: if you wish, communication within the company can be made interesting, fast and convenient!

PS Forgot to say - there are clients written in AIR, for Mozilla and for the iPhone with BlackBerry, which simplifies the process.

UPD. Transfer the topic to the blog "My business", if you think that you need another - write!