This article is republished with permission from Rackspace’s Building43.
There are a host of companies trying to change the way enterprises communicate internally. One such company is Yammer, which broke away from the pack two and a half years ago as the winner of TechCrunch50. Since then, they’ve been working hard to change the way we communicate with one another in the workplace.
“[Yammer] creates a private and secure enterprise social network — a social network just for the employees of a company,” explains David Sacks, Founder and CEO of Yammer. It “helps expose who in the company has hidden expertise, who is contributing the most and who other people go to for answers.”
Unlike email or IM, Yammer creates a searchable database of conversations from which anyone in the company can benefit, not just those who were a part of the original discussion. Users can also use Yammer to create polls, post events and post questions. If a question has already been asked, the system will recognize this and immediately direct the user to the answer. Only current employees with an active company email address have access to the network, and the knowledge in the system remains long after employees have left the company.
Interestingly, Sacks has found that the benefits of Yammer extend well beyond enriched internal communication. “Companies that use Yammer have employees that feel more engaged, they feel more connected to their coworkers, they feel more connected to the company’s mission,” says Sacks. “As a result, you have less employee turnover.”
More info:
Yammer web site: https://www.yammer.com/
Yammer blog: http://blog.yammer.com/
Yammer on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Yammer
Yammer profile on CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/yammer
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