In a recent project, we were asked to use a social networking tool for collaboration. In this case, it was Yammer. After having used this (or rather, not used) for several months, I realized that it is simply not working in its current form. In the case of Yammer, the look-and-feel is very much “Facebookish”. It looks the same, feels the same. Surely it must have the same adoption? I believe it boils down to persona. My work persona is different from my play persona. While Facebook works well for the play persona, the social needs are different when I am at work.
There are several players in this space besides Yammer. There is Tibbr (by TIBCO), Salesforce.com and LinkedIn to mention a few. While approaching the application from different angles, they are all adapting their user experience to be more like Facebook and Twitter.
So, why am I not addicted to Yammer? For starters, I really don’t have a lot of time to be social since I am working. I save that for the water cooler. Secondly, I am moderately interested in the updates I am getting from my colleagues. It’s not that I don’t take an interest in what they do. It’s just that it has no impact on my success at completing my tasks.
For these social enterprise tools to be successful, they need to focus on content first, collaboration second and finally, social. To focus on content, the enterprise must be empowered to source it then make it available in a relevant and attractive format. I have yet to see this happen.


