Finally, of course, my own case, which was the reason for my visit to the Yamtour: the use within small collaborations. I myself use Yammer mainly in this small-scale form. In my case too – independently, regularly and briefly collaborating with others – it yields a lot: no more e-mail flow where you search like crazy for that one comment from Pieter from last month.
emailsUnfortunately, I did not get a real answer to my original question about experiences with Yammer in small organizations. Visitors to the Tour came, as expected, mainly from the usual suspects, such as Shell's, Cap Gemini's, consultancies and large government organizations of this world. The tour was therefore mainly aimed at those larger organizations.
However, I believe that the tool can also be used in small groups and even by independent professionals who work list to data together with others. The main obstacle is that the tool is still so little known. When you work together for a short period of time, the learning curve is often too high. Explaining, demonstrating and generally ensuring that the entire group goes online instead of to the mailbox is quite a feat. People then quickly fall back on the familiar means of communication, with e-mail indeed being the number one. The trick will be that we, as active users, continually demonstrate the added value that Yammer can offer. That takes time, but in my opinion it is more than worth it!
Do more with Yammer
As you can see, there are a whole range of possibilities for which you can use the power of a social network environment. The cases discussed on this Yamtour have a high degree of originality in my opinion. They go much further than the standard examples of "having discussions and sharing documents". It is precisely because of these concrete examples that the tool comes to life much more. Ultimately, it remains a matter of thinking carefully about what Yammer can mean in your specific situation. Incidentally, this does not only apply to Yammer, but to every social tool. Do not just start using it because everyone else is doing it, but develop a plan that suits your organization.
On the one hand, this will give you big savings, which is not entirely unimportant. On the other hand, and in my opinion even more interesting, you make it easier for people to show themselves in order to grow into experts in their field within the organization. And even that last argument, as Frank Wammes rightly indicated, can save you money: people who are given the chance to show themselves will get more out of themselves and will probably also see less reason to leave your organization.
Of course, in addition to the above 5 cases, there are countless other applications for which you can use Yammer. Do you know such a case? Do you use Yammer? Then I am very curious about your golden tip!