Posting by Email

Post an update by emailing it from any verified email address to companydomain.com @yammer.com.

Posting to Groups

Send a group message by emailing it to <groupname>[email protected]. The short group name can be found on the group profile.

Posting to Members

You can send a private message to a user by emailing it to <username>[email protected]. The short username can be found in the URL of the user’s profile.

For example, your followers can send you a private message by emailing Short user name + companydomain.com @yammer.com.

Yammer email notifications are not an issue, and if notifications are managed through enhanced features as just discussed, they will not become an issue at all for huge Yammer networks in the future. In my career, I have twice come across the issue of receiving a ton of email notifications from yammer.com. In the first instance, Microsoft was forced to disable those daily digest email notifications that existed before for all existing users by developing a customized script. Today, as a result of enhanced processes at Microsoft, you cannot repeat the same workaround; rather, you need to submit a design request, which Yammer product teams will assess and then develop a permanent and feasible solution across all Yammer customers.

What Are the Main Data Protection Issues?

Data security : Information assets often include personal information (also called personal data). Security is one of the main enablers of data protection. To guarantee an adequate level of protection, organizations must implement a risk-management process that assesses the security risks of processing personal data. They must then implement security measures to deal with the identified risks. These measures may include organizational measures (e.g., policies, procedures, etc.) or technical ones (e.g., the implementation of antivirus software, backup files, etc.).

Accountability : Organizations need to ensure that their security controls remain effective in protecting data and mitigate existing threats over time. Regular monitoring—which involves an analysis of the needs of an organization, its processing operations, and security tools—is the most efficient way to keep an organization’s information security under control and correct for the purpose at hand. Such an analysis helps organizations to invest in the most appropriate security tools and justify such an investment.

When dealing with personal data, it is also necessary to consider the potential impact to the individuals concerned. For example, compromised security for medical data or criminal records may severely affect an individual and thus requires appropriately strong measures to reduce the associated risks.

Overview of Yammer Security

Yammer data is hosted in Microsoft-managed datacenters. Yammer is operated out of Microsoft’s global network of datacenters with 24/7/365 video surveillance, biometric and pin-based locks, strict personnel access controls, and detailed visitor entry logs. All data in transit into and out of the production environment is encrypted at all times. Communication with Yammer is done over HTTPS (TLS 1.2 supported) regardless of user endpoint (web, desktop app, mobile app, API). In addition to being encrypted in transit, Yammer data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 bit key encryption. Only employees with a legitimate business need can access customer data, and all access is on an approval-only basis. All access is logged and regularly audited. ISO27001 is the global standard in information security . Independent auditors have verified that Yammer meets the rigorous set of physical, logical, process, and management controls defined by the ISO27001 standard .

German Workers Council

The German Workers Council has always questioned whether any statistics produced with Yammer data can be used to evaluate employees’ performance based on Yammer engagement. This is the case not only with Yammer, but also with other platforms such as CRM or knowledge management used by employees in Germany. Yammer itself contains no report through which user activity can be identified with their names and then a comparison be made to find the top user. In my experience, with the help of a Yammer API, a team was indeed able to produce a customized report in which user activity was identified with user names, and, based on that user activity, a top user was identified. In this case, data privacy officers requested answers to two questions: What is the objective of the report? What actions will be performed as a result of the report? The internal team mentioned that the idea behind the report was to measure user activity and based on that reward top users. The entire exercise was meant for internal company purposes, and it was nowhere linked to the employee performance management system . Hence, considering this situation, such a report was allowed to be published.

Email Can Be Replaced by Yammer

Email has long been the primary medium of communication in the workplace. We communicate with people whose email addresses we already know. In addition, we carbon copy (CC) and blind carbon copy (BCC) recipients whose email addresses are well known to us. Email is considered a secure communication medium for sharing confidential information, such as salary details, organization performance data, and customer agreements. Confidential communication between clients and service providers often takes place through email. Today, emails can be accessed through mobile devices. The email feature is embedded in Outlook, which has other features, such as managing your meetings, tasks, and status for Skype for Business. Outlook is seamlessly integrated with Corporate Active Directory so that information from Active Directory, such as user email addresses, names, and more, can be fetched into email.

Yammer has a private message feature through which users can send messages to other known Yammer users in a way very similar to email. You can send private messages to one or more Yammer users. Yammer private messages can be enhanced into Outlook so that you can send and receive email and copy Yammer users as CC or BCC. Skype for Business and Corporate Active Directory are already integrated with Yammer via Office 365. Therefore, setting up meeting invites and managing your Skype for Business status will become possible through Yammer. The integration of Yammer with Exchange Server is needed. We are not very far away from enhancing the private message feature into email so that emails can be managed through Yammer and not through Outlook. Further, private messages can be accessed in the Yammer app. If the Yammer private message feature is enhanced to work as we use email today, then it will be the biggest change in the history of communication.

There is definitely business value behind this idea. On Yammer, we can collaborate with an entire organization of people, both those we know and those we do not know, and we can collaborate with those we know through private messages. If Yammer can do what email can do today, then it will allow users to communicate more openly with a wider audience—i.e., with those known and unknown. Further, by using Yammer you can completely stop the culture of using an email distribution list; you can collaborate on your issues or queries with a large audience, generate ideas, share knowledge with a larger community, share content with global teams without any constraints on content size or number of recipients, and get feedback from a larger audience. This change will be accepted by Generation Y users, who are inclined to use social platforms for communication. This change will bring more business-focused communication as it will involve more people in solving business issues.

Yammer Can Make Face-to-Face Collaboration Possible

Since the evolution of social media, there have been many discussions about face-to-face collaboration or interactions versus virtual collaboration. Most people believe face-to-face collaboration is an effective way of working as you get a feel for the interaction and can see your collaborator’s body language; therefore, you tend to produce more desired results. I totally agree with this, and have no objections to opinions in this regard. However, we must think a little beyond this. In the past we had great leaders, such as Alexander the Great, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela, and great minds, such as Srinivasa Ramanujan, Aryabhata, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton. Today, we do not see them, as they have passed into eternity, but their achievements are continuously interacting with us and inspiring us to make more discoveries. We are dependent on the theories, research papers, values, and dedication they have given to society, and as a result we have produced notable human beings in this world today. This is real collaboration at its best.

Today, companies are spread across different cities and countries. Some companies have offices in over 80 countries. It is very important that employees in a global setup should collaborate, connect, and share with each other to achieve the desired business results. Besides, clients and service providers are not necessarily in the same city or country. Almost all line one (L1) support offered by service providers has moved online; for offline L1 support there is now often a cost involved, which some clients are quite happy to pay. People use Yammer to collaborate with each other, and sometimes they use text messages to communicate to find solutions. Sometime such messages are not clear, so people reply with their own queries seeking clarification. If things remain unclear, collaborators will share their contact details and speak over the phone to clarify problems. In some situations, they have to involve more people over a call to clarify and find a solution. If Yammer had a video collaboration feature, then in most cases business problems could be fixed easily.

The idea of video collaboration sounds funny, but certainly it is possible and will create a difference in the workplace. Today’s global organizations demand a video collaboration feature, as 100,000 people cannot collaborate using text messages. They will need more feelings attached to the messages, which can be done by adding the face, voice, and tone of the people involved in raising the business problem and providing a solution. Video collaboration will be the choice of Gen Y users as they have always preferred to work in innovative ways.

Build a List of Group Landscape (Default Group List)

On Yammer, any user can create a group , and due to such flexibility sometimes users create multiple groups on the same topic. As a consequence, your network fills up with too many Yammer groups, but only a few are active—most of them are without any activity. In my experience, I have seen cases where a group is created but there is no activity for several months—sometimes a year—but if you approach the group admin to delete the unused group you are met with resistance. I am quite fortunate to have used Yammer for the last seven years, and in that time, plenty of users have given feedback that it is difficult to manage too many groups in Yammer, and therefore there should be an option to merge groups so that life will be easier. I still see that discussion happening in some Yammer product forums. However, it is quite justified to allow all users to create groups since Yammer by nature is an open and social platform, and all social features are available to end users for its full usage.

People have also discussed how having too many external networks or external groups on their network has become difficult to manage. Yammer admins have an option to disable external network creation for users, allowing only admins to create them. But whenever this option is used by network admins there is some resistance from users on the network.

Not only individual users are responsible for creating multiple Yammer groups on the same topic; business users are also sometimes responsible for creating multiple groups where a single Yammer group would do; for example, to launch a Yammer campaign. Let’s say the intellectual property department users created different Yammer groups to launch campaigns in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, and will create another Yammer group in the future to launch a campaign on the same topic. This could have been done with a single Yammer group and a hash topic to identify each campaign year.

People have also been creating multiple non-business-focused Yammer groups. In this situation, community managers experience difficulty managing groups and creating employee engagement. In my experience, I did execute campaigns and publish a list of engaged groups; I also performed group-cleansing activities, but that did not have the expected results. Even today, despite publishing group-creation guidelines, people find various business reasons to create different Yammer groups for the same topic rather than having a single group that can serve the desired purpose. Some companies have built a team to control the creation of multiple knowledge communities based on the same topic. The objective of knowledge management in these companies is to make knowledge available in public communities, not private ones, and to limit the list of new communities being created. Once a request is raised by end users to create a new community, it is assessed and requires business approval to be published. Before publishing, a user needs to share their engagement plan for their new community. However, such a process is not possible for all companies due to budget or resource constraints.

The preceding list may not be perfect, but organizations more or less have the same departmental structure. If Yammer can provide such default groups to start with, then both business and normal users will think twice before creating groups, because the group they want to create is already part of the default list. Even if they happen to create a new one, it will be created under default group list .

Augment Features for Creativity in Yammer

Without a doubt, Yammer is a creative tool , and because of its creative features Yammer has been keeping millions of users engaged all over the world. Tools have to be creative so that users enjoy using them and do not feel bored. By using creative features users can express their business problems and solution providers are able to share solutions. If you have creative features, then sharing becomes very clear, transparent, and obvious. People get a feel of what has been shared and communicated to them, and they can act upon it quickly.

If you are using the latest mobile phone, then you have experienced the creativity that has been used to make user features appealing. Though I have not used it, I love the Apple iPhone. I wonder why I love Apple’s phone despite not using one. The word Apple somehow makes me think of a better user experience and remember Apple stories I have heard in the past. It is the brand. Second, its features are awesome and the simplest to use. When you use the SMS feature, it feels like you are writing a newsletter or magazine because you have so many graphical features to use. When you connect to the phone directory, you see profile pictures of contacts very clearly. iPhone cameras have awesome features, such as Turn on the Grid, Set Focus & Exposure, Take HDR Photos, and Shoot Live Photos. You feel like you are a photographer.

You cannot build the preceding features in one day, but you need to have such features in Yammer to keep it creative and help users enjoy their Yammer journey. Creativity is now ruling the world, and it is a strong factor in digital transformation.

Build a Business Gaming Zone Within Yammer

Organizations are investing huge amounts of money in building gamification apps, games apps, and interactive user interfaces for campaigns or other events. Many organizations build games to increase engagement during events and campaigns, and based on users’ participation in the games award a score and a surprise prize. Games are related to the business. For an example, annual survey can be gamified using badges to gain maximum participation. Once you respond, you are definitely going to get a new badge. But you can increase your badges by recommending people to participate in survey and once they successfully submit survey, for each unique submission, you will get an additional new badge. More badges will earn you more points. The objective of these games is to spread awareness and information and make the user alert. However, building such gaming apps involves plenty of complications. The process starts with identifying a technology platform on which the app will be designed and built. Then comes the issue of hosting: should we host the app on internal servers or VM, or do we buy an SaaS product? Finally, once the game is ready, we share a link with users across platforms. What if we could have everything ready—i.e., technology, design templates, and hosting platform—and not need to communicate manually through each platform? Life would become easy, and marketing and communications would do innovate stuff to make their campaign go viral.

If Yammer could provide an app-hosting place, design templates to help create gamification apps, and create user-focused games, then it would become so easy to launch digital campaigns on Yammer. As we are living in a digital world, the user community expects digital features to make their job easy, transparent, and well recognized. Businesses expect employees to remain engaged through their digital interface rather than through text communication, which is quite easy to ignore.

Building a business gaming zone inside Yammer would give businesses multiple opportunities to communicate with their user communities about what they are currently doing, their challenges, their vision, and their expectations in a friendly and digital way. If we had these resources available through Yammer, then any user from the business could use design templates to create apps and roll them out to a large potential audience. Yammer could help you reach a vast audience with your app.

Create Culture of Sharing Secure Content

Intellectual property (IP) is an item created by the intellect of the human mind. Intellectual property is a non-physical property that stems from, or is identified as, and whose value is based upon some idea.

Intellectual property rights have become important in the face of a changing trade environment that is characterized by the following features: global competition, high innovation risks, short product cycles, need for rapid changes in technology, high investments in research and development (R&D), production, and marketing; and the need for highly skilled human resources.

Today, content (text, pictures, videos, and so on) is freely and easily available on the internet; it is simply a matter of searching for it. Reusing content is always very useful, and content such as text and images can be reused with just two functions: copy and paste. In such situations, we often do not look at whether the content is free from copyrights, and later we might be served with a summons from court for violating IP laws.

In my Yammer career, there was one occasion where some users were sharing freely available technology tutorial PDF documents on Yammer. A number of such PDF files were shared in large numbers without the users’ reading the IP clause, which was present in the PDF documents. An active Yammer champion noted this activity and immediately reported it to me and the legal department. Following a consultation with the legal department, the PDF documents were removed immediately. The IP clause in them mentioned that such documents could not be circulated in a commercial organization but could be circulated in an educational organization.

Then, tough action was needed to review all attachments already present on the Yammer network (over 50,000 attachments!) to ensure that they were all free from IP bindings, or the organization could have faced legal action. The legal department also said that if there were a string violation then our CEO could also have gone to jail. Through the assessment of attachments it was seen that several Dilbert cartoon images had been uploaded by users, and when the user was told to remove them for violating copyrights, the enthusiastic user got approval from the Dilbert copyright holder, and the images were retained. After about six to eight months, all copyrighted content was deleted through proper communication with end users, and the network was made free of any possibility of being sued about copyrighted content.

On Yammer, we need to have a flag or mark identified with content to confirm that the content is free from IP issues and can be easily used and shared in the company. Without any feature to monitor IP-protected content, it is very tough for organizations to find such content and get rid of it. Once we have a flag identified with content to confirm copyright status to users, we can keep our network free from IP -protected content, which will build a culture of sharing secure content.

Features That Will Make Community Managers’ Lives Easier