So, what is microblogging?  It is basically a manner in which you can share news, thoughts, ideas and opinions with those who care to listen to (or follow) you.  At the same time, others are doing the same thing with those that care to listen to or follow them.  Some people describe microblogging as an experience similar to a giant room of people talking, but you only hear the people you want to listen to.

The microblogging service Twitter has developed quite a following since its launch in 2006.  It doubled from 6.0 million users in 2008 to 12.1 million users in 2009, and is estimated to have 18.1 million users in 2010.  Twitter reports that some 50 million tweets are sent every day.

With the popularity of Twitter, many other companies have started similar services for users within the enterprise.  The difference is Twitter is available to anyone who wishes to sign up, but the enterprise versions are typically restricted to users within a common domain.  Some of the more popular microblogging services for use in the enterprise include Yammer, Present.ly, SocialText, SocialCast and Yonkly.  Some of these are integrated with other tools such as blogs and wikis.

We began using Yammer within Access Sciences about 18 months ago.  While we have had a number of employees join the service, a small percentage actually contributes to the stream of content.  Many employees have said they enjoy discovering and reading information that others have posted even though they don’t contribute themselves.

Here are my thoughts about using a microblogging service in the enterprise:

• It can help eliminate or decrease internal email “spam”.   People like to share interesting information they find on various websites they visit or blogs they read with their co-workers.  It is not necessarily something that needs to be sent via email because it typically doesn’t require action on the recipient’s part nor does it have a deadline associated with consuming it.  In the past, the only option available was to email a list of people a link with a note about why they are sending this to them.  This email tends to get mixed up with the rest of the email the co-worker needs to read, and perhaps may get moved to another folder or even deleted.  Posting these links to a microblogging service like Yammer lessens the load in the co-workers email inbox.  Users can go to the microblogging service when they have time and not interrupt the normal processing of their email.  Another advantage of services like Yammer is that you can share more than just links – you can also share files and images.  An external service like Twitter only allows links to be shared.
• It makes information sharing more open and transparent.  Anyone that has an account with the microblogging service can see posts from others using the service.  While there are some options to only send to a particular subset of subscribers, for the most part everything is open and available.  This will support a more collaborative environment in which ideas and suggestions are further explored and nurtured or problems are solved.  However, Yammer is not a substitute for e-mail.  If you find that you need to respond more than 2 or 3 times back and forth, then the conversation should probably be moved to email so that Yammer doesn’t get noisy for others than are listening in.
• It can serve as a repository of information for new employees or team members.  One of the problems with sharing this information via email is that new employees or new team members were not on the previous distributions of the links and other information.  It would be a challenge to forward or expose this content to them via email.  Because it is not necessarily information that is kept or filed away, some of it could not be available to send.  With a microblogging service like Yammer, new team members can review the content that was previously posted and follow the conversations around that content.
• It can open new channels of communication, particularly in a dispersed workforce.  Like Twitter, Yammer status updates are the answer to a question.  In Yammer’s case, the question is “What are you working on?”  When you or your colleagues answer that question, you will get an idea of the types of projects people are working on or information they are consuming and sharing.  It will also lead to a better understanding of the expertise and interests of your colleagues, leading to new items to communicate on or research further.
• There are several ways in which to update your network.  Most of the microblogging services offer many different interfaces on both computers and mobile devices in which to send/receive updates to your network:
  • Web Client
  • Desktop Client
  • Smartphone Application
  • Instant Messaging Client
  • SMS Text Messaging
  • Email Client
• You can use tags to create an organized, searchable directory of updates.  Tags are the primary means in which Yammer organizes information.  This is accomplished by proceeding a word or phrase with the hashtag or pound sign.  The search function can be used to retrieve updates with a particular hashtag or you can view tag clouds to see the most popular tags.
• It’s easier to find the experts and to determine who is connected to whom.  The experts in your organization are more easily identified by seeing what they are sharing with others and who they are sharing that information with.   It brings back the concept of the company water cooler, but this one is virtual with more simultaneous users.  Managers can also observe whose value to the company is higher based on their internal, perhaps under the covers contributions.  It also contributes to knowledge management with the additional context present in documents, spreadsheets and other files that are created/shared via the network.  The conversations and comments that don’t make it into the final document but are visible in the microblogging service can add tremendous value when discovered later.
• Your employees may already be microblogging.  Because of the manner in which using these services is accomplished, employees in an organization can create these networks with no involvement from IT or approvals from management.  Our own implementation of Yammer was more of a grass roots effort to help us understand how this functionality could help us collaborate better together.  There was no need to involve IT since there was no installation of hardware or software required.

A microblogging application such as Yammer is another channel that an organization can use to quickly share information among its employees and help to nurture innovation in less formal ways.