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This is basically the application I had spec’d out about a year ago, but quickly realized that it will be years before “corp” is ok with their employees using this type of application.  There are many who don’t even allow IM; this is way beyond IM.  I think if small biz wants to be private, they should just protect updates in Twitter.

Yammer has a tough nut to crack with corp and must differentiate themselves from Twitter to make small biz’s get it and migrate.

I think there is so much potential for corp to grow and learn from if they encourage their employees to use apps like this; that potential is what made sense for me to go after.  But there is so much old school thought that still manages corp that is really tough to navigate and convert.

If you are a CEO or even a manager, you should at least watch the Yammer demo; he uses some great examples to illustrate potential.

What I wanted to do was expose some great data analytics through the UI based on the company content over time. If participation and employee adoption was high, the analytics on the data would be priceless.  There is so much mis-communication in corp and I think a tool like this could really close some gaps.  Heck, I would even give incentives to employees to participate.

My suggestion to Yammer would be to focus efforts in the Valley; where execs and CEOs are much more liberal in the workplace.  Good luck!

Yammer can best be described as a private Twitter for the office. They launched a minute ago, if your a small business I urge you to check it out. Their interface is seamless and they already have a mobile application.

September08