Is it time to finally toss your Intranet away?

I’m back working for global services firm ATOS as an engagement manager managing a portfolio of projects. Since my last assignment here, ATOS has adopted an enterprise-wide private social network by leading provider Yammer.

Yammer’s enterprise social networks service enables employees to join a secure, private social network much like Facebook for enterprise customers.

Soon after joining ATOS’s Yammer network, I set up a team-based social network to enable my extended team of colleagues to collaborate. Primarily aimed at those whom I engage with on a daily basis across the portfolio of projects I manage. (Yammer has proved beneficial especially as the majority work from multiple offices/home locations across the UK).

This has adjusted my daily viewing habits. No longer do I allow the web browser on my laptop to open the company intranet with its static information. Instead I have the browser pointed to Yammer.

The majority of companies have an intranet these days. Intranets are intended to act as a portal for company information and facilitate employee collaboration. Unfortunately for organisations they are rarely used by employees. So little use in fact that employees forget their passwords between uses (it has become a driver for single sign on initiatives in order to reduce calls to help desks).

Seemingly being forced to use a dreary intranet platform doesn’t appear to encourage participation. Whereas platform’s like Yammer, adoption is viral, and for some deep psychological reason this facilities more widespread and deeper use.

Yammer enables true collaboration and social conversation. Information isn’t being pushed out solely from some central place; everyone is participating and contributing. Let us finally say goodbye to the intranet.

Let’s just sum up that so far my exploration into the world of Yammer has proven to be positive.

I’ve previously driven adoption of other tools to deliver effective communication and collaboration across project environments. Although these initiatives delivered outstanding outcomes, there was a limit to what could be achieved without massive investment (this was back between 2003 to 2009). We had to work with disparate and disjointed technologies!

Yammer’s capabilities have so far achieved my expectations and look like taking communication and collaboration to another level. I look forward to exploring this some more.

What are your experiences with Yammer (or similar platforms)?

Is your organisation adopting enterprise social or social Business platforms?