Corporate Twitter?
From the Project Management 2.0 Blog
by Dave Garrett
New technologies, concepts, and Web 2.0 tools are popping up everywhere. How can you use them to help your project team collaborate, communicate - or just give your project an extra boost? [Contact Dave]
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Situation: You think that constant communication may make your organization more effective.At least ten times over the past month I've been asked, "Does gantthead offer the equivalent of
Twitter?" To which I've
responded "no" repeatedly. For most people, Twitter is one of those things that you either get and love or think is completely pointless. I have a Twitter account that I've not used in a year, but every week more people "follow" me on it.
For those of you who don't know what Twitter is - it's a "
micro blogging" tool. This means that people with accounts are constantly texting short blurbs about what they are doing in to the system. They are also receiving "Tweets" from those who they are following. It's sort of a "Everybody knows what everyone else is doing" sort of thing. In theory, there might be some utility in this sort of thing within the context of your work environment. It could answer questions like: What does Joe do all day? or Is Sarah is finishing up that report? After a long hot day of "tweeting" it could also make you a touch more reflective about how you spend your own time. Looking at it as a running logbook or diary kind of makes you think about whether you should have spent an hour chatting in Mark's office or 15 minutes posting to your blog --- oh enough about me.
Well at least one tool vendor believes that microblogging is in your future. Yammer is Twitter for corporate types. Here's how they describe their tool.
Yammer is a tool for making your organization more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: "What are you working on?"
You can use Yammer to:
- Stay connected with co-workers
- Share a news article, document or link
- Get answers to a question
- Participate in a discussion
- Look up a co-worker's contact info
- Search for a topic
- See what's popular and who's influential
- Yammer protects the privacy of your network by requiring all users to confirm that they have a valid [your company name].com email address.
Posted on: September 11, 2008 03:36 PM |
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Comments (10)
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I have a hard time thinking this will help make people more productive. I think if you're working on a short, intense project that requires alot of collaboration and communicatin then sure it could be helpful (I could relate it to to a software release... if we're running a release I could use this for my team to communicate). Otherwise, if you're working on a long term project where you really want your workers to be able to focus, than I can't imagine this would be so helpful.
Maybe in someone else's workplace there's a benefit...
-dina
Dave Garrett
PMI Team Member
Senior Advisor to the CEO| PMI
Sterling, Va, United States
I''m not necessarily saying it would be - but I think it could. Think about situations where you want quick, one-way snippets of information flowing freely on your project. These could be as simple as "I''m done with X" sort of messages.
They could also be a way of gathering information that could motivate people to do more. Since it''s actually "micro-blogging", you could ask each of your team members to post what they''ve accomplished that day or week in a sentence or two. If it worked well, people who wanted to see what others are contributing could look at the postings. Those who are not as interested could just check once in a while. Either way, who would want to say "I accomplished nothing"?
Another angle to look at could be as a way to report more detailed status in situations where that status might not be useful to everyone on the whole team. Since you can look at this sort of feed selectively, the right info could be delivered to the right people without having everyone else sit through it. Anyway - just some thoughts. I absolutely agree that its not for everyone.
Deanna Finney
Project Manager| Echo Consulting
Lawrenceville, Ga, United States
As far as Corporate use, I thought of Twitter more as a fun Marketing tool... check out www.twitter.com/popeyeschicken.
I like the idea of yammer, especially in an environment where people sit 3 feet from eachother, but tend to talk only through messengers and email... I'll have to check it out.
I am not that convinced; staff will view it as being monitored by 'big brother' although the objective may not be the case. We are spending far too much time as it is using our PC's what with emails that can be tremendous and overwelming let alone having to worry about another question being asked. No definitely not for me.
Concept sounds OK in reality is a no no at least where we work.
Since with both Yammer & Twitter the concept is based on an open message stream, once people understand this upfront there is little issue with 'big brother'. Because people know it is an open message stream they will tend to self censor. The important cultural issues are (a) an etiquette guide so people known what is and is not permitted; and (b) agreement by management to not act like 'big brother'. These two items are important otherwise staff my use the tool inappropriately in a corporate context, management may act to control that and so doing cause other staff to lose trust in the system & process.
Hi Dave,
I use Twitter. At first it was mostly, what I am doing? But when I have time, I try to add some resource that someone else might use. I like the thought of Yammer. At this time I am a school teacher so our system would definitely NOT use anything like that.
If tags could be added to the posts, that might make it more useful if reporting on status. This could keep things organized and the PM could view by project.
I do follow http://twitter.com/Scobleizer, a technology "thought leader." Now that I know you are there, maybe I will follow you, a project management "thought leader."
The application I was thinking of for Twitter was its use in business. Here are some links related to that topic:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/
http://blog.fluentsimplicity.com/2008/04/07/connecting-with-customers-twitter/
Maybe someone will come out with a "50 Ideas on Using Yammer."
Michelle
Although some may find Twitter and such pointless, the fact remains that it is popular. I use take the "old fogie" approach on things by thinking new technologies are pointless because there already is a way to accomplish the same task. But I have also been learning that we have to pay attention to how people are behaving and using technology. If Twitter and/or Yammer are not around in 5-10 years, it may be safe to say that an evolved version of it will and probably be used in business. People need to pay attention and if they are not going to adapt to the technology they should at least know about them and realize the benefits. I am always afraid of some technology that I write-off today may be the 'ATM' to my world...meaning that imagine a bank when ATMs were becoming popular making a point to ignore them. Where would that bank be today?
Tonia Williams
CIO/IT Director| Housing Authority of the Cherokee Nation
Tahlequah, Ok, United States
For corporate use, I find that our intranet collaboration tools works better than simply "following" someone.
Andrew Lindsay
Business Engagement Manager| Wood Group
Houston, Tx, United States
This post is very timely. My PM peers are split across multiple timezones and support different divisions of the business. We have occasional conference calls and only meet up in the same place once a year. We recently discussed better ways to keep up with what we're all working on but felt that there had to be a better way than simply all sending out a regular report. We're now trying Yammer. Will see how it goes.
Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
Community Champion
Financial Management Specialist | US Peace Corps
Yaounde, Centre, Cameroon
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