We installed Yammer as soon as it launched. It is exceptionally well designed. It is very like Twitter so therefore intuitive but they have tweaked it so that it works better in an enterprise space.
Our team works remotely a lot of the time and we use Yammer to keep tabs on what we are doing. Typical updates are 'Pushing the release now', 'I'll be in after lunch' and 'New feature progressing well'. Not exactly worthy of an email or IM and not stuff I would want to share with 200 Twitter followers.
Arturo Servin
· 1 year ago
Very good point. I was also concerned about security and privacy issues. How I know that they are not sniffing in my "corporate" conversations, or giving them to my competitors. What about copyright issues, if I use they infrastructure, are my posts copyrighted to them (just like the issues with the EULAs in Google's services) or am I giving them rights to publish? I think is a hard ball to deal with enterprises. I found so far very good for SMB, but for big corporate companies I have my doubts. -as
AndyFinkle
· 1 year ago
Other then the "TwEGO" factor, what else makes Twitter successful?
1) There is already a "mass" momentum of users (people I know are already there, thus I do not Plurk). 2) Unlike other software/websites communication platforms are viral (you need people to talk to, so you invite those you know into them). 3) Open API's encourage app. developers, who in turn provide more/new users to your platform
Lastly (and to your point about IM adoption in the enterprise), Twitter (and other micro-blogging services) allow what IM has not... ubiquity. When I Tweet, my followers can hear me wherever they are be it via email, web, phone or using open source hooks, IM.
Perhaps Yammer already has it (I have not tried it first hand), but I would not be surprised to see Yammer with hooks into Twitter's API...allowing for communication behind (private) the firewall, but also extending into a public communications (TWitter) platform.
It seems like you should consider funding subsidiaries of consumer apps to add enterprise layers. E.g. twitter should be doing this in-house, with enough separation to avoid larding up the core product.
perilla
· 1 year ago
Nigel has provided a very good example!
I also wanted to add that the so-called criticism that Yammer is not innovative, etc is irrelevant and doesnt make sense. Social media gurus, tech-savvy audiences and rest of tech and web2.0 enthusiasts who have been at roots of such critique are simply too much used to stylish and cool-looking online applications and gadgets, which bring little more than aesthetic pleasure from usage. Yes, there all kinds of Twitter clones, social activity aggregators or even virtual world creators. How many of those however were driven by need or necessity to feel a gap in real world? Very few.
Most of those products are just a result of playing around and imagining all kinds of software.
I do of course understand the Blue Ocean Strategy effect and how that creates markets which do not yet exist, and with markets it creates also demand. But even this principle is not going to explain away most of what is becoming fashionable trends in web2.0 and gadget developments.
Social media, IMHO, needs to be more aligned with realities of the world and have less penchant for looks and more inclined to see ultimate utility of things created. For the moment, this is not the case, hence the outcry at TC50 for one of few really good startups with a working, needed (and stylish) product targeting especially the corporate world.
charlie crystle
· 1 year ago
There are quite a number of enterprise "web 2.0" solutions doing pretty well; IM is not web 2.0, but it doesn't matter, the point's the same. Enterprise community sites, private IM, enterprise blogs, internal/external publication and audiences, project sites, etc. --the primary difference between Enterprise and not enterprise is the overhead of Enterprise IT and information rules, which vary from company to company.
What employees adopt has a lot to do with 1) ease of use 2) mandate from above 3) efficacy of policies, training, & rollout
I could be wrong here but I think there is a difference between companies that pay for these products and actual employee usage. I've had corporate IM tools at many companies, and I'm sure my wise employers paid a pretty penny for them, but only the HR and finance folks use them in any significant fashion while the rest of us worker bees tend to use our personal tool of choice.
charlie crystle
· 1 year ago
That's anecdotal, but yeah, I can see that. But there are also many enterprise environments where you can't use your personal choice of tools.
Chris Rechtsteiner
· 1 year ago
Twitter for the enterprise. Gee, that sounds like something Twitter should just do! There isn't much wrong w/ Twitter as is ... other than group / permission controls. That seems like a pretty trivial extension to the platform.
leigh
· 1 year ago
So completely agree. This imaginary line that marketers make in order to segment a new market opportunity particularly when it comes to communication tools is fundamentally flawed. I have yet to work at a company that doesn't try at some point to block peer2peer (it's why Meebo is so damn popular) or have a policy at some point that tries to stop usage of these types of tools. However, human nature suggests that we are creatures of habits. You can change our habits certainly over time to a new tool, but expecting that we will change those habits from personal to business usage in the same hour space is much less likely.
Iñaki
· 1 year ago
We've been using Wordpress with Prologue for a few months and we are very happy with it, it's a great communication channel and allows everyone in the company to know what everyone else is working on
Dan Cornish
· 1 year ago
Yammer is a nice feature for an Enterprise App. It has to hook into the Active Directory and HR tools otherwise you get double entry. The sales and implementation folks need to come up with a way to integrate with other systems. Yammer will be a great company for a larger enterprise app company to acquire. I would suggest companies hold off on implementing this solution until it is acquired by a larger company. Thus the problem with selling Web 2.0 into the enterprise. But this is why investors love these kinds of companies.
WayneMulligan
· 1 year ago
The only thing Yammer has working in its favor relative to the Enterprise-IM solutions is that Twitter hasn't really hit mainstream corporate America yet. Yes, I know there are certain companies that are actively using it but relatively speaking, IM was much more ubiquitous by the time the enterprise tried to cash in on the game. Everyone was using it as a regular form of communication and then when the corporation tried to put the shackles on, there was mass resistance.
Yammer may not find such resistance among the rank and file at most companies -- especially in the financial space.
I thought it was a "neat" idea and would require some serious proof of concept before being taken seriously. I liked some of the other companies at TC50 much better -- Me-trics and iCharts being two of my fav's.
Tom Hughes
· 1 year ago
'Enterprise' is such a baggy concept, it's hard to know what application is going to make much traction beyond the very basic collaboration tools, what used to be called groupware.' -- email, calendar, and so on. You can see these tools evolving into more complete communication vehicles, e.g., Microsoft Office > Sharepoint, GMail > Google Sites. It seems to me that the emerging innovations in this space are setting their targets more narrowly by going after specific verticals where enterprises represent most of the usage. The tired example is Salesforce.com, which is losing luster as people get to know it better (salespeople don't really work that way, it turns out). More timely examples might be Rally, the development-collaboration platform that's built around agile software development principles; or Fogbugz, which promotes 'evidence-based scheduling.'
The common thread is that the provider has identified a task that is essential, is done (or can be done) the same way in different companies, and where the rewards of collaboration are high. The Rally and FogBugz examples are interesting also because they promote specific ways of tackling that task; and being web-scale, they are well suited for a coming world of ubiquitous outsourcing. Outsourcing has run ahead of the tools available to coordinate it -- this is why so many outsourcing efforts are being reconsidered -- but as the tools make it easier, you'll see tools like these enable Outsourcing 2.0.
Brian
· 1 year ago
Interesting comment.
What are some of the other tools that are doing a better job than Salesforce.com at creating tools for how salespeople work?
I am doing some research for my company on the subject.
Tom Hughes
· 1 year ago
It's a pretty deep market, and the answer will depend on how your organization runs sales . I've seen a good discussion of this exact question on LinkedIn, I would be sure to look there. I often hear it said, "don't build what you can buy," but for a lot of sales applications, you might do better building something simple and effective using, say, SharePoint (if you are Windows-centric) or Drupal.
Brian
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the tip.
jasonkolb
· 1 year ago
I jumped on Yammer too, and found a bunch of Cisco folks already on there chatting. I think the idea is fantastic, I've been pushing enterprise Twitter-style collaboration for almost a year now. However, they still a bunch of issues to address before they can really be considered for use in med-to-large businesses. I wrote a blog post about my experience and impressions here: http://www.jasonkolb.com/weblog/2008/09/enterpr...
maxkalehoff
· 1 year ago
Fred, you say that, "there have been many "enterprise IM" solutions over the years but employees have resisted the desires of their employees to determine what IM solution they use and most have continued to us AIM or to a lesser exent Yahoo! and Microsoft's IM offering, often via a third party client." What's different with Yammer is that Employers aren't deciding top-down that employees will use Yammer. Just about every corporate execution of Yammer has been launched as a grassroots experiment, which is how all the consumer IM services penetrated corporations. To my knowledge, the IT department has not been involved in any of Yammer's adoption thus far, which also is probably why it hasn't died yet.
That said, I don't Yammer to Twitter at all. Twitter and Yammer serve two completely different purposes, and their networks are entirely different beasts: one is closed groups communication, and one is open. However, it would be great if Twhirl supported Yammer, so I could load up a third window, next to my two Twitter profiles (one personal, one for our company's customer service, then one Yammer for internal microblogging).
At this point, I doubt it would be a good idea for Twitter to take its eye off the ball of simplicity and focus in what it does best --- as easy as it would be to create an enterprise version. Or, perhaps it could a separate version for corporate IT types to implement behind a firewall, like so many large companies do successfully with blogging software.
gary johnson
· 1 year ago
All my colleagues are on Facebook already. Can someone explain to me why Facebook can't replicate this feature simply by giving me the ability to target status updates to a "friends list"? I don't get it...
christmasgorilla
· 1 year ago
Fred, I'd be curious if you could clarify something a little bit. It seems that you're talking about tools that facillitate communication within the enterprise. If that's the case, then I definitely agree with the notion of letting individuals bring the tools they want, most of the time.
The interesting flipside is tools that allow enterprises to engage in outward facing conversations. There are plenty of web-based platforms that have done that well (ConstantContant, Eloqua, etc).
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
Good point christmas gorilla
Although I would consider blogging platforms to be ³outward facing communications² and it seems that in that space, the consumer facing services have seen a lot of adoption in the enterprise
cosguru
· 1 year ago
Fred.
I beg to differ.
We began using internally at our office (aprox 35 employees) when it launched and it is an amazing tool especially for Small Businesses that have resources spread virtually to keep in synch with the culture within the main office.
I will agree with you though that time will tell. Now it's hot in our office. Lets see how it embeds itself into the overall workflow. Will it continue to explode or fizzle out in 2 weeks.
Jevon
· 1 year ago
I think Yammer is more in line with your thinking that you realize. Their model is to get the employees to make the decision, and then let management buy it if they want to get some control, just like GetSatisfaction.
That said, if you look around, it is hard to find any evidence that management ever does buy something because of that. It just isn't how enterprise software gets bought, and the crux of your argument stands: Will the employees choose something different than the tools they love.
Back to your point though. I would guess that if you looked at blogs that are used inside the enterprise (not their public facing blogs), then you would in fact see that the vast majority aren't build on wordpress or typepad/MT, but instead on Sharepoint and Notes and a few other ugly systems.
Sad, but true. Sharepoint and others have some of the WORST blogging tools out there, but they have an incredible amount of success inside mid->large companies. The biggest reason is simply that they have enterprise-level features. Permissions, workflows, etc. They hook in to all of that. I'm not sure the governance/security obsession in the enterprise is helpful, but it is very real.
In that sense, Yammer, and many many other "Enterprise 2.0" tools, just aren't Enterprise at all, they are Small Business. Which is fine, if Small businesses are your target ala 37 signals, but if someone says "look, my market is 2.5bn in sales last year", then you have to build software that that market can actually buy.
So, I guess my question is: How many actual Enterprise-ready 2.0 startups come in the door at all?
stephanelee
· 1 year ago
Totally agree with you, Jevon.
Thinking that a few early adopters will force companies to change policies, and that bottom-up rules is so naive...
Of course Internet changes many things, like the fact that employees know more web-based solutions to specific tasks/problems, that they can recommend to decision-makers. Sometimes they can adopt a web app without refering to their hierarchy, and sometimes the hierarchy can approve mainly because of lack of time to find a suitable alternative.
But until further reports, it remains to be seen that Internet users suddenly can help vendors "cross the chasm" (cf Geoffrey Moore Law).
BigCorps just can't use start-up products until some point, because they have a integrate the process into complex legacy environments, security standards and the like. Maybe the features they ask are overkill or useless, but they fit into policies that have been established over the years.
External facing is different, because then Entreprises want to appeal to their target users, and if the target is early-adopters, then it's better for them to adopt "the new whiz kid on the block".
That being said, I wish all luck to Yammer which is a great product, yet just a feature for an entreprise product.
Melanie Baker
· 1 year ago
I admit I had to laugh when I read over how Yammer works. Employees signing up on their own, using company addresses, and with the ability to invite whomever else internally that they want. Externally hosted, with a high likelihood of proprietary information discussed. (I used to work in insurance - holy privacy nightmare, Batman!) App downloads required. Integration with mobile devices - and not necessarily only company-issued ones.
These are all daily nightmares that a lot of IT departments spend a lot of time trying to prevent, and, in fact, directly contradict user policies of more than one company I've worked for. But hey, I'm sure getting upper management approval for an enterprise-wide rollout of an internet app that encourages chitchat wouldn't be a missionary sell at all... right?
These days I'm at a web startup, so we're all over new toys and it's the sort of environment where tools like this could find fairly easy adoption, but web-centric startups and the folks who tend to work at them aren't really mainstream. Enterprise means a lot bigger, a lot more established, a lot slower-moving, a considerably different culture, and a whole lot more policies. I think companies could certainly benefit from new tools like Yammer coming out (call centres are one environment where they could be very useful), but I can't see them being adopted any time soon.
Jay Parkhill
· 1 year ago
My law firm is completely virtual- no offices at all. Creating community within the firm is a real challenge. Private Twitter would be fantastic (then I wouldn't have to cross-post to Twitter and Yammer) but I am pushing everyone to try out Yammer in the meantime.
Yammer or something like it could be great for routine work communications, but even more important for building a relationships within our distributed environment.
I would rather see Twitter doing this stuff itself, but it is great to see someone pushing the work-community concept forward.
NICCAI
· 1 year ago
I agree with BillSeitz. I think a successful enterprise 2.0 app will come from the consumer/end user side. I see a number of opportunities for monetization by building on top of the growing but free consumer end.
jonsteinberg
· 1 year ago
Fred-
You and Charlie are right. Time and time again the consumers (employees) drive adoption. When I was on Wall Street it was amazing to me that the defacto information exchange platform between the buyside and sellside (even for trading) was AIM. Wish I could CC Howard L and Roger E on this post because I'm sure they would affirm that fact. Despite all the enterprise IM solutions promising more security rolled out to Wall Street, everyone used AIM, and the firms were forced to install security ON TOP of the defacto platform.
Same story with the RIMM Blackberry, where employees began to just buy the devices and install desktop redirection bypassing IT Departments. Enough employees eventually had them forcing IT departments to buy Blackberry Enterprise Servers.
This is what I'm doing with twittertise.com - notice how it takes the existing behavior of brands on Twitter like Comcast, Nortel, etc. and provides a layer on top of the platform and methodology they have chosen to adapt. Twittertise provides a scheduling and tracking (via bit.ly) layer on top of the existing tool the consumers have chosen.
The consumer ad hoc behavior always seems to lead the way
Don Jones - VentureDeal
· 1 year ago
Jon - just signed up - like your twitter click-tracking concept.
kidmercury
· 1 year ago
the shocking truth about enterprise 2.0:
1. it start with open source apps 2. big monetization opportunity: firms that integrate open source apps to create custom enterprise solutions that are seamlessly integrated. these firms will be quite radical and will be truly edge-focused (as they start by looking at the open source world around them, not with their own intellectual property). i'm gonna go umair haque on you and say this will end up revolutionizing our notion of the firm.
we can try to play enterprise 2.0 as a SaaS game, and there may be enough time left to try that, though open source is going to be the big disruptor to the enterprise, as it will allow for better integration and fewer IT security concerns in comparison to SaaS.
Fred, couldn't agree more on Entreprise 2.0, since we're exactly working on this with Producteev.com, the Wired blog even mentioned us while announcing Yammer's grand prize (we actually do Collaborative Task Management for teams, and implemented a twitter like communication system for events within the team...) http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/yammer-t...
Brian
· 1 year ago
I think it is tough to build an enterprise-only web app, but it can happen. Businesses really need to embrace the app deep into their company culture.
I think the best approach is where you take something familiar (like IM, or Email or an Intranet) and just provide enough decent improvement to get it adopted. Ironically, too much technology can be an inhibitor.
We've tried to add some Enterprise 2.0 additions to email at http://www.taglocity.com and the reaction has been very positive so far. The trick seems to be to be useful enough to grow from the 'bottom-up' user base while still being able to answer the compliance/deployment/security/support concerns of the 'top-down'.
Also, one very important aspect, is that the application has to bring everyone along, as in, present a solution that all in the team will be familiar and happy to use. There have been plenty of fads seen in enterprise software that tend to get played with by the early-adopting few but then still fail to 'take' in the business mainstream. The aim is to improve the familiar rather than rewrite all the rules - people have jobs to do and need quick, tangible benefits whatever the technology.
pkitano
· 1 year ago
Since employees have essentially adopted their social media applications, why fight the upstream battle to train and force participation on a proprietary enterprise social system? It's easier for employees, old and new, to use familiar apps... Yammer fits this bill because it works like Twitter. Solutions have already been proposed to cobble together a free-source Yammer: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/twhirl-makes-yammer-...
The enterprise's most workable option is to maintain two knowledge management systems - one internal and one external. Eventually Enterprise 2.0 will be forced to accept the "outsourcing" of their employee knowledge management systems to Twitter/Yammer, del.icio.us and google reader shared items. At least it won't cost enterprise software bucks. http://mediatransparent.com/2008/09/10/barriers...
dean collins
· 1 year ago
with so many enterprise grade server based options for corporate IM out there why use Yammer if you are worried about content snooping.
Spend some money and live in peace if thats what you feel you need.
I actually think that this is missing the point. Yammer isn't another IM system. It is more of a bulletin board of short messages that can be received by the whole company, quickly. This is very handy for things like: "the site is back up, please ping me if you run into any issues". Or, lunch runs, etc.
Elizabeth Hanson
· 1 year ago
Mr. Wilson, Regarding Yammer's top prize, we're mildly astounded about that - and feel quite validated in the functionality we've built in the upcoming version of Upswing. The Yammer product represents just a basic group messaging feature that we have built similarly in the purposeful CRM/virtual workspace application for business teams that is Upswing 360. We agree with Dennis Howlett of ZDNet and his view about Yammer when he writes that the "Enterprise won’t come kicking and screaming into the enterprise 2.0 world unless content, context and purpose are aligned." ...That's Upswing 360: focused and relevant content for a specific business purpose - CRM - among a working group who share the same mission. Read more on our blog: http://www.upswingcrm.com/blog/2008/9/9/what-ar...
Mark
· 1 year ago
Yammer has many hurdles to climb. People are used to using Twitter and introducing a new application into their life will be hard. Also, Twhirl can now connect to laconi.ca (the open-source equivalent of Twitter) so users could connect both their public Twitter account and private laconi.ca account from one application. It will be interesting to see how Yammer overcomes these hurdles. Eventhough
self
· 1 year ago
As a professional video editing software, video editor for mac provides quite many functions to help you edit the video for mac os x. With it, you can trim or crop video files, adjust video effects like brightness, contrast, saturation and video volume, and even merge multiple files into one file. So many functions to let you perfectly finish the video editing.
evbart
· 1 year ago
There's no revenue in it, but Yammer seems like a good fit for universities. Just like facebook its closed to people with the right email address. Wonder if students can get their universities to pay for it at a $1 per users? Haha
All Comments
Our team works remotely a lot of the time and we use Yammer to keep tabs on what we are doing. Typical updates are 'Pushing the release now', 'I'll be in after lunch' and 'New feature progressing well'. Not exactly worthy of an email or IM and not stuff I would want to share with 200 Twitter followers.
I think is a hard ball to deal with enterprises. I found so far very good for SMB, but for big corporate companies I have my doubts.
-as
1) There is already a "mass" momentum of users (people I know are already there, thus I do not Plurk).
2) Unlike other software/websites communication platforms are viral (you need people to talk to, so you invite those you know into them).
3) Open API's encourage app. developers, who in turn provide more/new users to your platform
Lastly (and to your point about IM adoption in the enterprise), Twitter (and other micro-blogging services) allow what IM has not... ubiquity. When I Tweet, my followers can hear me wherever they are be it via email, web, phone or using open source hooks, IM.
Perhaps Yammer already has it (I have not tried it first hand), but I would not be surprised to see Yammer with hooks into Twitter's API...allowing for communication behind (private) the firewall, but also extending into a public communications (TWitter) platform.
www.twitter.com/A_F
Seriously...congrats to Yammer.
I also wanted to add that the so-called criticism that Yammer is not innovative, etc is irrelevant and doesnt make sense. Social media gurus, tech-savvy audiences and rest of tech and web2.0 enthusiasts who have been at roots of such critique are simply too much used to stylish and cool-looking online applications and gadgets, which bring little more than aesthetic pleasure from usage. Yes, there all kinds of Twitter clones, social activity aggregators or even virtual world creators. How many of those however were driven by need or necessity to feel a gap in real world? Very few.
Most of those products are just a result of playing around and imagining all kinds of software.
I do of course understand the Blue Ocean Strategy effect and how that creates markets which do not yet exist, and with markets it creates also demand. But even this principle is not going to explain away most of what is becoming fashionable trends in web2.0 and gadget developments.
Social media, IMHO, needs to be more aligned with realities of the world and have less penchant for looks and more inclined to see ultimate utility of things created. For the moment, this is not the case, hence the outcry at TC50 for one of few really good startups with a working, needed (and stylish) product targeting especially the corporate world.
What employees adopt has a lot to do with 1) ease of use 2) mandate from above 3) efficacy of policies, training, & rollout
Dion Hinchcliffe at ZDNET has been blogging on the topic for a few years...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/
Yammer may not find such resistance among the rank and file at most companies -- especially in the financial space.
I thought it was a "neat" idea and would require some serious proof of concept before being taken seriously. I liked some of the other companies at TC50 much better -- Me-trics and iCharts being two of my fav's.
The common thread is that the provider has identified a task that is essential, is done (or can be done) the same way in different companies, and where the rewards of collaboration are high. The Rally and FogBugz examples are interesting also because they promote specific ways of tackling that task; and being web-scale, they are well suited for a coming world of ubiquitous outsourcing. Outsourcing has run ahead of the tools available to coordinate it -- this is why so many outsourcing efforts are being reconsidered -- but as the tools make it easier, you'll see tools like these enable Outsourcing 2.0.
What are some of the other tools that are doing a better job than Salesforce.com at creating tools for how salespeople work?
I am doing some research for my company on the subject.
That said, I don't Yammer to Twitter at all. Twitter and Yammer serve two completely different purposes, and their networks are entirely different beasts: one is closed groups communication, and one is open. However, it would be great if Twhirl supported Yammer, so I could load up a third window, next to my two Twitter profiles (one personal, one for our company's customer service, then one Yammer for internal microblogging).
At this point, I doubt it would be a good idea for Twitter to take its eye off the ball of simplicity and focus in what it does best --- as easy as it would be to create an enterprise version. Or, perhaps it could a separate version for corporate IT types to implement behind a firewall, like so many large companies do successfully with blogging software.
The interesting flipside is tools that allow enterprises to engage in outward facing conversations. There are plenty of web-based platforms that have done that well (ConstantContant, Eloqua, etc).
Although I would consider blogging platforms to be ³outward facing
communications² and it seems that in that space, the consumer facing
services have seen a lot of adoption in the enterprise
I beg to differ.
We began using internally at our office (aprox 35 employees) when it launched and it is an amazing tool especially for Small Businesses that have resources spread virtually to keep in synch with the culture within the main office.
I will agree with you though that time will tell. Now it's hot in our office. Lets see how it embeds itself into the overall workflow. Will it continue to explode or fizzle out in 2 weeks.
That said, if you look around, it is hard to find any evidence that management ever does buy something because of that. It just isn't how enterprise software gets bought, and the crux of your argument stands: Will the employees choose something different than the tools they love.
Back to your point though. I would guess that if you looked at blogs that are used inside the enterprise (not their public facing blogs), then you would in fact see that the vast majority aren't build on wordpress or typepad/MT, but instead on Sharepoint and Notes and a few other ugly systems.
Sad, but true. Sharepoint and others have some of the WORST blogging tools out there, but they have an incredible amount of success inside mid->large companies. The biggest reason is simply that they have enterprise-level features. Permissions, workflows, etc. They hook in to all of that. I'm not sure the governance/security obsession in the enterprise is helpful, but it is very real.
In that sense, Yammer, and many many other "Enterprise 2.0" tools, just aren't Enterprise at all, they are Small Business. Which is fine, if Small businesses are your target ala 37 signals, but if someone says "look, my market is 2.5bn in sales last year", then you have to build software that that market can actually buy.
So, I guess my question is: How many actual Enterprise-ready 2.0 startups come in the door at all?
Thinking that a few early adopters will force companies to change policies, and that bottom-up rules is so naive...
Of course Internet changes many things, like the fact that employees know more web-based solutions to specific tasks/problems, that they can recommend to decision-makers. Sometimes they can adopt a web app without refering to their hierarchy, and sometimes the hierarchy can approve mainly because of lack of time to find a suitable alternative.
But until further reports, it remains to be seen that Internet users suddenly can help vendors "cross the chasm" (cf Geoffrey Moore Law).
BigCorps just can't use start-up products until some point, because they have a integrate the process into complex legacy environments, security standards and the like. Maybe the features they ask are overkill or useless, but they fit into policies that have been established over the years.
External facing is different, because then Entreprises want to appeal to their target users, and if the target is early-adopters, then it's better for them to adopt "the new whiz kid on the block".
That being said, I wish all luck to Yammer which is a great product, yet just a feature for an entreprise product.
These are all daily nightmares that a lot of IT departments spend a lot of time trying to prevent, and, in fact, directly contradict user policies of more than one company I've worked for. But hey, I'm sure getting upper management approval for an enterprise-wide rollout of an internet app that encourages chitchat wouldn't be a missionary sell at all... right?
These days I'm at a web startup, so we're all over new toys and it's the sort of environment where tools like this could find fairly easy adoption, but web-centric startups and the folks who tend to work at them aren't really mainstream. Enterprise means a lot bigger, a lot more established, a lot slower-moving, a considerably different culture, and a whole lot more policies. I think companies could certainly benefit from new tools like Yammer coming out (call centres are one environment where they could be very useful), but I can't see them being adopted any time soon.
Yammer or something like it could be great for routine work communications, but even more important for building a relationships within our distributed environment.
I would rather see Twitter doing this stuff itself, but it is great to see someone pushing the work-community concept forward.
You and Charlie are right. Time and time again the consumers (employees) drive adoption. When I was on Wall Street it was amazing to me that the defacto information exchange platform between the buyside and sellside (even for trading) was AIM. Wish I could CC Howard L and Roger E on this post because I'm sure they would affirm that fact. Despite all the enterprise IM solutions promising more security rolled out to Wall Street, everyone used AIM, and the firms were forced to install security ON TOP of the defacto platform.
Same story with the RIMM Blackberry, where employees began to just buy the devices and install desktop redirection bypassing IT Departments. Enough employees eventually had them forcing IT departments to buy Blackberry Enterprise Servers.
This is what I'm doing with twittertise.com - notice how it takes the existing behavior of brands on Twitter like Comcast, Nortel, etc. and provides a layer on top of the platform and methodology they have chosen to adapt. Twittertise provides a scheduling and tracking (via bit.ly) layer on top of the existing tool the consumers have chosen.
The consumer ad hoc behavior always seems to lead the way
1. it start with open source apps
2. big monetization opportunity: firms that integrate open source apps to create custom enterprise solutions that are seamlessly integrated. these firms will be quite radical and will be truly edge-focused (as they start by looking at the open source world around them, not with their own intellectual property). i'm gonna go umair haque on you and say this will end up revolutionizing our notion of the firm.
we can try to play enterprise 2.0 as a SaaS game, and there may be enough time left to try that, though open source is going to be the big disruptor to the enterprise, as it will allow for better integration and fewer IT security concerns in comparison to SaaS.
jeff nolan dropped some truth on the open source enterprise revolution a couple days ago: http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2008/09/08/open-source-...
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/yammer-t...
Brian
http://www.konnects.com
We've tried to add some Enterprise 2.0 additions to email at http://www.taglocity.com and the reaction has been very positive so far. The trick seems to be to be useful enough to grow from the 'bottom-up' user base while still being able to answer the compliance/deployment/security/support concerns of the 'top-down'.
Also, one very important aspect, is that the application has to bring everyone along, as in, present a solution that all in the team will be familiar and happy to use. There have been plenty of fads seen in enterprise software that tend to get played with by the early-adopting few but then still fail to 'take' in the business mainstream. The aim is to improve the familiar rather than rewrite all the rules - people have jobs to do and need quick, tangible benefits whatever the technology.
The enterprise's most workable option is to maintain two knowledge management systems - one internal and one external. Eventually Enterprise 2.0 will be forced to accept the "outsourcing" of their employee knowledge management systems to Twitter/Yammer, del.icio.us and google reader shared items. At least it won't cost enterprise software bucks. http://mediatransparent.com/2008/09/10/barriers...
Spend some money and live in peace if thats what you feel you need.
Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net