So far, we have explored how to engage via Yammer in different ways, such as YamJam and YamChat; how to execute campaigns on Yammer; and how to host company-wide events on Yammer. In this chapter, we are going to see how to integrate Yammer with existing internal applications so that collaboration can take place between both systems and users.
In an organization, there are different internal applications, such as the intranet, knowledge management, and customer relationship management, used for business activities. However, such systems normally do not have web 2.0 or social features. Thus, people cannot discuss or share content easily or follow active users to see what they are sharing, as such an option is not present. As a result of having such systems, people work in silos, and there exists a multicultural way of working in the organization.
In short, to make social features available in existing internal applications, you can integrate it with Yammer with the help of some of its features, such as the Yammer Embed feed, Share button, and application programming interface. This chapter contains all necessary information to transform your internal applications from standalone to social.
In the next section, we will examine how to integrate a standalone knowledge management system with Yammer and transform it into a social knowledge management platform. In fact, we will see how the Yammer Embed feed is used to integrate standard knowledge management with Yammer to create a social and collaborative experience for end users. But first, let’s look at how we can use the Yammer Embed feed feature in general for integration purposes.
Yammer Embed is used to display data from Yammer in your application. The specified Yammer feeds are displayed as widgets within your existing application. Using Embed, you can display My Feed, a group feed, a topic feed, or a user feed. Yammer Embed displays a snapshot of a specified feed and functions as a scaled-down version of your Yammer network.
Yammer Embed code for each Yammer group
Once you click the link, a pop-up will open containing the embedding code; copy and paste this code into the web part of your standalone application. After authentication, users will be able to see the specified Yammer feeds and post messages into Yammer from within the application. For more details, you can refer to https://developer.yammer.com/docs/embed .
Different Knowledge Needs of the Workforce
Create reusable solution: Record past solutions, stop re-inventing wheel, and use reusable solutions.
Document collaboration: Have a single platform to access all project-specific documents and share them globally.
Process improvements: Make processes user friendly and provide transparent operating instructions.
Enterprise social collaboration: Encourage people to collaborate on business issues.
Business intelligence: Have dashboards to make decision-making process easy.
Enterprise search: Ensure similar contextual knowledge is available in different systems.
Learning: Encourage learning through Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs).
What Is Knowledge Management (KM) ?
Knowledge is everywhere! Knowledge linked to a project is discussed during project-related meetings; file systems contain a huge amount of knowledge; the hard drives on employees’ desktop, mobile, and laptop devices contain organization-specific knowledge; knowledge lies in the interaction between you and your clients; knowledge lies in your product, services, and processes; and knowledge lies in your business relationships as well. These are some examples of explicit and tacit knowledge. In addition, you might discover other organization-specific knowledge dimensions. Today, organizations have created systems and processes to capture such knowledge and reuse it for the organization’s benefit. This leads to the creation of knowledge assets and capital, which have become vital today. Trends in technology and innovation have made capturing and reusing knowledge assets more challenging.
A New Definition of Being Social
Participation on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Yammer answers this question in a most practical way. The sharing of knowledge and ideas on these platforms, regardless of title, boundaries, and experience, makes us social.
Knowledge Sharing Versus Social Media
Historically, Greek culture has taught us that to gain knowledge one must share it, while other cultures had the innate perspective to restrict sharing of knowledge to prevent its being an asset to others. Different cultural set-ups have impacted the flow of knowledge in organizations. In some organizations, knowledge is shared through defined hierarchies, while in others, employees depend upon their colleagues to know. A lack of knowledge sharing has led to many disadvantages, like the inability to make decisions, duplication of work, reduced scope for innovations, rising cycle time, and more. Today, many organizations are making huge investments in KM programs to harness their employees’ tacit knowledge and convert it into intellectual capital.
Social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others have made knowledge sharing very easy. Internal social media applications such as Yammer, Jive, and Chatter also have made knowledge management very simple in an organization set-up and have led to social knowledge management happening among users .
What Is Social Knowledge Management?
Social media and knowledge management are two independent practices that can be seamlessly integrated with each other. Social media facilitates easy interaction between people, whereas knowledge management facilitates reusing the knowledge created by people. Knowledge management is a process through which a company tells its employees the knowledge they need to know, whereas social media connects colleagues with each other to share knowledge based on their experiences, without any recorded process. To enact knowledge management, organizations have pre-defined processes to capture, store, reuse, and access knowledge. In addition, companies conduct audits to check the reusability status of knowledge, and if it’s not reusable, they delete it. On the other hand, social media is very chaotic, but there is a structured process for discussing and sharing content. There are specialized social media analytics tools that measure engagements, such as number of people who have posted content or viewed content, and top contributors. Social knowledge management is not a mixture of knowledge management and being social, but rather two strong aspects of a business combining to form a competitive business opportunity.
The integration of a traditional management system with social media in order to harness and reuse knowledge with a very limited process in place gives rise to social knowledge management. This integration with may not be a solution to improve the KM process, though it appears as merely a technology upgrade of the KM system. However, user participation drives the social KM system, leading to benefits like knowledge creation, sharing, and reuse; collaboration; connection; and branding, which are targeted benefits of a standalone KM system. However, now these benefits are achieved through a cultural change of being social rather than with a set of ad-hoc knowledge-sharing processes.
Social Knowledge Management Using Yammer
Today, global organizations provide a social KM experience to their employees through Yammer. Regardless of geography, title, or experience, users have been sharing knowledge and ideas to collaborate on their business activities. Different knowledge management Yammer groups have given users an opportunity to connect and collaborate with knowledge managers working in the company.
By subscribing to the Yammer network, knowledge managers can connect with people working on same issues, thus cutting down on duplication, providing existing solutions to teams, and building tacit knowledge by starting useful conversations. Consistent engagement in knowledge sharing through Yammer has brought about a shift from a traditional KM system to a social KM one. In the coming years, this platform is destined to demonstrate the use of innovative knowledge-sharing practices in organizations to achieve business benefits.
Proposed Social Knowledge Management (KM) Strategy
Facilitation of education and promotion of knowledge management using Yammer
Change management to knowledge-sharing culture and adoption
Capture different types of knowledge, such as transactional, experiential (tacit and explicit), and external, to meet people’s needs
Empower culture of sharing and reuse of knowledge assets
Bridge knowledge and business processes together with continuous discussions with knowledge managers
Leverage power of communities in harnessing and sharing knowledge
Break organizational silos with social collaboration and improve access to standardized content with standardized documentation structure
Measure business and financial impact created by reuse of knowledge assets
How Can Knowledge Mangers Use Yammer Effectively?
Build knowledge assets using Yammer
Ask for ideas, opinions, reviews, suggestions, and feedback to retain best knowledge assets
Host Knowledge Cafes on Yammer
Organize a YamJam to brainstorm solution to your knowledge needs
Interview knowledge management experts and share their guidance on Yammer
Execute KM promotional events on Yammer, such as content-generation campaigns
Share KM success stories
Use Yammer to Share Knowledge
Share your experience after attending a KM conference or workshop
Post KM news and announcements
Publish KM best practices
Share your successfully reused knowledge assets
Share your KM expertise to connect with like-minded knowledge managers
Share customer issues fixed through knowledge management
Reuse Knowledge Using Yammer
Before creation, use Yammer’s search feature to find people, content, discussions, and so forth
Promote reuse of knowledge assets with @mention to connect people to knowledge in context and people to experts in context
Before invention, collaborate with other knowledge managers through Yammer conversations
Stop duplications by sharing successfully implemented KM solutions
How to Develop a Knowledge-Sharing Culture
Praise top-performing knowledge managers (say congrats!)
Reward and recognize KM community for their contributions
Organize quiz based on knowledge management
Be KM storytellers
Speak about customers using your KM services
Start periodic newsletter series on KM and publish it on Yammer
Build your network of knowledge managers
Brand Knowledge Management (KM) Through Yammer
Ask knowledge managers and KM leaders to remain engaged on Yammer to build KM brand through their continuous engagement
Promote #knowledgemanagement hash tag
Build a Yammer group to get help on knowledge management
Publish KM learning videos
Keep different KM Yammer groups engaged with KM articles and best practices across all organizations
Share insights from KM world conference ( www.kmworld.com ) and American Productivity and Quality Center ( www.apqc.org ) websites
Organize YamChats with KM experts
Nurture KM advocates and influencers
Onboard new knowledge managers
Business Benefits of Social Knowledge Management
Increases productivity of your resources and assures first-time right (FTR) work-ways through continuous engagement on Yammer
Ensures faster adoption of new joiners through Yammer and as a consequence minimizes impact on customer delivery
Provides access to common sources of knowledge, which yields higher flexibility
Increases cross-selling chances and upselling through sharing of KM success stories
Provides access to global subject-matter experts (SME) and connects islands of knowledge; i.e., it connects creators, seekers, enablers, SMEs
Drives culture of sharing, reuse of knowledge, and having an organizational body of knowledge to achieve long-term business goals
Generates transactional knowledge, experiential knowledge, and external knowledge to meet all-around needs of the Customers
Inspires an open, transparent work culture that respects new ideas and thereby encourages innovations
Generates knowledge and intellectual capital for organization
Transform Your Intranet of Static Pages into Social Intranet with Yammer
Intranets are huge sources of information related to the company. Traditional intranets are static web pages where people just view content. People do not get the opportunity to convey their views or opinions on the information shared on the intranet. As a result, communication is one way; there is no channel for feedback. Also, those creating the information have no idea what type of information employees are expecting or what will be valuable in their day-to-day work. With Yammer, however, things have become social, which has led to the evolution of the social intranet. This means people will not only view information on the intranet, but can also provide their opinions and views, share the information present on the intranet with a larger audience, and ask for information. This can be achieved through embedding the Share button on your intranet pages so that information available on the intranet can be shared with a wider audience. Let’s see an overview of this feature.
Yammer Share button
Leverage Yammer by Integrating with Internal Communications
The practice of communication within companies is called internal communications (IC or internal comms), and it is crucial to boosting employee engagement. Strong internal communications create a culture that fosters the company’s values internally, such as creativity and productivity. The internal communications landscape is changing very fast as a result of changes linked to employees’ relationships with work and the workplace, and changing technology allows people to connect in new ways.
In my time as a Yammer community manager, I had the opportunity to work with a large and global internal comms network of around two thousand internal comms managers. The objective was to leverage Yammer as much as possible for IC activities. Besides providing guidance, I had several opportunities to conduct Yammer Master Class sessions working with comms teams; these sessions were attended by hundreds of comms managers.
After working with the IC community for more than four years, I saw the community was extensively leveraging Yammer to communicate effectively with a larger audience, to execute employee engagement on a bigger scale, and to create a culture of digital communication.
From my experience, I would like to share best practices on how internal comms can leverage Yammer, run campaigns effectively, encourage employee engagement, and integrate Yammer into the way we work. I hope you find these best practices useful and that you can rejuvenate the internal communications in your organization.
Leveraging for Internal Communications
Make Yammer part of your comms plan
Define Yammer #hash topic for your campaigns or events
Cross-reference Yammer actions planned during campaigns or events with screensavers, posters, or animations that are released during such occasions
Run internal campaigns on Yammer (you can revisit Chapter 4 on how to run campaigns on Yammer)
Use Yammer for team collaboration between global IC teams for sharing content-related campaigns or events
Host company-wide YamJams and YamChats
Share intranet articles on Yammer using Share button and ask for feedback or opinions
Link Yammer in your newsletters, email signatures, and mailers
Welcome and onboard new joiners to your IC team
In Chapter 4, we learned how to run a campaign on Yammer. Let’s see some best practices from the internal comms community now.
How Do You Run Internal Campaigns on Yammer?
Publish masthead using Office 365 admin feature
Be ready with your #Hash topic linked to campaigns
Organize company-wide YamJams, YamChats, and Yam Polls by inviting some guests from leadership teams
Share posters, newsletters, animations, and other collaterals linked to campaign with wider audience
Publish campaign-specific articles on intranet and, using the Share button, share it on Yammer
Share team and events photographs
Praise contributors from user community
Run contests with rewards for participation
Encourage Employee Engagement
The internal comms community actively started new conversations to discover different topics on which to write intranet articles, to find themes for new campaigns, to encourage users to share feeds on leadership decisions, and to create awareness on topics such as gender diversity. Most discussions took place in various expert groups; the most common of these were Yammer groups based on technology, learning, and the internal community, as well as the Yammer 101 and Yammer Champions groups.
As a result of the high level of participation from the IC community achieved by executing internal campaigns, sharing internet articles, and engaging users in ongoing discussions, people’s awareness increased, and people started using Yammer over distribution lists. As it is a very open platform for communication, where people from different parts of organizations—such as new joiners, consultants, programmers, managers, and leadership teams—can interact, users remained engaged on Yammer.
People used Yammer hash topics for multiple reasons; conversations tagged with the hash topic #benefit were identified as conversations that added business value to the organization. The success of the Yammer network was demonstrated through multiple success stories; the following are a couple of examples of business benefits.
It used to be that most global and internal communication teams’ strategies and operations were managed by geographically dispersed communications teams located in different time zones; these teams primarily relied on emails and distribution lists for their work. However, with active participation from the IC team network, which was about 2K users, the time-zone barrier was removed, and the community became more agile and transformed into a 24/7 team. Following this change, Yammer became part of the IC strategy for how information was published and gathered and how best to provide best-in-class solutions for business and for supplementing other internal communications channels.
With Yammer integrated into the way we work—like a network—by means of continuous engagement on the part of the internal comms community, the organization became mature in its social identity, and it significantly improved up to the point that Yammer is the way we work and not just an additional tool with which to perform work. Given the success of Yammer, it was embedded into the global and local intranet sites. Further, it was embedded into business applications, such as the knowledge management portal, customer relationship management tools, and learning and development sites.
Yammer REST APIs
We have come to the last section of this chapter, where we will glance at the Yammer REST application programming interface (API), which will help you integrate your internal applications and third-party applications (such as those apps available in the Office 365 apps directory) with Yammer.
APIs are another way to make Yammer feeds visible in your internal applications. Other than this, by using the APIs you can export data from Yammer to create custom analytics or use the data for other purposes. Third-party applications installed through a verified Yammer admin account are integrated with your Yammer network with the help of APIs.
APIs are available in a ready-to-use format, and no serious coding is involved. Details of the Yammer APIs can be found at https://developer.yammer.com/docs/rest-api-rate-limits , and updates to the APIs are available at https://developer.yammer.com/blog .
In my Yammer journey, when using Yammer APIs I have performed the integration of Yammer with enterprise search applications such as Exalead and Sinequa, gamification applications such as Badge Ville, and social learning applications such as SumTotal. If you are a developer with some programming experience, you can create miracles using Yammer APIs.
Summary
In this chapter, we have learned about Yammer Embed, the Share button, and Yammer APIs, which are used for integrating Yammer with different kinds of applications. We also looked at transforming traditional KM into social KM and an intranet with static pages into a social intranets.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my experience with a large internal communication team that changed the way we work by integrating Yammer into day-to-day work and made the workplace social and collaborative through their employee engagements and IC activities. Now that we have examined integration, it is time to move ahead with learning how to achieve a digital transformation journey with Yammer.