#Techgiants @DavidSacks of @Yammer - Product Visionary Who Pioneered Enterprise Social, Turned Around Paypal & Produced Award-Winning Movie
1. Summary of my story with Yammer (detail account to follow)
Yammer is one of my favorite apps, but also one that I have a personal life-changing story. The daily digest email from Yammer after my 2010 summer internship was the light bulb that made me realize the possibility to contribute remotely to JUCCCE.org, a sustainability non-profit whose mission is to accelerate the greening of China for a healthier world. Little did I know that this ability to work remotely for JUCCCE enabled by Yammer later made me a core member of JUCCCE (as Community Manager) and afforded me (while still in college) a life long mentor & role-model, Peggy Liu, the Chairperson of JUCCCE who brings tech startup approach to non-profit. As a result of volunteering at JUCCCE for 3.5 years, I had the privilege to figure out my life long mission to green China. I often credit this self-realization to Yammer.
Since 2010, I have been using Yammer's desktop air, and later iPhone app, trained more than 30 volunteers on how to effectively use Yammer.
Today, Yammer is the "virtual brain" of JUCCCE, which has a 24 hour team of passionate volunteers around the globe across 3 continents. I learned from Peggy to train our volunteers to keep every meeting notes (consolidate email, Skype inputs) on Yammer with appropriate groups and hashtags, updates from our global team are transparent. Yammer addresses a pain point for the high turnover rate and knowledge loss of non-profit.
2. David Sacks, a product visionary known for coming up with genius business model, both at PayPal & Yammer
David Sacks is the architect behind Yammer, an enterprise social network launched and won TechCrunch 50 in 2008. To most consumers, Enterprise Social Network may not be as a familiar topic. To give you a sense, Yammer is used by over 200k companies, and 85% of Fortune 500 companies.
What most people don't know is that David was Paypal's COO who figured out its business model and turned around the money-losing company during dotcom bubble into one of the most well-known acquisitions in history ($1.5 billion by eBay). David later went to on produce award-winning movie Thank You for Smoking, co-founded family tree company Geni.com, whose internal communications platform turned into Yammer, which was acquired for $1.2 billion by Microsoft in 2012. Such strong track record makes it no exaggeration to say that David is a tech giant with many successes.
David is a product visionary who pioneered in making enterprise social. When Yammer was launched, it faced doubt and disbelief from the general public (even after wining TC 50) and was in the midst of 2008 financial crisis. Not to mention a dozen competitors, including big established companies, such as Salesforce's Chatter, trying to commoditize Yammer as a feature. David credited its team for moving fast onto Yammer 2010 when other companies copied Yammer 2008.
At the time, most people did not believe in a "Twitter for work" and that social media is just for personal life. What David saw was how personal communications methods and habits can be desired by employees to apply to enterprise - which makes internal communications more effective and transparent. It is worth notice that enterprises are hard to break into, but also means stable revenue streams once they use a service/product. Looking back, David commented that there was a steep learning curve to figure out Enterprise Sales. This comment made me think of Dropbox for Business - as Dropbox transitions from consumer-driven to enterprise-driven, perhaps there are much to learn from Yammer.
David not only figured out business model at PayPal, he once again developed the Yammer Freemium Model that made its adoption viral and from within an organization. Without going into much detail, everyone can sign up Yammer with a work email, and invite co-workers. Once a small group of passionate Yammer users form a community, the employer notices how Yammer can work within the company's communications. That is the initial hook - then follow-up sales to close the deal.
Looking back today, it seems so obvious that enterprise social is indeed sexy and much needed, but 5 years ago, it took a lot of conviction and vision to make Yammer what it is today, especially going through financial crisis. David mentioned in an interview that he has been baking the idea throughout 2007, and took a couple of weeks during Christmas to write down a 40 page spec document. In other words, there has been a voice in David's head for a while before he finally put on paper.
Below is my account of how Yammer Changed My life, published on Startupbug.tumblr.com Blog on 3/20/2013.
How Has Yammer Changed My Life
I was first introduced to Yammer in summer 2010 when I interned for Shanghai-based non-profit that heavily utilizes technology - Joint US China Collaboration on Clean Energy (@JUCCCE). By now, I have told how-yammer-changed-my-life story enough times that I decided to document it.
As a 3-year user, I reflected on what makes Yammer user experience so engaging & seamless - for example, Yammer’s Desktop Air, mobile app, and email notifications are big anchors for user engagement. To me, Yammer is an enabler of virtual offices for people to collaborate effectively wherever they are. Because of Yammer, I have been able to volunteer for a cause & mission that I deeply believe in.
Yammer revolutionized my notion of internships - it showed me that an internship does not necessarily end at its physical last day, but can become a life-long commitment enabled by technology.
After the official end of my internship at JUCCCE, I was back at Princeton for my junior year. It didn’t take long that “Your Yammer Activity” digest email caught my eye balls and kept me reading through my colleagues’ work updates. This was my “aha” moment.
That comprehensive daily activity email made it so easy for me to catch up on what my colleagues were up to, and where various projects stood. As someone with a proactive mind and a passion for greening China, I could not resist offering my hands when I see areas that I had contacts or resources at disposal. From then on, Yammer has become my daily routine. Even when I was studying in a library or writing my senior thesis, I respond to Yammer messages to clear up the red notifications - because of Yammer, I have become more flexible and learned how to contribute on demand.
So what is the secret sauce for Yammer’s engaging experience ?
As a sauce is made up of multiple ingredients, below are the ingredients that worked magic together ( based on my own user experience, there could be more)
1. Daily Digest and Notifications in your mailbox - Besides the desktop air app and web interface, Yammer “bothers” to do the extra work and send to users a daily digest with all messages and responses so that its hard to miss what’s going on with your colleagues.
2. Reply via Email gets pushed to Yammer app - one way that Yammer reduces user friction is that it allows you to reply via email.
Daily digest email is not uncommon - but what differentiates Yammer is that people can respond to Yammer posts directly via Email responses. If one is in the habit of using email, he or she does not have to change the habit to get their messages across the team. In some way, Yammer app is not a stand-alone app - it is seamlessly integrated into our Email habits. This is a big win.
Let’s think about a scenario -
How many times have you received a digest of emails that you have knowledge to contribute to, but simply not easy to get your message shared with your colleagues in the same task force or group and have it saved at a central location for later follow-ups? Yammer solves that pain.
Besides the helpful Daily Activity digest email, Yammer also sends specific responses to relevant parties via email besides the notifications in the app.
3. Yammer Desktop Air provides engaging & easy-to-use platform compared to having to use the app only via the Web
Having a Desktop Air app was the other half of the reason that I was sold to Yammer. Just like Dropbox is fully integrated to your Finder, my Yammer Desktop Air is next to Skype, Chrome, and Microsoft Office. From early on, I treated Yammer Desktop Air as an integral part of my Macbook.
I must admit that the red notifications is addictive (as shown above). Not only will there be a pop-up window on upper right corner of computer screen with preview of comments / posts relevant to you, the red number also appears on the Desktop Air icon. It is human nature to clean up the red number before it accumulates.
Even if you are not a fan of Desktop app or have not got the habit yet. Not to worry, an email with full content is await in your mailbox. (see screenshot below with analysis)
4. Yammer Mobile App allows working on-the-go:
When I am taking a long subway ride, instead of gazing around, I am normally reading my Yammer unread messages or writing down next steps for project management. Having a mobile app provides another layer of engagement with users (as data shows that people now spend more time on mobile devices than TV or computers) I find myself waking up checking my iPhone and reading the new Yammer messages.
Below I included analysis on why Yammer app interface is so easy to use.
(1) Ability to “Like” colleagues’ comments - a senior manager can give acknowledgement to junior analysts, by “Liking” the messages
We can even give colleagues some “praise”
(2) Easy to embed PDFs, docs, pictures, which will display a Preview, so does any URL link - visual presentation is more engaging with viewers
(3) Every user has a Profile Page - with photos, descriptions, contact info etc
(4) Display of “Reply”s : Similar to Facebook “reply” display, only the latest 2 replies will be in “Preview” .
(5) In any Activity Update - Yammer allows you to post directly into a “Group“，in which the information is relevant. (i.e.: I posted in “China Dream” Group, which is shown in red box, and on the bottom right corner, there is a profile picture of the Group we post in.
(6) The Magic Tagging system people + hashtag - have you ever encountered long emails that you missed seeing your name next to an important task?
With tagging capability, when I update Yammer status, I can tag stakeholders /colleagues that I need to notify & engage.
Besides tagging colleagues, we are also able to put # (hashtag) to an update - which has profound implications.
(7) This single #(hashtag) feature makes Yammer search-friendly. When I need to follow up on a past communication from 3 months ago and I only vaguely remember the key words, I do a Search on Yammer app. At JUCCCE, we’ve been using Yammer as a data storage center to move important email content & Skype call follow-up notes over.
In a nutshell, Yammer can serve as a database - easy to search history and follow up with appropriate parties.
I sincerely apprciate how Yammer brings structure & organization through a enterprise social network - for example, Yammer makes it so easy to track down past communications & close the loop on open projects. In some way, Yammer is helping our non-profitto stay organized because of these thoughtfully designed features that capture a user in every single possible channel ( Desktop, Mobile, Web, Email) and in every convenient way possible ( hashtag tagging, people tagging + notification, groups/categories).
Thank you Yammer - only because of your existence, I discovered and kept up with my life mission of greening China for a healthier world at a young age. I have been a firm believer of technology changing people’s lives and bringing convenience & joy, I’d say Yammer is a great great example of such app.
----Appendix: The Evolving of Yammer Daily Digest ———————
Since Yammer Daily Digest was a light switch for me to continue to volunteer for JUCCCE since 2010. Below I included the different Daily Digest Designs updates since 2010 till date:
May 2010, my first Yammer Daily Digest - note the dark blue + lighter blue head banner. also the email sender is “Yammer”
Dec 2010 Yammer got a new look - note the dark blue is gone, and the Email Sender becomes more relevant “JUCCCE on Yammer” than just generic “Yammer”
Now, note how much Yammer Daily Digest has evolved.
Not only has the color palate lightened up over the last 3 years, the company has downplayed its own logo, but highlighted the your own network’s logo. In the screenshot below, “JUCCCE” now gets the Yammer blue in large fonts, and “Yammer” itself is now grey/ transparent color. Ultimately, it’s your company’s network, empowered by Yammer.
1 week after the Friday 11/30/12 design release, Yammer Daily Digest started to highlight the date on Friday 12/7/12. The screenshot below is from 3/5/13, but same format as 12/7/12.
