Where In The World Is @LisaMcClure? Google is taking bigger and bigger steps into the so called social media arena everyday. It is fun to watch as they start to intergrate all off these various and sundry google services. From the new sharing feature in Google Reader to the New location sharing feature in Google Latitude.
As the world talks about Twitter and Facebook, Google is quietly building a go anywhere, and open, social network using google connect as a single login (thru google) and a potentially huge social media empire.
Webconsuls' SMO team works hard to keep our clients and us up to date on all of the latest "gadgets" that seem to offer some benefit either for our website marketing or general business tools. I will admit that I am not always the first one to try out or sign up for the latest and greatest, but I do try to glean from my co-workers their reviews of these new tools. So today I want to talk about Yammer. To Yammer or not to Yammer, that is the question.
I first learned about Yammer on November 5, 2008. I received an email from Lisa McClure inviting me to join the Webconsuls.com network. This email arrived at 7:53AM, then at 8:56AM I received an additional invitation from Malik Moosa. On November 5 I had a very good reason for not responding to these invitations, as I was flying from Tucson to Albany, NY, and the laptop was not accessible for most of the day. Five weeks went by. I was busy with many client's projects and I waited to see if any other team member would invite me to join webconsuls.com yammer network.
December 8, 2008, the wait was over. I received another invitation from Dick Fay. Now this impressed me. Dick is not only my co-worker he is also one of my business partners, and I decided that Dick's invitation offered some validity to yammer.com. So, I signed up!
It was easy to do, I followed the steps and what do you know there I was part of the TEAM. On the home page you can easily see "posts" or "updates" from your team or group members. But what startled me was that, aside from the automatic post showing that Dick Fay had joined the "network", all other updates were from Darin McClure, our SMO director. Hmmmm! What does this mean? Where were Lisa's updates and Malik's update? I didn't understand.
If, as the Yammer.com "about us" page says: "Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: 'What are you working on?' As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced."; then why is only Darin posting updates? And for that matter, is anyone listening?
I am reminded of a winter day in 1989, when I was the co-owner and innkeeper of Cranmore Mountain Lodge. Our chef at the time was a colorful fellow named John Littlefield. (Picture Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character in the Pulitzer Prize winning fiction novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole.) John was a superb chef, but let's just say he had some idiosyncrasies and someday when I write my expose about innkeeping I will devote an entire chapter to John.
But back to my story. I was in the laundry room with my youngest son Daniel (he had just turned five years old). The laundry room had a doorway to the country kitchen and John was in the kitchen busying himself and talking. Daniel watched John for a few minutes and then turned to me and in a soft voice inquired: "Momma, who is John talking to?" To which I responded: "He is talking to himself." Daniel considered my answer and then in turn responded: "But who is listening?" I didn't have an answer, except a knowing smile.
Now almost 20 years later, I find myself asking the same question when it comes to all of the new-age technology. I know that people read blogs, I know that the Internet and SMO can be very powerful on so many levels. But I also know that I can write this blog every Saturday and I don't really have any idea who is listening. So should I Yammer?
I would like to invite all of my readers to learn more about yammer.com, but at the same time I worry about even the name of "yammer." According to Websters', yammer means to utter repeated cries of distress or sorrow, to utter consistent complaints, to talk persistently or volubly and often loudly. So why would Yammer.com founders choose such a name? I don't know.
What I do know is that I am going to give it a try, but I am going to use it strictly for business questions. I am going to try to solicit input from my team members about business questions regarding SEO, SMO, web design, etc. I will let you know how this works out. In the meantime, here is a video that gives you a pretty good overview of YAMMER. And if you are looking for a good read, try A Confederacy of Dunces, you will laugh yourself silly.
Earlier this month, you might remember, I visited Amherst, MA, for homecoming weekend at Amherst College. During that weekend Dennis and I took a side trip to Hampshire College to visit the National Yiddish Book Center. How and why we came to make this side trip is a story for another day, but suffice it to say we were awe struck as we parked our car and strolled into this incredible center. We were welcomed into the center and invited to watch a short video on the history of the National Yiddish Book Center. The words of the narrator were both comforting and chilling: "Throughout their long history, Jews have turned to books as a 'portable homeland', the repository of collective memory and culture." What struck me about this statement is while it is true for Jews, I think it is also true for most people. That is, our books ground us as we move from place to place, from home to home. Looking back on my adult life, I have always treasured my books and I have never felt quite settled in a new home (whether it be a college dorm, a new apartment or a spacious house) until the books are gently set in a place of honor. It is not that I keep re-reading these books, but the fact that they are present in my home makes me feel settled.
My books are a conglomeration of novels, history, memoirs, poetry...many were gifts from friends and family or simply passed to me from my parents over the years. I have packed these books so many times over my adult life, at least 16 times, that each time it has become a ritual to hold the books, dust them and then quietly set them on a shelf..."just in case". They represent a part of my life's history. What I particularly love to do is read the personal inscriptions that many of them hold, written by people that have touched my life.
A few months ago I was riding in a car with Darin and Lisa McClure and Lisa reached into her purse and retrieved a new "gadget." I asked her about it and she cheerfully extolled the virtues of her Kindle, Amazon's wireless reading device. According to Amazon this is "a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers." I could see that the device was all of those things, but what about the book? In other words, what about the essence of the book itself: Buying the book, reading the book, holding the book, referring back to the book, sharing the book, and giving it a place of honor on your book shelf? What about the "dust cover(s)"? Here is how this new "reading" works. First you buy the Kindle for about $360. Then there is the download purchase vs the traditional purchase. For example, in 2005 Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. If you purchase the hardcover version of this book it will run about $35, the softcover version is about $21 and the Amazon Kindle version is $9.99. You can learn more about the Kindle by watching this YouTube video.
I invite you to visit on-line The National Yiddish Book Center. On their site there is a copy of the video that Dennis and I viewed. The video is called a "A Bridge of Books: The Story of the National Yiddish Book Center." As you view this video, you might wonder about the meaning of the word "save". According to Merriam-Webster's On-Line Dictionary, the intransitive verb "save" has the following meanings: "1 a: to deliver from sin b: to rescue or deliver from danger or harm c: to preserve or guard from injury, destruction, or loss d: to store (data) in a computer or on a storage device (as a floppy disk or CD)." Now ponder a Kindle vs the National Yiddish Book Center. A Kindle depicts definition "d", while projects like National Yiddish Book Center honors definitions "b" and "c".
Going back to the "portable homeland" and "just in case"...a few months ago my youngest son asked me if I had ever read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Imagine my delight when I was able to walk to our bookshelves and retrieve my copy of this book. It had been a gift (1968 price for this hardbound book was $3.95) to me 40 years ago and still I could find it, touch it and present my copy of Gibran's masterpiece to my son to touch, read and enjoy. Simply amazing, dust cover included!
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