Viva (Long live) Yammer

A few years ago now, my former workplace had a thriving Yammer community. It hadn't always been that way. It took at least a year until it really started to kick off. The catalyst was half a dozen regular contributors, persistently posting content useful for a handful of communities within the company.  That example, and the clean interface designed for such content, caused various other internal groups to abandon emails and stand-alone community board solutions to really embrace Yammer. From that point, growth was exponential and it proved to be a great solution.  

Then Microsoft Teams came along. It didn't kill Yammer, but it certainly wounded it. Actually, Teams also made an impact on other internal systems. What should go into a Team Site instead of those carefully crafted SharePoint Communication Sites? Who needs the network file share when a user could spin up a Team Site and create all the folders they wanted?

There is a technology boom/bust cycle that introduces new apps and capabilities that overlap with existing systems, but have a few extra user-centric features that play havoc with the curated Information Architecture, forcing a rethink and a course correction. Teams was one of those applications.

Meanwhile, Yammer dropped off the radar for many organizations, but not all. Microsoft did not abandon it either. Yammer continued to receive useful updates over the last while. It even got it's own dedicated Active Directory Administrator role in June of 2022. It makes use of Stream for live video, and the @ mention feature was souped up earlier this year.

What's next for Yammer? Well, you have probably seen Microsoft Viva making an impression here and there. This product has potential to generate another one of those cycles of change, in a good way, given the intent of the application:

Microsoft Viva builds on the power of Teams and Microsoft 365 to unify the employee experience across five key areas - Engagement, Wellbeing, Learning, Objectives, and Knowledge in an integrated experience that empowers people to be their best.  

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/microsoft-viva-service-description

And Yammer, rather than having a diminishing role in the M365 ecosystem, will see key aspects being folded into the Viva Engage platform and re-branded by Microsoft to "Viva Engage" over the course of 2023.  Microsoft has also stated the rebranding will not change the current capabilities, value, or pricing of Yammer for existing Microsoft 365 customers.

Viva Yammer!