Recently Microsoft announced the rebranding of Yammer (Microsoft’s Enterprise Social Network) to Viva Engage and I wrote my thoughts about this in my blog post Yammer & Viva Engage: Same? Same?
The Stand Out New Features are Storyline and Stories
Although early days yet, two of the stand out features in this platform are Storyline and Stories.
The terms may be confusing but in the past, Yammer had a function where people could write their own posts without it attaching to a specific community. It was a space where people could reflect, sense make, work and think out loud – a blogging space to show what they were working on, what they were learning and making visible their thinking.
Unfortunately and short sightedly Microsoft took this function away without realising that they were also removing a place for individuals to reflect and sense making.
If there was ever a time for people to do this at work, it’s now.
(I remember working for National Australia Bank many years ago, where one of the leadership team, Simon Terry, used this function to share his thoughts and reflections. I eagerly read his posts as they provided insight into organisational opportunities and challenges and made leaders more personal and approachable).
Luckily Microsoft has introduced this function again and it’s calling it Storyline.
However, it’s also introducing a short video function called Stories. If you ever used any social media site like Facebook, you’d see the short videos sit above the feed where people can share short portrait style videos.
What’s So Special About Stories?
I have been writing and sharing blog posts and videos about how to use the Stories feature for Business since 2017 ever since these features appeared on social media.
At the time, Snapchat was the first platform to do this before Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn (this one died off) and now TikTok. Experimenting with the Snapchat Stories feature made some light bulbs get off in my head and over the next four years of my working life, I used the Stories feature to capture a visual portfolio of my entire work history and projects.
That’s over 400 videos of my work projects, the conferences and training events I attended, interviews with colleagues, experiments with different Microsoft applications, reflections about work related topics and themes.
Now, if someone says to me, “What do you know about XYZ?” Well, I can show them the videos of HOW and WHAT I did on XYZ.
(It’s great for building a visual portfolio of your work for your career development – and in fact, I have presented many times over the years, to university students and graduates on how to start using social media stories in ways that helps them build their career).
Here’s an example of some of my previous stories:
Yeah But What Happened Then?
The thing is, back then, in pre-COVID days, the Stories feature was very new. I was certainly considered kooky and weird for using Stories and I lost count of people telling me it was frivolous, only for young people, that the use of portrait video went against good video design when it must be landscape video, ephemeral content is irrelevant and illogical, and that Stories simply has no place in business.
(To make a case in point, I presented at a conference about How to Use Stories for Business and only 2 people came to my session until the conference organisers were so embarrassed at the turnout they went around drumming up people to come to my session. Oh look I’ve got a video of that too….here’s what happened on that day….because you guessed it, I made a Story on that day!
Certainly organisations back then didn’t have a similar function that would allow people to capture and record stories because organisational systems and capturing and stories videos were cumbersome. Issues like privacy, sensitivity and confidentiality of information was critical and also the fact that taking videos in some organisational settings could be just plain dangerous also.
As a result, (in my experience), back then, the Stories feature was only used by the Marketing or Corporate Communications team to showcase the organisation to the public. For example, NASA comes to mind where they would run Stories and interview astronauts or get behind-the-scenes tours.
That’s when the penny dropped for me on the power of Stories for Business Contexts: where workers could show and talk about their work, show us behind the scenes into their spaces and give us a glimpse into other areas of the organisation.
Stories allowed exactly that – stories to surface, to be made visible, to interact and engage – and see our place in the organisation.
I then started to dabble more and over time, built up different ways to use the Stories feature for business contexts and share these out to others through different conferences and workshops (mainly to Marketing, Corporate Communications or Learning and Development teams – as the Stories feature was also a great way to incorporate into Employee Development programs). However, my challenge back then was one of credibility and the fact that certain teams, simply didn’t allow (or want) their teams to share stories in this manner.
I wonder however, if this will now change matters because the Stories feature is sitting inside Viva Engage – or whether it will be restricted or turned off.
Before organisations turn this off without exploring its full potential, here’s some ideas of how Stories can be used for Business Contexts and also incorporated as part of the Employee Experience. I’d urge organisations to at least trial out the Stories feature but also provide some educational context around HOW it may be used in ways that BRINGS VALUE to the organisation.
Here’s just some ideas I shared on How to Use Stories:
Employee Broadcasts
Employees can have their own Story channel to share their own thoughts, reflections and ideas in their own way that showcases their unique talents and diverse perspectives.
You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that they have creative skills otherwise unexplored, untapped or unacknowledged in their current role.
A Visual Dairy
Take some video of what you’re working on during the day and various intervals and publish these.
You may like to add some additional context in Storylines at the same time. Taking video in-situ means that we get a timeline of the work that you’re doing – so it means we get to see the process and the steps that you do – and why you do them in that particular way.
Never underestimate the power of your knowledge and experience; and why you do something in your own unique way. Too often organisations think that the FINAL PRODUCT is the focus. It’s not.
It’s the work in-between, in the messy middle, that is the gold.
A Live Story at Your Company Event
At your next company event, workshop or conference, take a story of it.
For example you can capture the key notes that presenters shared and offer your own ‘value’ on it. That is, what did you think about what they talked about? How can it be applied in your work?
You can also share what they offered to others by way of resources, references, materials and links.
Don’t just capture video without context – add YOUR context because it demonstrates that you’re sharing your own insights to what is presented.
The trick is that when sharing your story, make it YOUR story.
For Q&A Session
Use Stories as a way to provide visual and engaging feedback. Encourage employees to ask questions to senior leaders and subject matter experts as part of a Q&A session and get them to share their answers through video.
People across your company can ask questions and have their answers responded to by others.
Why not have a weekly Q&A session as part of your team or departments communications at the same time each week?
Use Stories to engage, ask questions – and answer questions asked of you openly.
Interview Employees at Their Work
Use Stories to interview employees at their place of work and to explain their roles and responsibilities to the company. It’s a great way to provide a visual representation of the different roles everyone plays.
You can also use it as part of Onboarding programs to introduce people to others in their own organisation or use Stories to acknowledge the great work that people do in your organisation.
For individuals, you can also create Stories where you answer the questions that others have of you. For example, if I was to use Stories in my own role as the Community Manager at Rapid Circle, I would start by answering the questions that people ALWAYS come to me for and do them as a Stories series:
- What’s a community and how is it different to a team?
- What do I do as a Community Manager?
- Why can’t we just use Teams and not Yammer?
- How can I build a community in Yammer?
- What value do communities have in an organisation?
Stories allow you to have an individual voice and expression of your own work – and to share this voice in a video format to your peers. If you’re offering value, people will follow you.
Take Over Each Other’s Accounts
This was an interesting way I saw the Stories feature being used by some organisational departments. They would take over each other’s accounts on a particular day such as ‘Takeover Thursday’.
For example, two departments such as the Human Resources Department and the Engineering Department take the stories for each other. It means that an engineer could be roaming around and asking questions of the HR staff and vice versa. Watching these stories was an interesting experiment as it dispelled myths and stereotypes of different departments had of each other and promoted more mutual understanding of the specific and important roles they play in their own way. It was similar to watching “empathy in action” and inspired new collaborations across teams.
Stories build empathy because people can see, hear and understand what you’re sharing.
Behind the Scenes Tour at Work
Does your workplace have intriguing laboratories and work spaces? Why not take viewers on a behind the scenes tour?
Act as a tour guide in your own company to explain the function of the workspace, introduce fellow colleagues and invite people to drop in for a meet-and-greet. These tours allow employees to appreciate the diverse workspaces that can be found in one company.
Work is a combination of distributed places and spaces – showcase these to give a glimpse of the organisation that others may never see.
Provide Context at Your Training Event
Have your employees recently gone through a training program?
Why not have subject matter experts enhance – and balance out the theoretical and practical components of the learning experience by providing real life work based contexts, stories and experiences with their Stories.
Stories from the ‘horses mouth’ provide more credibility and context because they can provide deeper insights with actual examples that are meaningful and relevant.
Practice Your Public Speaking
Are you afraid of public speaking?
Use Stories to practice your presentation and overcome your fear of the camera.
In the past, I would practice all my conference presentations by running them as a Story and seeking feedback. At the same time, I would become more confident on camera.
Stories allow us to express our work articulately and succinctly.
Provide and Seek Feedback
Don’t bother about writing long posts or emails to get some feedback from people who may not respond. Create a short video to share your feedback and share the positive news story of how this person or their work has helped you in your work or helps out the company.
Send Out Reminders for Company Events
Use the Stories feature to send out a quick reminder for any company notices or programs happening on the day. They could be about workplace hazards, employee informations, notices and broadcasts
Subject Matter “StoryStorms”
Is there someone at your workplace who has years of excellent knowledge skills and experiences to share?
Why not get them to create a series of Story Storms where they share their knowledge in parts and have everyone waiting for the next instalment with abated breath.
I have been a part of different subject matter story storms as well as watching many over the years. They are in fact, micro lessons that can be shared. If I was to encourage my colleagues at Rapid Circle to use Stories, I’d say that using Story Storms where some coders can share HOW they’re working on some code; how they created a PowerBI dashboard would be excellent micro lessons for anyone in the organisation to watch and learn.
Subject matter experts can create Story Storms that are educational content that add huge amounts of value in employee learning and development.
Show Your Work In Progress
Share stories of your work every day. Share something that you’re working on or learning about.
Are you building a prototype of a piece of equipment or setting up different experiments in a laboratory? Maybe you’re out on a building site and you’re going to work on a piece of the project that is going to be of interest to viewers (but boring to you, because, hey, that’s what you do every day!)
Never underestimate the level of interest and what you do, and how you do it in your job. People want to know about it – and learn how you go about it. Who knows, they may even offer some advice, insights or ideas that you haven’t thought about.
Share Stories In Daily Themes
You can set up daily themes in your Stories which would attract interest and share value in your organisation such as:
- Thank You Tuesday – congratulate or acknowledge the great work of others
- Work Out Loud Wednesday – share what you’re currently working on
- Thursday Tip – share a tip or resource that helps you in your work
- Fun Friday – share a fun story
Final Thoughts
In all honesty, I don’t know how business and organisations will look on Storylines and Stories and what they would make of them. I’m not going to lie that I found selling Stories to business hard going – and at times, felt that my own credibility as a learning and development professional was questioned by others in my field.
However, five years ago, is a long time ago.
Since then, organisations have gone through a massive shift in how work is being done and many people are now more comfortable in the use of these thanks to COVID. Taking video does not present the same stigma as it did in the past however, what is different here is how organisations will approach its use by its employees especially when it comes to what is being shared, the manner in which it is being shared along with the assuredness that the video does not impose on any privacy or confidentiality issues. I don’t doubt that they’ll be people who even mention, “we don’t pay people to sit around and watch videos”.
That’s where I believe that education and role modelling the use of Stories should be considered and where people are encouraged to SHARE AND SHOW VALUE. Those who share such stories that provide this value to the organisation should be acknowledged, encouraged and supported by their managers and organisations.
Hi, Helen,
My goodness! This is just quite an SPECTACULAR blog post on its own! Super helpful and resourceful not just for Stories & VIVA Engage, but also for any other Activity Stream App available out there to help people jumpstart their adaptation efforts with all of these new (emergent) business practices. Fantastic work! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I have been reading a good number of other blog posts, articles and publications over the last few days, and, so far, I haven’t seen anything on something that has got me a bit worried, perhaps you may know some more about it. I am referring to the algorithm(s) that both Yammer and Storyline use in order to display what they think are interesting and relevant posts / stories to us end-users, but that we don’t have much of a say about how to tinker / modify / improve them.
That stripping off our own personal agency at the workplace by providing relevant content without much of a say in either Yammer VIVA Engage posts or Stories / Storyline is something that has got me worried, specially, as they seem to be following the current trend with media tools (See https://www.axios.com/2022/07/25/sunset-social-network-facebook-tiktok and https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/tiktok-and-the-fall-of-the-social-media-giants) in which the focus is on entertaining audiences versus adding business value into a conversation while getting work done more effectively.
Any ideas whether we would have an opportunity to tame the Yammer, VIVA Engage, Stories / Storyline algorithm overlords? Otherwise, I don’t see how such capabilities will help us all become more effective at the workplace vs. becoming just-one-more-place-to-check-out to entertain me / us in the midst of, yet again, another boring workday.
Thoughts, please?
Again, many thanks for sharing such a wonderfully inspiring blog post! I shall certainly be recommending it to other folks to read, as they dive into their favourite Activity Stream Apps and would need some inspiration on what to do in there 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Hi Luis and many thanks for your comments here.
Regarding the algorithms and how they work, I recently attended a webinar through Swoop Analytics where Microsoft talked about how the posts are being made visible. The recording is here. It shows you the order in which they choose in what shows in the feed.
https://youtu.be/O3FhLxugVD0
Overall though, unlike public social media, our private data and information is not being sold to advertisers and marketers. In fact, I find enterprise social networks “safer” in that they are still private and within the company. So if you happen to be professional and add value on these, (through showing your work, being respect online etc) you’re likely to build a reputation inside the company as someone who helps people, expert in their field.
Of course that depends on the company’s culture and how engaged leadership is on the platform themselves.
ESNs make visible the culture of the company speaking volumes about what is working, who is speaking (and not speaking), who is being promoted, acknowledged or who is quietly being put aside.
Personally, IMHO Yammer won’t solve organisational cultural issues. Instead it highlights them. You can literally see the organisational culture play out in front of your eyes by who and how people are interacting in it. It’s fascinating to watch.
Until organisations work on their organisational culture and entire systems of how people are rewarded, how work gets done and is recognised, a move from less individual to more collective approaches, then the platforms (regardless of what they are, ie what brand) are all doomed to fail – or be the scape goat for endemic system failure in orgs.
I wrote about this here
https://activatelearning.com.au/2022/07/yammer-viva-engage-same-same/
And also in some bit in this post about Notification Literacy (a term devised by Doug Belshaw)
https://activatelearning.com.au/2022/07/notification-literacy/
It’s going to be really interesting how this plays out. I’m all honesty, I have my doubts that anything will change for many organisations. However if it starts rumblings of organisational change in others, then it’ll be a step in the right direction. (I said in one post it’ll be a generational change 🤣 )
Hi, Helen,
Thanks a bunch for the prompt response and for the superb follow-up feedback! Lots of really good stuff in there, specially, in terms of the impact of ESNs to help expose the many dysfunctions within organisations and present an opportunity, a choice, of whether people would want to do something about them, or not. Never mind the opportunity to help transform organisations into becoming more open, transparent, collaborative / cooperative, co-creative, learning-driven.
However, that’s the main concern I have with Yammer and its obscure algorithm. That YouTube link you have shared above seems to be matching pretty much What Fernando Martinez wrote about in this other blog post 👉🏻 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/yammer-blog/yammer-explained-how-the-feed-works/ba-p/2757489 about how Yammer’s algo works. I know both our data and information won’t be sold to third parties, that’s a given, within the corporate world, but I do have an issue in terms of how Yammer seems to favour engagement, as opposed to chronological order (= Let me decide what I want to see on my timeline(s)) or business impact.
Yammer just won’t display all updates happening in your networks and Yammer groups, but it would favour what the algo thinks is relevant for you without having a clue, really, about what’s interesting and relevant for the work you’re doing at that moment. And since we can’t tinker with the algo to improve it, to learn with us, to augment our already human capability, it becomes more of a hindrance than a helper.
I fear Stories and the Storyline would follow the same path into trouble. In fact, I have always stated the reason why Yammer hasn’t taken much of the corporate world by storm, as a powerful Activity Stream App, is because people don’t think of it as a serious business-critical app if it doesn’t show you all of the important and relevant conversations about your work (and those around you). Instead, people treat it as a place where I can do the typical non-related work stuff, i.e. chit-chat, cat pictures, trivial conversations I can quickly engage with a ‘like’ and then move on.
This is why I was asking whether we may have an opportunity to tinker with the algorithm to make it more suitable to our needs, not Yammer’s, because otherwise, I suspect it may follow the same fate you’ve mentioned above. Or perhaps something worse, imagine that a business critical update with a massive business impact happens through one of those stories and people miss it because the algorithm doesn’t think it will trigger enough engagement. Oh, boy, hope we can tame the beast before it causes any major irreparable damage to organisations.
I understand everything you’ve just written there and if they do go down the path of this algorithmic feed (and I’m 99% sure they will) if anything it just goes to show that EDUCATION is so important. Educating people to understand to take charge of filtering and selecting the information – and not leaving it to algorithms to show them what they THINK they need. For example, only following people that is of value to THEM not the algorithm.
If they’re going to base it on ENGAGEMENT and not VALUE as it’s perceived by the human work, then really nothing changes unfortunately. We will see people just as frustrated. Too often organisations place all their eggs in the one basket with the tech systems without realising that all along, what they should have been doing was teaching and role modelling behaviours and skills that allow people to find information/people/networks, curate information, make sense of it and basically take charge – and be agents of their own digital spaces. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see this happen anywhere – or if it does, despite rolling out the training to organisations on helping people become more savvy, those same behaviours are then further hindered or stopped by a toxic organisational culture of mistrust, hierarchy and power. So in effect, you can teach people to do this but then they’re actually working within a system that PREVENTS them to role model these skills for fear of their jobs, their managers etc. So they go back to what they always do.
I have no idea how this is all going to pan out….. On the one hand, I want to be positive about what these bring to an organisation but on the other hand, I see that the organisational systems at play, the underlying unspoken culture, ‘way we do things around here’ is so prevalent and strong. Also this bizarre preference to focus on just data, algorithms, an ‘arms length’ view from people. Learning about people through digits and graphs – instead of conversations. Part of me wants to get a box of popcorn and sit back and watch this space.
Hi, Helen, many thanks for adding further up into the conversation! This is just wonderful stuff and I am really glad we are having it. I couldn’t have agreed more with you about the key role of education (= digital enablement / literacy) when trying to implement these social tools within organisations. Remember when all along we’ve been saying all of this digital adaptation that needed to happen was never about the tools themselves, but about the new behaviours and habits we’d be helping out modelling along? That’s what it is all about, I am afraid, and it’s surprising vast majority of people, specially, in (senior) management / leadership positions, still don’t have a clue about it, perhaps on purpose and for obvious reasons.
IT vendors are not doing much better either in enabling such digital literacy and adaptation to take place within every organisation their digital tools are running on, I am afraid. Euan Semple (See 👉🏻 https://euansemple.blog/2022/07/23/the-myth-of-being-in-charge/) beautifully quoted another blog post you wrote a little while ago that pretty much nails it for me in terms of what we’ve been currently seeing with the implementation of all of these social, digital tools, and why it keeps falling short in terms of expectations and effecting the much needed change:
‘Viva Engage gives leaders new tools to shape culture and align their workforce by unlocking communication and engagement opportunities for everyone. And for employees, it provides new ways to build a sense of community, strengthen relationships with coworkers, share their work and perspective, and find answers to their questions’.
RE: ‘[…] if they do go down the path of this algorithmic feed (and I’m 99% sure they will)’, well, that’s the thing, Helen. It’s already there for a good number of years. Yammer’s rather obscure and opaque algorithm is fully operational and has already hindered the opportunity for people to engage in meaning and relevant business conversations by focusing on that engagement vs. business value / impact. And when I asked about whether we would have the opportunity to work things out of a chronological order of updates, or perhaps an ability to tweak, tinker, and improve the algo to meet our needs (= the end-users’) I got advised it was not going to happen. Either we like it as it is, or we shouldn’t use it. That’s the choice given at the moment.
That worries me a great deal at the moment, as I work my way through supporting / advising a good number of customers in their social business journeys with these social, digital tools. If anything, it confirms we haven’t learned a single thing over the last 17 years when Web 2.0 first came about about how social networks in a business context operate!
Here’s hoping we can eventually shift things accordingly to meet end-users’ needs and wants vs. IT vendors’. Pretty, please? 🙏🏻😅
Thanks for this Luis, yeah, I share your concerns. We’ve been doing this well over 10+ years so can see the challenges already. I’m mindful of not coming across as a cynic and I guess this comes from a place of experience for both of us. In all honesty, will this change things? No, I don’t think it will. The type of change that we need to see is fundamental organisational changes that impact and affect everyone and everything. It’s the stuff that Mark Britz talks about in Social Design. It’s a complete change in thinking and how things work in organisations. This isn’t going to change overnight – I think it’ll be generation. After all, consider that many organisations are only moving to the cloud, or having implemented distributed work systems. The challenge is IMMENSE. The organisations and in particular, the leaders who value doing things differently to inspire organisational culture change might be few and far between.
What I do hope for is that the concept of the Trojan Mice that Euan Semple often writes about. I see these tools hopefully, increasing the number of “Trojan Mice” in an organisation that can start the change to happen. However, again, what we also see is that COVID has resulted in so much change. There are also a high number of people completely disengaged from work; they have “mentally clocked out” because of continual changes, complete overwhelm with work and life. Are they in a position to spend time to reflect, to share stories, to work out loud when they may not be supported by management or leadership who don’t see value in Yammer/Communities/Engage?
I don’t have the answers here and from what I’ve seen so far, we are still focused on teaching people the tools instead of the behaviours and mindsets. They are working within systems that is hierarchial, power-driven, profit-focused, and distrustful.
I’d be looking at organisations or smaller business who ‘get social’. Part of me wants to move away from corporates and explore businesses like B-Corporates and other companies that work in a flatter structure. I think they’re the ones who get it (until the point they need to scale and then it all disappears)…
I don’t have an answer I’m afraid. I wait to see examples of how people will use these in their own ways – do they make the organisational systems change in some way? Yet to be be seen.
Oh I have to add, have you read Celine Schilinger’s book Dare to Unlead? If not, you must! Required reading.