I had to squint my eyes and shake my head to scrutinise the user interface of Microsoft’s rebranded Yammer which they’re calling Viva Engage (through the Microsoft Teams app).
Whoa! 
Look how similar it is to Facebook or Meta or whatever you want to call it. 
I really do hope (!) that this rebrand inspires people in organisations to see the value in building communities of practice and interest (!) and seeing the difference of when you’d use this over say, Microsoft Teams. (!!)
There’s a feature here that also allows leaders to push out their announcements onto Yammer and also Teams automatically so that the announcement can be seen by people wherever they happen to be.
Part of me thinks that now is the time to really skill up people in not just using these tools but using them smartly – so they aren’t overwhelmed and inundated with notifications and messages.
Many people will more likely start to block everything in an effort to stop the overwhelm. (If they haven’t already).
If there’s ever a time to help people with their ‘Notification Literacy’ in the following areas:
- Social and personal (NOT just online) connections and networking
- Filtering and Curating
- Sensemaking
It’s now.
Feel Free to Share Your Thoughts