When you’re a customer on both sides of someone else’s product–a user and someone who deciphers how to use it for other people–it can be easy to get caught up in the small stuff.
Such as: “What? You’re going to change Item X, which will impact Y, Z, and AA? My users won’t stand for it!”
…when the reality could be that most people won’t even notice something changed.
This is a case-by-case basis, of course, and the current situation that’s bringing this post out of me is one such case.
There’s a current push in Microsoft to get users interacting with Yammer ON Yammer, by which I mean, actively opening yammer.com on their browser or using the Yammer App.
This is a no-brainer, of course; most companies want people using their product ON their product.
Yet Yammer has also allowed people to interact with it through email. You have users who really love their email? No problem! They can still respond, help, and even post on Yammer through email without having to open another window.
Hang on, just checking my email
Now some of that functionality may be taken away.
As I said, it makes sense from a business point of view when you want to measure value.
I still think people should interact with this tool in ways that make the most sense for them. Some users live in email. Others seamlessly hop on to Yammer.
Both methods still mean you’re finding value in the product. (It’s pretty clear WHERE the emails are coming from, for one thing.) And that’s what I as community manager want: People using the value of Yammer, period. I don’t care what road you take to get there. Adoption is a tricky beast!
But, yes: That’s what _I_ want. And it may turn out to be No Big Deal both for home and external network users.
And so, we wait to see how this will all shake out…
Author Becky Benishek 