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Microsoft’s Social Secret Sauce from #WPC12

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Joel Oleson

I’ve been anxiously following the news of WPC in Toronto this week. The keynote didn’t hold too much… then we had an explosion of Yammer and SharePoint 15 news…

Jared Spataro Director of Product Management for Microsoft presented at the world wide partner conference providing great insights into the Yammer acquisition and made a number of revelations in relation to Sharepoint 15 social. We follow the twitter streams of Christian Buckley @buckleyplanet (SharePoint MVP) from Axceler and Naomi Moneypenny @nmoneypenny a SharePoint partner with adaptive SharePoint learning tool Synxi. Christian recently posted about the SPYam social experiment.

(RT @davidrauf: Federal regulators have cleared the #Microsoft bid to acquire social networking company #Yammer for $1.2 billion: http://t.co/fn1HwOEa )

Text from the slide

Yammer – Stand-alone Social Networking: Yammer already integrates with SharePoint and Dynamics and over time it will offer more and more connections with SharePoint, Office 365, Dynamics and Skype

SharePoint – Social Networking + Collaboration Suite: SharePoint 15 will include new social networking capabilities and Yammer will power the next generation of SharePoint and Office 365 social experiences

(emphasis added by me)

Tweets from @NMoneyPenny

Why did MS buy Yammer? Best in class enterprise social in cloud. So simple to use. Viral adoption model.-brings people together #spwpc
1+1 = 3 means social plus other tech/function makes more than the sum of the parts. MS goal – Win Enterprise Social #spwpc #wpc12 #jared
Social is deeper and bigger and longer than you think. MS wants to be on forefront. But without 4 trends, its not enough #spcwpc #wpc12
Connected Experiences way of future. Single platform for managing people & info. Something that appeals to end user, not IT #spwpc #wpc12
Yammer gives access to new customers without sales ppl. Similar to WSS free download in the past #spwpc #wpc12

SharePoint 15 quotes:

Next version of SP is all about you, some features hidden in order to present the simplest interface and enable conversations #spwpc #jared
What does social mean in SP15? Collaboration in order to get tasks completed. That’s where the business benefit is. #spwpc #jared
Hybrid solutions may be able to reach back into LOB data. Licensing per user (simplyfying) likely.. #spwpc #jared
Positioning of Yammer and SP 15 – many customers will use both. #spwpc #wpc12 pic.twitter.com/Cj7gtDoa (above)
Expect the ‘conversation layer’ to be built into Office15 & in apps that ISVs build . @LearningLayer @Synxi similar vision #wpc12 #spwpc

Text Above. (Thanks to @nmoneypenney for tweetpic)

Yammer: Best in class enterprise social networking – stand-alone social service + in-app social experiences
Yammer + SharePoint + Office 365 + MS Dynamics
Yammer Enterprise Social Networking Services

Christian Buckley @buckleyplanet had an excellent stream

Jared Spataro getting underway, talking about #SharePoint, #Yammer, and #social #WPC12 instagr.am/p/M36MZhlcUG/
Jared Spataro giving #SharePoint #social context, vision and strategy (thematic level), and #Yammer at #WPC12
#Yammer was on the path to recreating #SharePoint — Jared Spataro #wpc12
#social for the enterprise is not about a feature or a product, but about interaction, productivity between systems and apps #wpc12
#Social is bigger and deeper and slower than most people think — Jared Spataro #wpc12
#Social through #SharePoint was one way to get capabilities to our customers, but not the only way (#Yammer acquisition) – Spataro #wpc12
Agree! RT @buckleyplanet "Not only does (#Yammer acquisition) protect our business, but it extends our business" @jared_spataro #wpc12

A few other random tweets from the session:

@MarianoDD: #Yammer enterprise social networking services interwoven with #Dynamics #Office365 #SharePoint #Lync #Skype and more… SOCIAL GOING DEEP!
@Tuncertan: "#Yammer was set to recreate #Microsoft in the enterprise, before we acquired them. We really liked their roadmap" by Jared Spataro #WPC12
@wturnhout: "Important reason for buying Yammer: preventing competition to win market for collaboration." Jared Spataro, MS

Thoughts by Joel:

As a Yammer customer prior to the acquisition, I was concerned about where they were going with documents in creating overlap. You don’t have to read too many Gartner & Forester reports that were pitting SharePoint against Yammer and visa versa. I’ve never seen them as competitive, but complimentary. I’ve thought that this acquisition was a great thing (see my post on 10 reasons why SharePoint and Yammer make sense). I continue to be extremely hopeful for the future of both SharePoint and Yammer.

I’ve been anxious to unite the SharePoint Community on the Yammer Platform, so they can truly see it’s usefulness and see that there isn’t a conflict here. As well, it’s an awesome platform for conversation, something that twitter has been less useful for especially as more and more of us end up with thousands of followers and as our streams get more volume and get sniped.

If you’re in SharePoint join me on #SPYam the SharePoint Yammer Social Experiment (community nearing over 500 members), and on #Yammerites the Yammer Community built for the community by the community.

See you tomorrow…

@jshuey: Tomorrow is "Cloud Tuesday" at the #WPC12 keynote. Get there live or catch it streamed at http://www.digitalwpc.com

The SharePoint on Yammer Social Experiment Continues with Early Success #SPYAM

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Joel Oleson

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If I had to make predictions I would have said we would have a good crowd using Yammer. It’s been exceeding my expectations. At the end of day 2 we have more than 350 invites with 245 participating. This network is active. At work I’m in a network of around 2000 and the richest thread is around 70-80 replies. I’m seeing that happening easily by the end of the week. Can you believe we are getting nearly 50% or more participation? Those numbers are unheard of!

If you look at our SharePoint Yammer early adopter group you’ll notice that we have a lot of first timers, and then a group who have really loved it, and then those who are giving it a second chance.

(Image was an early community contribution by Dan Kreitz, MBA, MCITP, SharePoint Administrator, Business Analyst)

I’ve been more liberal in the invitations based on the great conversations that are happening. We have already had some challenges…

How do we manage group creation?
What about people who want to speculate about SharePoint 15/2013?
I’m confused… What’s the difference between Yammer and SharePoint on Yammer Communities?
Some users have created 2^nd accounts. It’s better to use your corporate credentials so you end up with single sign on across communities.

Join us:

SharePoint Community on Yammer (request an invite)

http://yammer.com/spyam

Yammer Community on Yammer (open invitations)

http://yammer.com/yammerites

The YamJam will be happening next Monday. I’ve decided we should have it happening on both of the platforms mentioned above. If you sign up for the YamJam at EventBrite, we’ll send you a reminder, otherwise join us on either Yammer network at 10-11am Pacific!

Social Experiment: SharePoint Community Platform Pilot Based on Yammer

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Joel Oleson

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We have come a long way in our use of various networking technologies. I’m especially proud of how we leverage Twitter and we keep each other up to date not only on what we are doing in our jobs and careers, but day to day challenges and in sharing technology. We’ve come a long way since the days of Newsgroups as the main way in the technology world communicated. I believe our next step of evolution as a community is a communication platform of our own. I’ve been envisioning a platform for the community similar to twitter for years. I believe now is the time for adopting a platform of our own.

I’m not asking anyone to delete their twitter accounts or abandon blogs. This is evolution of desk phone to cell phone… you will still want both. This will provide all sorts of options we never previously had. I am asking people to abandon their bias, and get on board. That’s really what I’m asking for is a united community behind this platform choice.

Linked in groups, Facebook groups, and Twitter conversations all happening in a common platform and one where it was focused on SharePoint.

High Level overview of the Proposal

TheSharePointCommunity.com – The SharePoint community on Yammer.com. Much of the conversations we have on Twitter.com can be happening in an environment that is easily searchable. It will bring all the best of enterprise microblogging to the community with things that you’ll find will provide ease of use such as type ahead for @mention users, and without the limits of the 120 characters. You’ll have a platform to promote your posts. Groups to gather your users groups, with rich conversations that have since been spread across facebook, linked in and more. One of my favorites is the rich profiles where you can provide your role, Picture, Bio, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, and so on. The beginning may be a little slim as we get critical mass, but this is why I’m reaching out to the leadership to help accelerate the vision I have for the community.

25 reasons why I think Yammer is the right platform for the SharePoint Community

1. Private conversations amongst the community can stay private

2. Discovery of user groups will be easily found in groups

3. Rich profiles can even be richer when you know it’s only other SharePoint people looking

4. Conversations can actually be more threaded and captured and last a lot longer

5. Tagging of posts after will allow conversations to stick around longer

6. Rich Polling, Questions, and Answers with Type Ahead will make a stronger knowledge base

7. SPAM will be nearly eliminated as it will be moderated and governed (SPAM deleted and users put on probation or blocked)

8. By having a consolidated place for conversations we can have richer conversations

9. Content created by the community can be easily searchable

10. Analytics will help us understand the most important issues and hot buttons.

11. Use of Yammer in the community will increase Yammer adoption and bring awareness to SharePoint and Office 365 integration with Yammer

12. Feedback, polling and surveys can be more easily captured

13. People search for our community will be richer than it’s ever been possible

14. Role based groups will help roles that otherwise often get overlooked and no attention

15. Seeing how Yammer is leveraged by the community will help promote best practices and real world usage.

16. Organizing community events and announcing things will be much cleaner and more easy to mention and pull people in

17. Daily digests and weekly digests will help provide awareness of the conversations and issues. Way better than twitter…

18. Replying to conversations over email will keep the conversations going

19. Mobile, web, and desktop integration scenarios will be a good sell as it relates to SharePoint stand alone

20. It’s a technology we should all learn… why not do it together?

21. Rich profiles that we can better manage

22. Yammer Groups with rich conversations for User Groups

23. Much better mechanisms for communicating with the community such as events, calls for speakers, and gathering speakers into a group after you’ve organized a list. Communication will become much, much more efficient.

24. Expertise provided in simply the using of the technology which will benefit you in your career. The development API means you can integrate with the community platform.

25. A platform where we can really do Live Blogging. I hope to really show off the power of this at SPC.

Really I think it just takes a few experiences… if you like Twitter or Facebook it shouldn’t take too much convincing. The key to this social experiment is momentum and critical mass. I think the community will take over from there.

Action:

I invite early adopters to join me in kicking the tires, build out the infrastructure, create the right groups, and laying the foundation. Yammer is a turn key solution, built in minutes, but what you’ll find with any social community what you really need is something to discuss and this will definitely come. Let’s call this the pilot, it’s the beta. We’ll help clear the way for the rest of the community.

Below request to be part of this early adopter group. I will be limiting the pilot group to a maximum of 500 for the first four weeks and qualifying the users as real SharePoint Community members. I’m looking not for lurkers, but for those that really want to test out this platform and prove out that this is something we can use. There is definitely rules that need to be established and guidelines to work through.

Register at http://SharePointYammer.eventbrite.com
We will validate your request which may take a day or two.
If selected you will receive an invitation for the Yammer platform early adopter program or notifed you’ll be included at the 2^nd wave

10 Reasons Why SharePoint and Yammer Really Make Sense

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Joel Oleson

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Have you heard the news? Microsoft to Aquire Yammer – How could Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft say: "Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services."

When Yammer was announced as a possible acquisition for Microsoft, I smiled and giggled inside. I’ve known for over a year that Yammer was more than a few SharePoint web parts, it has real enterprise momentum and a social community that reminds me of what happened with SharePoint Team Services in the first version. I’ve seen them both go from under the radar apps to departmental apps to enterprise endorsed applications with serious potential for changing the enterprise culture… and they have. Smart Purchase MS!

Here’s 10 Reasons Why SharePoint & Yammer is a Good Match and Really Does Make a Lot of Sense:

Cloud – Microsoft has been pushing for cloud, and Yammer as a cloud only app fully embraces that mentality with 85% Fortune 100 participation
Social Intranets – SharePoint is the most popular enterprise social strategy, and Yammer integrates very well to enhance that story around profiles, search, and rich microblogging
Yammer Needs SharePoint – Yammer was getting pushed into file storage & collaboration and they could much better serve users by leveraging existing document repositories in SharePoint
Social CRM – Dynamics CRM really was missing what Chatter was providing for SalesForce, SharePoint and Yammer are excellent integrations with CRM… a killer TRIO.
SharePoint Discussions – Discussions in SharePoint are just really bad. Yammer will bring a much more dynamic near real time conversation to the platform
Search – (Yammer Web part for SharePoint) Being able to search conversations and see what engagement looks like is very important for Intranets… What’s going on?
Profiles – (Yammer Web part) If you want to get to know someone better it’s better to read and see what they care about, with recent conversations you can much better get to know someone
Feedback – No matter how much you ask for feedback it doesn’t get very candid until you give your users a megaphone. Our most popular post for nearly a year was when I asked the crowd on Yammer what I could do to improve the Intranet.
Status – Facebook thought that Twitter would never rise and they could kill it by evolving status. When the community took hold of twitter it became not about status, but a communication mechanism. I’ve seen the same thing happen with enterprise microblogs. They aren’t about status of talking to the wall and saying you’re working on a project, but instead it’s an engagement layer. Yammer has nailed that engagement layer for the enterprise, and it fits very well with SharePoint.
Yammer plus SharePoint Online and Office 365 will make for some great small and medium business integration. As well… It would be naive of me to think that Yammer will only be for enterprises. I think there’s a consumer option here for the Live service, but going into the Office family Yammer will find a lot of LOVE, and it will continue flourish in the enterprise. I do hope the Bing/Live guys do come knocking at some point, but I think the Yammer and SharePoint story is a great match.

Love this new Infographic shared by both Microsoft and Yammer around the announcement…. Notice the mention of SharePoint, Skype, Office365 and wait for it… Dynamics CRM… Sounds like a very powerful match!

Adding Visual Awesomeness to SharePoint

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Joel Oleson

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SharePoint is NOT Ugly… You just need to BRAND it!

I’m sure you’ve heard that SharePoint has a boring interface. I was even recently told the default SharePoint looks ugly. Well, that is a matter of opinion, but if you have to look at it every day… I may begin to agree with you. What I don’t agree with is that it is too hard to change the interface. With master pages there are easy ways of changing it. I’m not saying I think it’s easy to create a master page, but swapping one out and changing the overall look and feel can be easy with a few different master pages to choose from. Essentially, one can download master pages from a variety of places, create your own. The way to think about a SharePoint Master page is to think of changing the chrome and navigation. It is essentially something that can change your overall design and contains the CSS for fonts and styles. Another way to think about it is changing the brand for a site.

There are a few experts out there that I would point to on Branding. If you’re an enterprise, you will likely either have branding people on staff or you’d hire it out. In my experience, the branding people you have on staff wouldn’t want to touch SharePoint. They are likely afraid of it. It is something that takes some getting use to, and may indeed be a love hate relationship in the beginning and that’s emphasis on love to hate.

I’m going to credit Marcy Kellar for this awesome list of SharePoint Designers who actually LOVE to do SharePoint Branding. They are all very accessible on Twitter, but most of them are busy. It’s still worth reaching out to them. We had Heather Solomon come out to do some designer and SharePoint UX training. As well we’ve outsourced some master page work to Heather Waterman, and she’s done a great job. Randy we pinged, but he was booked out a few months. There aren’t a lot of really good designers, so when you find one… hold on to ’em.

Responsive Design.. Don’t forget form factor

There are a couple of resources I would point out that have been very, very interesting. I’m a BIG fan of the Responsive HTML5 Master Page that Kyle did. I seriously think anyone deploying SharePoint today has to think about Mobile. It’s so important to consider the various environments and desktops that will not just be viewing the site, but really using it. I’m anxious to incorporate responsive into our styles. iPad is a reality I live with. Definitely will be considering the MS Surface form factor for Microsoft’s mobile touchscreen devices as well when it comes out and gets adopted. I’m hoping the responsiveness we build in now will make that really easy.

Starter Master Pages on CodePlex – Randy Drisgill
Fixed Ribbon Starter Master Page – Kyle Schaeffer
Cleanv4.master – Tom Daly
Responsive HTML5 Master Page
– Kyle Schaeffer
Top SharePoint – You can download some free master pages or check out designs.

Content is king!

So what are you doing to make your site sticky? Have you added those parts to your page that make someone want to come back? Have you added engagement? I’ve recently added conversation to search and I’m looking to add notifications and feeds in a much stronger way to add real interactivity. I’m looking to provide better preview capabilities around documents, and search. These features do exist… in third party solutions. Here’s one third party solution that provides some interesting enhancements to your data that will make it pop…

I’ve recently become more aware of Infragistics NetAdvantage for SharePoint. They have some really cool webparts for visualization. These webparts work with existing data in your lists or from data you want to expose through a BCS (business connectivity services) connection. If your data is in a list you can expose it in a chart with some very rich controls and easily customize the look and feel of the chart. Instead of just adding a simple KPI with an up or down arrow you can add a gauge like as in a fuel gauge.

I’ve recently been looking at how to do better maps. With Bing and Google there are APIs for leveraging their maps, but you’re still developing quite a bit before you get really good flexibility with your map. The Map web part from Infragistics is provides geospatial maps for your data. Since you likely have the data in a SharePoint list, why not display the data on a map. It’s straightforward to apply a data source with appropriate geographical information to a map and format the result to provide visualizations. For example, you could show population density by country and drill down to state, county and even deeper as needed. The possibilities are great.

There are a lot of other web parts out there, but I hope these give you a start for understanding your data and your site doesn’t have to look ugly. Not all of them are great looking, but most of them do have trial downloads. I’m not going to try to represent all of the companies that provide webparts… there are likely over a hundred, but I hope this gives you an idea of some of the possibilities.

This post sponsored by Infragistics NetAdvantage for SharePoint download a trial today