At a session today with a company to talk about the tasks around Enterprise Community Management (ECM) – the initial stewardship required to develop a Yammer network.

The tasks can vary dependent upon your Yammer strategy (every company should ideally have a Yammer strategy closely linked to the overall business strategy (and related KM, New Business, People, L&D, Engagement strategies etc.) which will help define the priorities around the ECM tasks.

Other companies Yammer strategies have included:

• Help change a ‘command / control’ company culture
• Remove middle management roadblocks
• Develop untapped future talent
• Remove remote team’s reliance on reporting into the centre
• Support development of a social learning programme

And the ECM tasks can vary greatly to help meet the strategic requirements.

Here is an outline of some of the tasks we will run through.

• Help sections – maintain and update ‘Getting Started’ and Help areas on the network
• Use Cases – assisting to develop use cases to show case the possibilities of Yammer
• Stewardship – making sure everybody plays nice and all voices are heard
• Formal Governance? – some companies need this so generally you’ll be involved in coordinating
• Promotions – active in promoting Yammer through numerous channels
• New Joiners – getting Yammer on various New Joiners radar
• Coaching – determine how this is dealt with. Some formal ‘how to’ or focus on behavioural change and community management (my preferences are the last 2)
• Events – running events around Yammer (Yamjams, 30 days of Yammer etc)
• Advocates – nurturing advocates of the network
• Strategic Initiatives – involved in any planning around big initiatives
• VIP’s – Not everyone gets the same treatment so if someone ‘special’ joins Yammer give them the ‘silver service’ treatment
• Community Management – developing good community management practices. Linked to coaching
• Case Studies – Pulling together case studies to show the value it delivers. Good storytelling works wonders
• ROI / Metrics – Pulling these together. Linkage to overall governance