This post is about a prime example of how companies can use social media tools to improve their products and services.
You would expect this from a company looking to make a name for itself in social media, as Yammer is. If social media is your core product, you should be out there listening and participating in discussions related to your company.
But by actually following through on this philosophy, and listening to your users, you can identify and solve the problems you didn’t know were problems.
As SMUGgles know, I like Yammer a lot, and have been experimenting with it. I’ve even started a Yammer curriculum in this university.
My son-in-law’s brother is getting married today in Lafayette, Indiana, and I’m producing a wedding video as our gift to the couple, so we turned it into a five-day partial family getaway.
It seems my youngest daughter, Ruth, is “in a relationship” (to use the Facebook lingo), with a young man from Louisville, Kentucky whom she has known through her Bible Bowl competitions. The Kelley family lives 676 miles from Old Main, as we learned on our long but uneventful Thursday drive. And they’re “only” 180 miles from Lafayette, so we left our three youngest children with the Kelleys while we drove up for the rehearsal and Groom’s Dinner yesterday and wedding today. We’ll head back to Louisville early tomorrow morning for church and to spend the day, before returning to Minnesota on Monday.
Note to potential Old Main burglars: Even through we’re away from Austin, you should be aware that our next-door neighbor, Mark May, is a deputy sheriff. He has a gun, and he knows how to use it.
Rick Kelley took Friday morning off so he and April could take Lisa and me out for brunch at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe, a well-known Louisville hangout. We saw a picture of Hillary Clinton inside as one of the high-profile visitors, and there’s a huge wall map near the restrooms on which patrons can place a sticky dot representing their hometown. The whole U.S. is pretty well plastered with dots.
We had a wonderful time with Rick and April, but as we came out to our cars afterward, we saw the damage from a hit-and-run driver:
Apparently someone had pulled out of the alley you see behind that nice police officer, clipped our rear bumper and shoved our Grand Caravan into the Kelleys’ Camry. Thankfully their car wasn’t damaged.
And thanks also to the power of duct tape from a nearby Home Depot, we were able to get back on the road with at least a temporary fix.