Many of us have not yet twittered, never mind yammered. 

But check out yammer.com, and think about whether this business-only microblogging site could help you and your public affairs team do what you do better, and more easily.

Yammer is a free online site launched in September 2008.  It is compatible with a desktop, iPhone and Blackberry, and creates instant and unique peer-to-peer networking sites for corporate users with the same business email address.  The site is secure, but companies can manage the security of their networks for a small fee.

Yammer, like Twitter, allows users from the same company to post what they are working on, including progress on tasks.  It creates instant topic and issues threads and allows users to post messages, files and work flow .  Its main benefit for the public affairs teams is that it can keep team members within a company connected at all times.

This can be a boon in the fast-moving world of corporate public affairs.  Knowing what your team members and project team colleagues working on an issue are doing at any given time, including what they are working on, can be very useful and productive indeed - especially if yammer is used for work flow purposes only.

Another great thing about yammering is that you do not have to rely on more clunky wikkis or email, or wait until your IT department chews up  a lot of time and money to build something unique for your team to stay connected in real time.

Yammer is an especially interesting proposition for larger teams, or teams working across multi-sites, or across cities and countries.

You can create work and issues groups on yammer, follow topic threads, and also send and receive yammer messages via SMS or email.

Even if you are not IT savvy, it is indeed worth checking out if an application like yammer can streamline your public affairs workflow, improve communication within your team, and bolster efficiency and alacrity.