在過(guò)去的一年，我們看到大量匿名應(yīng)用在手機(jī)上紛紛出現(xiàn)，允許用戶與附近的人或是社交圈子里的人分享信息。但到目前為止，其中大多數(shù)匿名應(yīng)用都專注于消費(fèi)者市場(chǎng)。
一款名為 Memo 的新應(yīng)用希望可以從企業(yè)級(jí)市場(chǎng)分得一杯羹，讓公司員工可以與同事匿名、私下分享信息。
Memo 由紐約市一家名為 Collectively 的公司開(kāi)發(fā)，該公司尋求以全新的方式“讓工作變得更具人性化”。Memo 背后的創(chuàng)意與其他眾多匿名分享應(yīng)用的創(chuàng)意一樣，即只要不讓用戶在帖子中暴露自己的身份，他們會(huì)更為坦誠(chéng)地分享在實(shí)名狀況下不敢公開(kāi)的事情。
為了保證用戶確實(shí)在某家公司工作，Memo 要求他們?cè)谧?cè)時(shí)必須提供公司的電子郵箱地址，或是通過(guò) LinkedIn 來(lái)驗(yàn)證他們的雇員身份。在身份驗(yàn)證步驟完成以后，Memo 會(huì)向用戶提供唯一識(shí)別代碼，但除此之外，不會(huì)保存其他任何身份信息。
一旦上述步驟全部完成，用戶可以在公司內(nèi)網(wǎng)與其他員工在私下交流。他們也可以與其他用戶公開(kāi)分享信息，但必須由 任職單位“ 驗(yàn)明正身”。
Collectively 首席執(zhí)行官萊恩·延森（Ryan Janssen）表示，Memo 的目標(biāo)是讓公司的員工之間進(jìn)行更坦誠(chéng)的交流。他認(rèn)為，不少大公司的高管經(jīng)常不與普通員工接觸。
延森在接受我電話采訪時(shí)說(shuō)：“一些企業(yè)之所以陷入困境，是因?yàn)樗麄儾粌A聽(tīng)員工的聲音。”但他也暗示，員工們也不敢分享他們對(duì)發(fā)生在公司內(nèi)一些事情的看法。
延森說(shuō)：“管理層具有雙重角色…一方面，他們被認(rèn)為應(yīng)該為公司內(nèi)的交流提供便利，但另一方面，他們還決定著員工們的命運(yùn)。這兩種角色恰恰存在著矛盾。”
為了測(cè)試這種假設(shè)，Collectively 去年秋天首先面向惠普、IBM、亞馬遜和花旗集團(tuán)等大公司的員工推出 Memo。該應(yīng)用被數(shù)千名員工下載到手機(jī)，當(dāng)作私密移動(dòng)留言板在這些公司中使用，如今 Memo 已經(jīng)完全開(kāi)放，所有人都能下載。
Memo 沒(méi)有權(quán)限訪問(wèn)在這些私密留言板上進(jìn)行的任何對(duì)話。Collectively 希望采用的商業(yè)模式是，推出一系列管理層可以使用的工具，包括分析工具、情緒分析工具，以及能對(duì)員工之間分享的消息作出回復(fù)的解決方案。
即便如此，有些公司仍然對(duì)員工在 Memo 上面匿名分享的事情感到不滿。延森說(shuō)，已有兩家員工使用 Memo 的公司向 Collectively 發(fā)來(lái)“停止通知函”（cease-and-desist order），另外該公司還收到了其他多家企業(yè)發(fā)來(lái)的“措辭強(qiáng)烈”的電子郵件。
此外，延森告訴我，還有三家公司的員工“收到了一份備忘錄，警告他們不要使用 Memo，這種做法真是具有諷刺性”。延森表示，他并未看到這些備忘錄，只是通過(guò) Memo 的信息反饋欄聽(tīng)說(shuō)的。
有些公司還試圖通過(guò)攔截身份驗(yàn)證電子郵件或是發(fā)自員工收件箱的邀請(qǐng)函，不讓本公司員工使用 Memo。不過(guò)，延森認(rèn)為企業(yè)的這種反應(yīng)其實(shí)是件好事。在收到這種電子郵件以后，延森可以與一些公司坐下來(lái)談一談，找到更好的合作辦法，同時(shí)研究 Collectively 應(yīng)該推出哪些工具，幫助這些企業(yè)對(duì)員工在 Memo 中反映的事情作出回應(yīng)。
雖然 Memo 邁出了不錯(cuò)的第一步，但很顯然，在企業(yè)接受了有關(guān)員工在公司內(nèi)部匿名分享信息的創(chuàng)意之前，Memo 還有很長(zhǎng)的路要走。
Memo Brings Anonymous Group Sharing To The Enterprise
Over the last year, we’ve seen a bunch of anonymous (or anonymish) apps crop up on mobile phones, allowing users to share messages with people nearby or those in their social circles. To date, though, most of those apps have been focused on the consumer market.
A new app called Memo hopes to capture some of the enterprise market, enabling employees to share anonymously and privately with their coworkers.
Memo was created by a New York-based group called Collectively, which is looking for new ways to “help make work more human.” The theory behind Memo, like that behind many other anonymous sharing apps, is that by removing a user’s identity from a post they would be much more honest with the things they chose to post.
In order to ensure users work at a certain organization, Memo requires them to sign up with a company email address or verify their employment by connecting through LinkedIn. After that verification takes place, Memo provides users with a unique user ID but doesn’t save any other identifiable information.
Once that’s all done, users can share privately with other employees within their company’s network. They can also share publicly to any other users, but they are identified only by the company they work for.
For CEO Ryan Janssen, Memo’s goal is to open up more honest communication within an organization. All too often, he believes, senior management in many big companies is out of touch with the average worker.
“Companies are suffering because they aren’t listening to their employees,” Janssen told me in a phone interview. But he suggests employees are afraid to share what they really think about what’s happening in their organizations.
“Managers have this bifurcated role… On the one hand they are supposed to facilitate communication throughout the company, but they also determine employees’ futures. Those roles are in opposition to each other,” Janssen said.
To test out this hypothesis, the company made Memo available to employees within organizations like HP, IBM, Amazon, and Citigroup last fall. The app was downloaded by thousands of employees and used as a private mobile message board in those companies, and now it’s being opened up so that anyone can download it.
Memo doesn’t have access to any of the conversations that happen within those private boards. The business model it hopes to employ is to roll out tools that management can use that could include analytics tools, sentiment analysis, and ways to respond to messages that employees share.
That said, some companies aren’t happy about the things their employees have been sharing anonymously on Memo. Janssen says he’s received two cease-and-desist orders from companies with employees on Memo and some “strongly worded” emails from a few other organizations.
In addition, he told me employees at three other companies “received a memo not to use Memo, which is a little ironic.” Janssen says he hasn’t actually seen those memos, just heard about them through the app’s feedback form.
While some companies have tried to shut down use of Memo by blocking verification emails or email invites from hitting employee inboxes, Janssen thinks the backlash is actually a good thing. As a result of the emails he’s received, Janssen has been able to set up meetings with a few companies to figure out how he can better work with them and which tools he could implement to help them respond to employee feedback in the app.
It’s a good first step, but there’s obviously a long road ahead before companies get comfortable with the idea of anonymous sharing in the enterprise.
techcrunch 
2015-01-21 08:42:00