the.com/silos
where information goes to die of loneliness, department by department.
means isolated groups or systems that hoard data and decisions instead of sharing them across an organization.
from from the grain silo, a tower built to keep one crop sealed off from another; business borrowed it in the 1980s to describe departments that similarly refuse to mix.
original usefarmers stored grain to prevent spoilage, not to hide it
ironysilos exist to protect contents, corporate ones just isolate them
coined shiftmanagement consultants popularized the metaphor in the 1980s
for instance
kodak digital camera — invented it in 1975, film division buried the idea
nokia symbian teams — hardware and software units feuded while iphone ate their market
nasa mars orbiter — 1999 crash traced to imperial vs metric units, unshared specs