Hi For those of us wondering whether/how the silo metaphor translates: In Japan a *tako-tsubo [octopus pot]* is used to capture those invertebrates; once an octopus climbs into the pot it cannot escape. Tako-tsubo is used in Japan as a metaphor for people who join a government ministry, a company, a discipline, a specialty, a club, etc and then form few other ties. [Takotsubo has been translated as squid pot and fox hole.] * This article discusses difficulties of introducing ICT education into traditional takotsubo (discipline-based) university curricula: Murata, Kiyoshi, and Yohko Orito. "Three Challenges for Japanese ICT Professionalism." _Proceedings of ETHICOMP 2008_ (2008): 577-585. www.kisc.meiji.ac.jp/~ethicj/M%20and%20O%20E2008.pdf * See also references to takotsubo in this discussion of the so-called otaku generation in Japan: "Allein, aber nicht einsam" die otaku- Generation: Zu einigen neueren Trends in der japanischen Populr-und Medienkultur Volker Grassmuck in: Norbert Bolz, Friedrich Kittler, Christoph Tholen (Hrsg.), _Computer als Medium_, Wilhelm Fink Verlag Mnchen 1993 http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck/Texts/otaku.d.html -Older English version [without the takotsubo reference]: "I'm alone, but not lonely" Japanese Otaku-Kids colonize the Realm of Information and Media A Tale of Sex and Crime from a faraway Place. Volker Grassmuck (Dec 1990) http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck/Texts/otaku.e.html * In 1961 a prominent Japanese political scientist, Masao Maruyama (1914-96) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masao_Maruyama_%28scholar%29 described Japan as a takutsubo society in his _Nihon no shiso_ (Japanese Thought). Iwanami Shoten, 1961. See also: - J. Victor Koschmann review of "Maruyama Masao, Nihon no Shis Seidoku (An Explication of Japanese Thought by Maruyama Masao), by Miyamura Haruo. Tokyo: Iwanami Gendai Bunko, 2001, 224 pp., _Social Science Japan Journal_ 5, no. 2 (2002): 267-270 http://ssjj.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/2/267.short - Hori, Masaharu. "Japanese public bureaucracy in the era of globalisation." _Ritsumeikan Law Review_ 21 (2004): 1-18. http://202.175.64.236/en/conference_doc/a1/a1_011.doc http://www.asianlii.org/jp/journals/RitsLRev/2004/1.pdf Cheers, Sharon Sharon Traweek, UCLA Gender Studies & History Departments, with strong ties to the Anthropology & Information Studies Departments, as well as the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies. My PhD is from the interdisciplinary UCSC History of Consciousness Program. [As you can see, unlike many academics, I do not fit into a takotsubo.]