I don't know for sure which came first, but the term "organizational silos" has been around for a long time, and it could have come from that. JoAnne Yates Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management MIT Sloan School of Management E62-335 100 Main St. Cambridge, MA 02142 jyates@mit.edu -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Janet Abbate Sent: Friday, August 02, 2013 3:11 PM To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Origin of term "information silo"? Does anyone know the origin of the term "information silos"? It's commonly used as a criticism of groups that don't share information for either organizational or technical reasons. This has always struck me as an odd metaphor. After all, in real life it's a good thing that grain is isolated in a silo; there is no physical-world benefit to connecting or "busting" silos, so how did this become a metaphor for good information management? And why would slowly fermenting fodder be a good metaphor for information? I'm assuming here that the term refers to farming and not to missile silos... which would be equally odd. Janet Dr. Janet Abbate Associate Professor Science & Technology in Society Virginia Tech www.sts.vt.edu/ncr www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055 www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members