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[msmemory_archive]

Latest overused buzzword: silos. Things, or people, are in silos or feel as though they were. (see: compartmentalize, vertical market, isolation, etc.)

Example discussion.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3700/is_199803/ai_n8807269
Notice all the other lovely MBA-speak in the piece as well.

Comments

Speaking for the Defense...

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

The overuse might be new, but the use of "silo" for compartmentalized information storage has been around a while, and has justifiable origin. Here's an article by Hawatha Bray from the Globe, Sept. 2, 2002:

Digital age alters way data is saved, destroyed
...
Iron Mountain runs data centers in Boston; in Pennsylvania, in an old mine 280 feet below ground; and in a site whose exact location is kept secret for security reasons. All information is copied three times, with one of the copies stored at a different location from the other two.

Vital data is stored on banks of hard drives, where it's available at the touch of a button. Customers who can afford to wait a few minutes have their information stored on reels of tape housed in "silos." In a few minutes, a robot can locate a tape in the silo and load it up for playback.

Here the silos are deliberately isolated, but no surprise that the same idiom will come up when people are talking about inadvertent inaccessibility. Changing from isolated data to people is certainly an idiomatic leap, but I don't think it's a surprising one.

And while the fact that so many people are jumping on the siloish bandwagon may just be buzzword-mongering, its popularity might be because it's a useful, evocative image. "Compartmentalized", aside form being IMHO an uglier word, seems easier to solve — just take down some cubicle walls.