What's in your silo?

[Dave Wilton]

Yes, this is common business jargon. It is synonymous with "stovepipe,"
although stovepipe is used more when talking about information flow and silo
when talking about organizational structure.

A google search of "functional silo" turns up some 7,000+ hits.

I have no evidence as to the origin, but given the stovepipe synonym I doubt
the isolated missile silo crew metaphor. I speculate it comes from
organizational charts where boxes representing departments are stacked one
on top of another with no lines of communication between stacks.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Ed Keer
> Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:44 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: What's in your silo?
>
>
> Siloed in this use is quite big at my work. Everyone
> complains about the siloed nature of our company.
>
> Ed
>
> --- "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
> > >Don't know if this will interest you, but my wife
> > and I
> > >just did a translation of an internal company
> > document
> > >from English into Chinese in which silo was used as
> > >both an adjective and a verb.  The explanation for
> > >the term was given to us as:
> > >
> > >Siloed: isolated in our own business units-not
> > sharing
> > >information and working together.
> >
> > I think the silo alluded to here probably contains
> > an ICBM, presumably with
> > an isolated crew underground.
> >
> > This is a variant of the "stovepipe" metaphor
> > perhaps.
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
>
>
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