Silos Of Excellence

I encountered the concept of "silos of excellence" at the University when someone commented that the various disciplines tended to operate in splendid isolation from each other as silos of excellence. The same phenomenon can be seen in the larger community of Brandon in the way institutions tend to work in isolation from each other.

People seem to have their own turf and guard it very jealously. Perhaps this tendency to isolation is related to issues of job security in a tight job market.

One interesting development in the past few years has been the emergence of the "Smart Network" in which resource sharing and regional co-operation through internet linking has been promoted in order to compete more efficiently with other regions in terms of economic development. It will be interesting to see how such an initiative develops over its life span in face of this other tendency towards institutional isolation.

I have wondered personally what would happen if someone simply did a study of some common component, for example an inventory of all audio equipment, or perhaps even the seating capacity of various churches and auditoriums throughout the Brandon institutions and posted it on a web site. Then when someone was looking at putting together a large production, the availability of and access to such facilities would be simple. When things are made simple, sometimes the way is made clear for greater inter-cooperation between organizations.

Media Based Solutions

Further Resources

The balancing of individual excellence and team / group / community activity is an ongoing debate. Resources and links to solutions abound on the internet, as the following links indicate.

Navagation