In the film Witness, our fugitive hero Harrison Ford lures a baddy into a grain silo before triggering a torrent of cereal that drowns him in seconds.
I was reminded of the scene when I heard executives excitedly extolling the benefits of the many collaboration tools that aid remote working: Webex, Skype and the ubiquitous Zoom for video conferencing; Slack for messaging; Box for document sharing; Mural for visual collaboration; Facebook’s Workplace and Microsoft’s Teams. The list went on.
“All these things will converge into one complete worker, workplace and work silo,” Sandeep Dadlani, chief digital officer at confectioner Mars, enthused at a recent Financial Times Future of Work conference. This is not a silo where I would want to be trapped, suffocated under tonnes of different apps.