We're working right now with my government program to try to achieve "synergy" (I hate that word...) between different programs that are working on related goals. For example, getting the collaboration program to coordinate with the network bandwidth program and both to coordinate with the data center hosting program. It sounds easy, but in big organizations the hardest thing to do is to coordinate different groups.
The issues are not technology related at all - they're about program schedules, culture, information exchange, and building relationships. Except, somehow we're convinced what we need is ... more technology. Lets just implement service oriented architectures! that will fix it! How about a search engine? If we could just search better we would work together better!
All silly.
It is not a technology problem we have. If it were, it would be solved. It is easier to solve problems with real, tangible things. Technology problems are tangible, and discrete. I can build a better search engine. I can make all my applications communicate with an XML webservice. That part is easy. The hard part are the non-tangibles. Who gets my priority? What information should I share? How should I communicate?
Abstract thinking is hard. Which is why we should all do more of it.
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