Professional Small-Talk.

Returning from a chat with CEO blogger Tom Glocer last week, I took a Tube journey from the financial district to the centre of town and overheard an interesting conversation that juxtaposed with his desire to open up the culture of his company via internal communications.

A businesswomen was revealing to another that she would not be attending an intra-departmental social event later that night because she had no time for "professional small-talk" when on the day to day basis everyone in their department "has their own secrets". Knowledge is power was clearly the reigning department maxim, but shared knowledge is even more powerful.