This is the kind of technology that I like to see. This guy went
to a small island for a year. He studied how the islanders
communicated; how information flowed. Besides the obvious
differences between how communication happened there vs. the
corporate culture in London he was accustomed to, he noticed was
that the informality of the island was both effective as well as
more enjoyable.
Specifically, he talks about the "discovery" aspect of
communication. When communication is less formalized, you are more
likely to "just happen" into new bits of news or knowledge. His
research is built into a piece of software called "trampoline" that
gather corporate info-well you can the whole more in the
Wired News Article.