One of the great things our CIO, Dave Laube, did was to sponsor a site called the rumor mill. Metaphorically, it's a chance to see the company's leadership actually deliberate on tough questions. And it's one of the most-used pages in the U S West Global Village. Anybody can ask a question, either anonymously or with their name attached. The question gets shipped to the person in the company who has accountability for the answer.
Every large organization has a rumor mill.
The Web has made our rumor mill really effective. That is, a rumor will start and go like crazy for about four hours and then stop instead of playing out over a two-week period. The rumor mill was a clue to communicating with the workforce on the things that really mattered. In the past, user interfaces had to be signed in blood because, once built, they were locked down for the next five or six years. Applications that can be trained.