In large organisations it is often difficult to know what your colleagues are working on, and as a consequence the sharing of knowledge is limited because people are unaware both of what expertise is out there, and how our own expertise can be applied elsewhere.

This is a key aim of many internal social tools that offer to break down functional silos and allow valuable connections to be made across the organisation.  These tools do however require employees to take the iniative and make the connection.

A new tool aims to force the issue by directly pairing two people up for a lunch date.  The tool is called Lunch Roulette, and it works in much the same way as the notorious Chat Roulette, albeit you hopefully won’t be introduced to men in various stages of undress.

The tool is pretty straightforward to use.  You select a date(s) when you’re free for lunch.  You then select one of the locations you’d be happy to travel to, and then click the match me button.  The system will then match you with the other person, sending both of you calendar reminders.

After that it’s down to you to go on your lunch date and see what the new connection will do for you.  Thus far I think the application is more promise than anything else.  The homepage is very sparse indeed so doesn’t provide any indication of the areas that are covered, so despite entering London I’m none the wiser if the service is even offered in the UK, much less if I will be matched with anyone (none thus far after three days).