What's the difference between Enterprise 2.0 and Information Management, Knowledge Management or Enterprise Content Management? How does this relate to other terms like enterprise social software or even enterprise social media? Well in my humble opinion all these terms are semantically interrelated with each other. Isn't it all about "the art of capturing knowledge and sharing information by means of technology platforms"? On the web, you can find a lot of interesting discussions about this topic but I believe that it only boils down to one thing: where traditional information management looks at information from a file-centric or asset-centric perspective, Enterprise 2.0 takes the user-centric perspective.
So, it is not about top-down versus bottom-up or centralized versus decentralized, it is not about technology or the how information is being captured, it's not about collaboration... it's about the user and his role in the information management life cycle. Taking this perspective does impact the way you will design and implement the system because it is difficult to predict how users deal with information. Enterprise 2.0 will not prescribe how users have to manage their information flow, it gives them the tools to structure it "their own way". So is it taxonomy versus folksonomy then? Nope, it is not a question of "either or" but "and and".
Taking the user perspective also means that you will want to detect usage patterns, rather then prescribing them. In this light, the term "emerging" comes in quite handy - but it also means that your information strategy cannot be fully future-proof: you have to be prepared to iterate and change course if necessary as a result of emerging usage patterns.
Now that I come to think of it, Enterprise 2.0 is in fact tactical by nature whereas ECM and the like require a more strategic approach. When giving awareness sessions or workshops on the topics, we usually stress the importance of doing experiments with E2.0. Only after a couple of (tactical) experiments, you can come up with a consistent strategy and incorporate these emerging patterns (read information attitudes). However, the good thing about this experimentation phase is that also allows organizations to understand the role of corporate culture on the way their employees deal with and share information and knowledge. In this sense, E2.0 is likely to be more future-proof than the more traditional way of managing enterprise information.
Anyway, I believe it is worthwhile investigating how the two streams can complement each other (instead of competing with each other) - more on this to be posted in due time
