What is ECM?

I find it fascinating (and slightly disturbing) that the topic of defining Enterprise Content Management (ECM) keeps recurring. Here are some discussions I’ve kept track of over the years, as well as some recent blog postings on the topic that are causing me to write about it myself. I am sure that this is not an exhaustive list of all conversations on the topic:

Alan Pelz-Sharpe – CMSWatch – http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1771-Document-Management-Not-ECM

Russ Stalters – Better ECM Blog – http://betterecm.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/disillusioned-with-the-current-definition-of-ecm/

John Mancini – AIIM Digital Landfill – http://aiim.typepad.com/aiim_blog/2010/01/ecm.html

Greg Clark – C3 Associates – http://www.c3associates.com/2007/03/ecm-resources-and-thoughts-on-the-definition-of-ecm/

Laurence Hart – Word of Pie – http://wordofpie.com/2009/12/28/turning-the-ecm-definition-around/

As Alan pointed out in his posting, AIIM originally coined ECM as a term to describe an overarching approach to managing all forms of content. I also agree that the term has been royally misused since its inception. I think for most of the user community, the term means a big technology platform or a suite of integrated tools. Vendors of this software also seem to support this definition on their web sites and other marketing material. It becomes more evident they support this definition in the way that some sell their product.

Continues @ http://www.accesssciences.com/node/222