Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Making sense of ECM acronyms

16-Sep-2009

Tags: , Digital and Media Asset Management, Document Management (ECM), E-mail Archiving and Management, Enterprise Collaboration & Social Software, Evaluating SharePoint, Portals and Content Integration

One of the challenges we face at CMS Watch is the continuing need to bridge the gap between those new to ECM, and the deep industry insider knowledge that our subscribers seek.

Or when consulting, client teams early on in a project often ask to clarify the meaning of the various acronyms that get thrown around. Yet even when we explain that ECM actually stands for "Enterprise Content Management" many team members often remain none the wiser.

Whilst chatting with my colleague Jarrod the other day we decided to try to explain the meaning of these acronyms and technology terms better. So we came up with a guide that you may freely use:

ECM: A really big and really expensive document management system

BPM: A really expensive workflow system

SharePoint: A big collection of lots of little document management systems

RM: The art of legally deleting most files while keeping the rest for a really long time

WCMS: Web-team Creates More Stuff

E2.0: Facebook without the fun

Enterprise Portal: A way of assembling all of your ugly and annoying applications in one place

DAM: A way of assembling all your ugly and annoying images in one place

E-mail Archiving: Er....well, mercifully no acronym yet

"Surely you're pulling my leg!" I hear you say. Many a true word spoken in jest is my reply. 

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