  New product development needs new engineering approaches. Knowledge is a key
resource that impacts traditional, organisational, economic and innovative
models. Through NICT (New Information and Communication Technologies),
globalisation encourages the emergence of networks that overcome traditional
organisation boundaries. International enterprises, European-Community Networks
of Excellence or Clusters (competitiveness poles) indicate the need to define a
new way of thinking. This new way moves towards an agile, continuous innovative
use of knowledge. Based on an epistemic study of knowledge management best
practices, four examples show the barriers that can be encountered today. This
paper aims defining the key elements that enhance collaborative networks. The
analysis of best practices from collaborative environments enables the design
of high standard information systems and initiate knowledge ecosystems. A
balance between formalism required to share knowledge and fuzziness of social
networks triggers new initiatives. This ensures the validity of information
exchange through virtual collaboration. It helps to maintain group coherence
despite exceeding the natural maximum number of collaborators. Finally the main
success or failure factors are highlights and commented to ease the transition
from economic-driven to expertise-driven models is then facilitated.
