For me, the term "knowledge work" implies something I should be doing, can fall behind in getting it done, and do poorly with unavoidable consequences. All those implications suggest it can be managed which gives rise to the term "knowledge management". In the context of work literacy, "knowledge work" would get done faster, better, cheaper by using the Web 2.0 tools effectively. Literacy makes a slight shift from pressuring people to be "in the know, well informed, cognizant, etc" to supporting them in adopting these tools and making effective use of them. Compared to hierarchies and factory models, work literacy is benign, empowering and a welcomed change.

When we consider bigger shifts like going from an industrial to creative economy or from expert taxonomies to unique folksonomies -- we're dealing with greater complexity and emergent outcomes. We cannot make the results happen, manage the work involved or count on improvements by using the tools. We're dealing with networks that grew to know more or communities that connected additional resources to itself. The meaning shows up amidst the interactions.

Understandings get held between the nodes (people, info sources, etc) in the combined effect of all the linkages. Like Dave's examples of economic transactions, the value of the content is no longer objectively pinned to the content itself. A market emerges where shared interests, uses, appetites and preferences collectively combine to define what's it's worth, what it's good for, and what difference it actually makes. When we think about how valuable a particular blog post, comment or bookmark of a post is, the value is not in what was written. It's in the unseen uses it's put to by "knowledge workers" interacting with others, generating content themselves, linking between documents and contributing to searchable public archives for later uses. All that is unmanageable and ecological.