Obliterate knowledge management: everyone is a knowledge manager!

Purpose – Knowledge assets are a critical basis of competition, but knowledge management (KM) often fails to deliver in effectively growing the value of these assets. This paper aims to lay out four shifts required to make knowledge management more effective. Design/methodology/approach – The paper defines four shifts likely in the evolution of KM: “Knowledge Clouds” where knowledge assets within and outside the company become permeable and interconnected in a cloud computing environment; the use of social media and ratings to co‐create user generated ratings, taxonomies and collective organization of knowledge; integrating KM with learning and decision support so users are better empowered to learn, decide and do useful things with knowledge; and everybody becomes a knowledge manager and is clear about how the can contribute to the creation, projection, organization and use of knowledge of assets within and outside the walls of the company. Findings – The paper presents clear reasons KM is vital to the future of business, but probably best obliterated now. Originality/value – Much of the discussion on KM is centered on the firm. This paper pushes forth provocatively to suggest that the future of KM is best served by obliterating centralized KM to create a more social process where everyone is a knowledge manager.