Anthony B Small

US Patent:

20030004909, Jan 2, 2003

Filed:

Jun 29, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/895850

Inventors:

Digvijay Chauhan - Redmond WA, US
Ramesh Parameswaran - Bellevue WA, US
Stephen Eisner - Seattle WA, US
Anthony Small - Seattle WA, US

Assignee:

AskMe Corporation - Bellevue WA

International Classification:

G06N005/00
G06F017/00
G06N005/02
G06N005/04

US Classification:

706/045000, 706/046000, 706/060000

Abstract:

An enhanced knowledge management system (“KMS”) is provided. The enhanced KMS provides a customizable, person-to-person, knowledge sharing portal that manages concurrent one-on-one conversations between requesters and expert resources. Through the knowledge sharing portal, the KMS provides the automatic capture, organization, and reuse of tacit knowledge, as well as integration with existing systems that manage already documented (explicit) knowledge. Example embodiments provide a Conversation Manager, which manages communication in the form of conversations (question and answer sequences) between users (requesters) and experts (expert resources), and allows system administrators to customize the system. Conversations are organized by subject matter categories and experts are ranked preferably by the system and by users, thereby increasing the likelihood of the KMS providing answers to users' questions. The Conversation Manager, in conjunction with managing these conversations, produces a dynamic knowledge base of knowledge that is searchable by other users. In this manner, the KMS enhances the ability in a multitude of environments to capture previously untapped knowledge and to integrate such knowledge with existing data.