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.
