Graphical user interface for interacting with automatically generated user profiles

A device configured to display user profile information to an end-user comprising:

• a profile building unit configured to parse user data and electronic communications within an organization into a list of keywords and phrases indicating each user's expertise or a context associated with each user and to automatically generate a set of user profiles organized into a given expertise or context;
• a scoring unit configured to rank each of the user profiles in the set based on its strength of relationship with the expertise or context;
• a search engine adapted to locate user profiles having attributes that match a known interest of the end-user and to generate a list of the matching user profiles;
• and
• a graphical user interface configured to display the list of-user profiles that match a known interest of the end-user in rank order based on the degree that the information contained in the user profiles matches information contained in a user profile of the end-user.

A computer-readable storage medium that provides instructions, which when executed by a computer, causes the computer to display user profiles to an end-user, the instructions comprising:

• instructions to parse user data and electronic communications within an organization into a list of keywords and phrases indicating each user's expertise or a context associated with each user;
• instructions to automatically generate a set of user profiles, wherein each user profile includes information categorized based on a given expertise or context;
• instructions to rank each of the user profiles in the set based its strength of relationship with the expertise or context;
• instructions to search for user profiles having attributes that match a known interest of the end-user and to generate a list of the matching user profiles;
• and
• instructions to display the list of user profiles that match the known interest of the end-user in rank order based on the degree that the information in the user profiles matches information contained in a profile of the end-user.