Headlining the latest release of InventionMachine's Goldfire innovation platform is new expert identificationtechnology that automatically connects innovation workers with domain expertsin real time.

Goldfire 6.0's new technology is part of Invention Machine's strategy tohelp companies create innovation communities as well as establishsustainable and repeatable best practices around innovation. "[With thisrelease], we're helping companies tap into the tribal wisdom of theorganization," says Jim Todhunter, Invention Machine's chief technologyofficer. "There's a tremendous amount of knowledge in organizations with nogood way to tap into it. We're providing a mechanism so that knowledge workersaddressing different innovation imperatives can at any time reach out to abroader community and find out who knows what they need to know when they needto know it."

The automated expert identification mechanism employsdifferent approaches to "understand" who knows what about the different subjectmatter areas, Todhunter says. The Goldfire platform, which is integrated withthe corporate address book, considers such factors as authorship of internaldocuments, email, human resource records, skills databases and dialogsoccurring inside the Goldfire innovation communities or within externalenterprise forums like Wikis to make recommendations on relevant domainexperts. "This will allow people to tap into resources anywhere within theenterprise - within a division, even across a language barrier," Todhunter says.

In addition to making the connections, Goldfire 6.0 indexesthe exchanges so anytime someone enters the system to look for answers to asimilar problem, they will automatically be directed to those exchanges. "We'reaiming to provide a platform robust enough to handle the high-value, discreteinnovation initiatives, but at the same time provide a sustainable, repeatableenvironment to support the everyday innovation work that takes place in theenterprise," Todhunter says.

In addition to the expert identification capabilities,Goldfire 6.0 has additional content, including patents from local authoritiesin France, Germany, Japanand the United Kingdomalong with an additional pre-indexed 3.5 million documents from 1,100 deep Websites. The software also has intra-lingual capabilities so users can read thesummaries in their own languages.

Invention Machine's Goldfire 6.0 Helps ID the Experts A