International Business Machines Corporation

Liam J Cleaver

Brian M O'Connell

Kevin Edward Vaughan

Richard Elderkin Nesbitt

Kristine A Lawas

An approach for augmenting a current instant message (IM) session is presented. The subjects of the first and second posts of electronic bulletin boards are determined to be similar to the text dialog of the IM session. The first post is determined to be from a first user who previously collaborated with a participant of the text dialog. The second post is determined to be from a second user who has not collaborated with the participant. Based in part on the first post being from the first user who previously collaborated with the participant and the second post being from the second user who has not collaborated with the participant, a first hyperlink to the first post is displayed relative to a second hyperlink to the second post to indicate the first post is ranked higher in relevance to the current IM session than the second post.

Augmenting a real-time collaboration with ranked electronic bulletin board posts

An approach for augmenting a real-time collaboration is presented. Content of a real-time collaboration is received. A key word which is included in the content or a theme of the content is determined. A match between the key word or theme of the real-time collaboration content and a theme of post(s) in a threaded discussion forum is determined. Based on the match, a display, on a monitor used for the real-time collaboration, of link(s) to the post(s) is initiated.

Growing community of inventors

Alexandria, VA, United States of America

Liam J Cleaver