Illumio makes expertise sharing way easier

By Vivek | December 13th, 2006 at 11:48 pm ET         

Illumio is an expertise search engine that runs right from your desktop instead of the web. Actually you can say that Illumio is Yahoo Answers running in reverse. Instead of you going out to web sites like Yahoo Answers and locating questions that match your area of expertise and interest, Illumio takes care of that with its fuzzy matching logic. Illumio comes from Tacit Software, which has been around since 1997, lead by David Gilmour who had previously co-founded Giga Information group.

You will have to download and install the Illumio client on your PC to start answering questions for your areas of interest. Before Illumio can bring in you matching requests you need to define your interests in Illumio. So you can use keywords like Web20, VoIP, widgets, gadgets……… Optionally Illumio can also do automatic interest matching if you are using Google or Microsoft desktop search engines, by analyzing your files, emails, and web browsing history with the requirements of the request. From there on you are all set to receive very targeted requests from other Illumio users which might find worthwhile replying to.

Each incoming request in Illumio is rated from 1 to 5 depending upon the match with your expertise, frequency with you have answered questions, and how much attention you have been paying to the requests in that area. Typically requests rated 4 or 5 stars mean very high match. Illumio takes the help of this rating system to enable users to control how often they get notified about the new requests coming in. So you can set to get notified only when the request match rating is more than 3 or you can get notified for requests that match only your interest.

When you are sending requests for expertise to other Illumio users let you choose if you want to send the request to a specific user or your contacts(that can imported from Outlook or LinkedIn), or to all the Illumio users. This request is than taken up by the Illumio server and broadcast to all the Illumio users.

I like the way Illumio team has gone about securing the privacy of its users. All the matching of requests to the right person takes place at the desktop client level. Only when the real-time check of your expertise matches with the requirements is the Illumio server notified about the delivery of request to your PC.

Personally I will like to see the option where public users are able to monetize their expertise. It should be left to the users to set and negotiate the rates while Illumio serves as the platform for bringing the users together. Also I will be great to have the ability to see in real-time contextual requests submitted in past when sending out a new request, which can help in keeping the data redundancy down. Putting a rating system should also make a great add-on.

Currently Illumio is planning to monetize its product by providing paid private groups expertise and information in which can be accessed only by the group members. Illumio has already been approached by few law and financial companies who look at product that can enhance the interaction and networking among its employees, and also setup expertise marketplace.

Links:
Illumio