Patent ID: 7167855

Claim:
A memory for storing data in a computer, the memory comprising: a computer-readable storage medium; (1) at least one user data structure stored in said medium, the user data structure comprising data concerning one or more users, wherein, for each user, the user data structure includes one or more fields providing contact information for the user, wherein the user is an expert or a customer; (2) an expert data structure stored in said medium, the expert data structure comprising data concerning one or more experts, wherein, for each expert, the expert data structure includes (a) one or more fields defining at least one time period of availability of the expert for performing a project, and (b) one or more fields defining at least one category of expertise or experience of the expert and a level of expertise or experience of the expert with respect to each said category; (3) a project data structure stored in said medium, the project data structure omprising data concerning one or more projects, wherein, for each project, there project data structure includes (a) one or more fields identifying a customer within said user data structure, (b) one or more fields defining at least one desired time period of availability of an expert for performing the project, (c) one or more fields defining a desired level of expertise or experience of the expert for performing the project in each of one or more categories of expertise or experience, and (d) one or more fields defining a level of priority to the customer within said user data structure for the project, of expertise equaling or exceeding each of the desired levels of (c) above, said priority being specifiable independently of a desired level of expertise; and (4) a match data structure resulting from comparison of said expert data structure with said project data structure, said match data structure assigning to each expert a match score taking into account a level of expertise or experience of an expert in each of one or more of categories of expertise or experience, a level of expertise desired by a customer in each of one or more of said categories, and a priority assigned by the customer to expertise in each of said categories, wherein matches in said match data structure are ranked, wherein the ranking is a weighted average, over categories specified as desired by the customer, of a difference between expert's level of expertise and customer's desired level of expertise, with customer's priority for each category being a weighting factor.