SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DERIVING USER EXPERTISE BASED ON DATA PROPAGATING IN A NETWORK ENVIRONMENT

A method is provided in one example and includes receiving data propagating in a network environment, separating the data into one or more fields, evaluating at least some of the fields in order to identify nouns and noun phrases within the fields, and identifying selected terms within the nouns and noun phrases to be tagged. The selected terms are tagged with respective expertise tags. The method may also include receiving a search query for a particular expertise, the search query includes the selected terms. The method may also include matching the expertise tags to an end user in order to generate a response to the search query, the response includes an identifier of the end user. In more specific embodiments, the identifying of the selected terms includes using synaptic analysis or word occurrence counting. The expertise tags can be provided in a profile for the end user.