Relationship collaboration system
AssigneeWest Services, Inc.
InventorsGeoffrey Hyatt, Michael Yoon, Wilbur Swan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A computer implemented method of processing data containing information about relationships between contacts and a community of contact owners is provided, which includes the steps of: collecting data having contact information, contact owner information and one or more values related to the strength of a relationship between the contact and the contact owner; evaluating the strength of the relationship based on the one or more values; and storing the collected data and evaluated strength in a computer database.
Claims19
A computer implemented method comprising:
- collecting data from an electronic mail system including an electronic address book, the address book associated with a contact owner and including a plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information, the collected data including one or more values related to strength of a relationship between the contact owner and each of the contacts, wherein at least one of the values is a quantity regarding email communications between a respective contact and the contact owner;
- determining a strength score representative of strength of the relationship between the contact owner and one of the contacts, with the strength score based on the quantity regarding email communications, wherein the step of determining a strength score includes monitoring email traffic between the contact owner and contacts within organizations, analyzing contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the contact owner, and incorporating such analysis into the strength score;
- storing the collected data and the strength score in a computer database;
- extracting from the one or more values one or more of how long the contact has been stored, how frequently it has been accessed, how recently it has been accessed or modified, whether the contact owner appears to have an identifiable association with the contact or entity, a type of association such as duration, frequency, recency or role, an amount and type of contact data, a pattern and frequency and recency of communication;
- and
- computing on a substantially continuous scale the strength of the relationship relative to other relationships in the collected data.
A system for processing data containing information about relationships between contacts or entities and a community of contact owners, comprising:
- a data collecting module which collects data including contact information, contact owner information and one or more values related to strength of a relationship between a contact and the contact owner, wherein at least one of the values related to strength of a relationship is a quantity regarding email communications between a respective contact and the contact owner;
- a processor executing a process to evaluate the strength of the relationship based on the one or more values, including email communication values;
- a memory storing the collected data and evaluated strength in a computer database;
- a module which extracts from the one or more values one or more of how long the contact has been stored, how frequently it has been accessed, how recently it has been accessed or modified, whether the contact owner appears to have an identifiable association with the contact or entity, a type of association such as duration, frequency, recency or role, an amount and type of contact data, a pattern and frequency and recency of communication;
- a module which monitors email traffic between the contact owner and contacts within organizations;
- a module which analyzes contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the contact owner;
- and
- a module which computes on a substantially continuous scale a strength score for the relationship relative to other relationships in the collected data wherein the module which computes the strength score incorporates into the strength score analysis from the module which analyzes contact information in the email traffic.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.