Relationship collaboration system

A computer implemented method comprising:

• collecting address book data from an electronic mail system including an electronic address book, the address book data associated with a contact owner and including a plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information;
• extracting from the collected address book data, strength data indicative of the strength of each of the plurality of contacts;
• determining a strength score representative of strength of the relationship between the contact owner and each of the plurality of contacts using a set of heuristic rules based at least in part on the extracted data;
• storing the collected address book data and the strength score in a computer database;
• and
• computing on a substantially continuous scale the strength of the relationship of a contact relative to other relationships of the others of the plurality of contacts in the collected address book data, wherein said computing includes:
• monitoring email traffic between the contact owner and the plurality of contacts within organizations, and
• analyzing contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the contact owner, and incorporating such analysis into the strength score.

A system for processing data, comprising:

• a data collecting module which collects address book data from an electronic mail system including an electronic address book, the address book data associated with a contact owner and including a plurality of contacts and corresponding contact information;
• at least one processor executing a process to extracting from the collected address book data, strength data indicative of the strength of each of the plurality of contacts;
• at least one processor executing a process to determine a strength score representative of strength of the relationship between the contact owner and each of the plurality of contacts using a set of heuristic rules based at least in part on the extracted data;
• a memory configured to store the collected address book data and the strength score in a computer database;
• a module which computes on a substantially continuous scale the strength of the relationship of a contact relative to other relationships of the others of the plurality of contacts in the collected address book data, wherein said computing includes:
• monitoring email traffic between the contact owner and the plurality of contacts within organizations, and
• analyzing contact information in the email traffic between the organizations and the contact owner, and incorporating such analysis into the strength score.