Method, system, and computer program product for enhancing collaboration using a corporate social network

A computer-implemented system for inferring a contact, comprising:

• at least one computer, including:
• a social network including a plurality of nodes and links, each node representing a member of an organization and each link representing a relationship between a pair of the nodes;
• a system for receiving a request by a requesting member of the organization for a required type of contact;
• a system for inferring a dominating contact to the requesting member by searching the social network in increasing distance along a plurality of dimensions from the node representing the requesting member, wherein each dimension comprises a different hierarchy in the social network, wherein the distance comprises an aggregate distance across the plurality of dimensions, wherein the dominating contact is a shorter distance from one of the nodes than a non-dominating contact in all of the plurality of dimensions, and wherein the dominating contact is a strictly shorter distance from the one of the nodes than the non-dominating contact in at least one of the plurality of dimensions;
• and
• a system for establishing an upper bound on the distance in each of the plurality of dimensions when a required type of dominating contact is discovered.

A program product stored on a computer readable medium for inferring a contact, the computer readable medium comprising program code for performing the steps of:

• providing a social network for an organization, the social network including a plurality of nodes and links, each node representing a member of the organization and each link representing a relationship between a pair of the nodes;
• receiving a request by a requesting member of the organization for a required type of contact;
• inferring a dominating contact to the requesting member by searching the social network in increasing distance along a plurality of dimensions from the node representing the requesting member, wherein each dimension comprises a different hierarchy in the social network, wherein the distance comprises an aggregate distance across the plurality of dimensions, wherein the dominating contact is a shorter distance from one of the nodes than a non-dominating contact in all of the plurality of dimensions, and wherein the dominating contact is a strictly shorter distance from the one of the nodes than the non-dominating contact in at least one of the plurality of dimensions;
• and
• establishing an upper bound on the distance in each of the plurality of dimensions when a required type of dominating contact is discovered.

A contact inferring method, comprising steps executed by a processor and a memory operatively coupled to the processor, wherein the memory stores program instructions executable for:

• providing a corporate social network including a plurality of nodes and links, each node representing a member of the organization and each link representing a relationship between a pair of the nodes in one of a plurality of different dimensions, wherein each dimension comprises a different hierarchy in the corporate social network;
• receiving a request by a requesting employee of the organization for a required type of contact;
• inferring at least one dominating contact to the requesting employee by searching the corporate social network in increasing distance along the plurality of different dimensions from the node representing the requesting employee, wherein the distance comprises an aggregate distance across the plurality of dimensions wherein the at least one dominating contact is a shorter distance from one of the nodes than a non-dominating contact in all of the plurality of dimensions, and wherein the at least one dominating contact is a strictly shorter distance from the one of the nodes than the non-dominating contact in at least one of the plurality of dimensions;
• establishing an upper bound on the distance in each of the plurality of dimensions when a required type of dominating contact is discovered;
• accepting an inferred dominating contact;
• and
• updating the corporate social network by adding a link from the node representing the requesting employee to a node representing the accepted inferred dominating contact.