System and method for identifying and establishing preferred modalities or channels for communications based on participants' preferences and contexts

Abstract

A system and method for identifying and establishing preferred modalities or channels for communications based on participants' preferences and capabilities is provided. In one approach, the system attempts to optimize the inferred or directly accessed preferences of a contactee given the accessed or inferred preferences, capabilities and goals of the contactor while keeping the rationale and context of the contactee private. Such optimization can be achieved using preferences and policies concerning handling the attempted contact based on a deterministic specification or through inferring context, content and task under uncertainty by employing decision-theoretic inferences to attempt to maximize the expected utility of the communication to the contactee. The methods may include a consideration of metadata within a standard schema that is transmitted along with a communication attempt, representing information about such attributes as the identity of the contactor, the task at hand, the overall context of the contactor, and the communication capabilities available to the contactor. The invocation of the communication service may be performed in a variety of ways, including single button invocations, and via a communication service that is more deeply integrated with other applications and functionalities. The service can also include automated rescheduling of communications based on a consideration of forecasts of availability of both the contactor and contactee.

1 . A system for facilitating communication between entities, comprising: 
 one or more communication modalities that respectively provide for communication between at least two entities, and    a communication manager that analyzes a first communication data set associated with a first entity and a second communication data set associated with a second entity, where at least one of the first entity and the second entity is a human being, the communication manager identifying a subset of the one or more communication modalities based at least in part on analysis of the first and second communication data sets and the communication manager establishing a communication between the entities via at least one modality of the subset.    
   
   
       2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more communication modalities comprise at least one of: telephone modalities, facsimile modalities, computer modalities, paging modalities and personal modalities.  
   
   
       3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the telephone modalities comprise at least one of: POTS telephony, cellular telephony, satellite telephony and Internet telephony; wherein the computer modalities comprise at least one of: email, collaborative editing, instant messaging, network meetings, calendaring and home networking devices; and wherein the personal modalities comprise at least one of: videoconferencing, messengering and face-to-face meeting.  
   
   
       4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein establishing a communication includes at least one of scheduling one or more communications, calendaring one or more communications, displaying information concerning one or more possible communication modalities available for communication between the entities and initiating one or more communications.  
   
   
       5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the first communication data set comprises a set of contactor communication data and wherein the second communication data set comprises a set of contactee communication data  
   
   
       6 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein a communication data set comprises a set of context data and a set of preference data.  
   
   
       7 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein the communication manager comprises: 
 a preference resolver adapted to analyze the set of contactee preference data and the set of contactor preference data and produces a resolved preference data;    a context analyzer adapted to analyze the set of contactee context data and the set of contactor context data and produce an analyzed context data;    a channel analyzer adapted to analyze the possible communication channels between a contactor and a contactee and produce a communication channel data; and    a communication establisher adapted to establish a communication between the contactor and the contactee based, at least in part, on the resolved preference data, the analyzed context data, entity selection data and the communication channel data.    
   
   
       8 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein a set of context data comprises hardware data, software data and observed data.  
   
   
       9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the hardware data comprises at least one of capacity data, bandwidth data, availability data, status data, cost data, revision data and hardware metadata; wherein the software data comprises at least one of capacity data, version data, cost data and capability data; and wherein the observed data comprises at least one of time of day data, current activity data, current task data, calendar data, location data, contactor to contactee history data, attentional status data, contactee class data, contactor class data environment data and communication needs data.  
   
   
       10 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein a set of preference data comprises at least one of preference hardware data, preference software data, preference time of day data, preference calendar data, preference contactor priority list data and preference special needs data.  
   
   
       11 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the communication manager is further operable to perform at least one of the preference resolver inferring probabilities for unspecified preferences, the context analyzer is operable to infer probabilities for context data and the channel analyzer is operable to infer probabilities for channel data.  
   
   
       12 . A method for identifying and establishing one or more communications between one or more communicating parties, comprising: 
 determining one or more expected utilities associated with a communication between at least one contactor and at least one contactee based, at least in part, on contactor data, contactee data and communication modality data, and wherein at least one of the at least one contactor and the at least one contactee is a human being; and    establishing the communication.    
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the contactor data comprises at least one of: situation data and preference data; and wherein the contactee data comprises at least one of: situation data and preference data.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein situation data comprises at least one of: application data, user data and communication capability data; and wherein preference data comprises at least one of: time data, location data, task data, communication goals data and communication needs data.  
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein determining the one or more expected utilities comprises: 
 analyzing at least one of the contactor data and the contactee data to determine one or more relationships between at least one of contactee preferences, contactor preferences, contactor communication needs, contactee communication goals, contactee capabilities and contactor capabilities;    selecting one or more rules based, at least in part, on the relationships; and    applying one or more rules to determine the expected utilities based, at least in part, on the relationships.    
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the contactor data comprises deterministic data associated with a current state of the contactor and prediction data associated with future possible states of the contactor.  
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the contactee data comprises deterministic data associated with a current state of the contactee and prediction data associated with future possible states of the contactee.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein determining the one or more expected utilities comprises: 
 analyzing the contactee data to determine one or more missing data values;    selectively inferring one or more missing contactee context data elements and/or one or more missing contactee situation data elements to produce one or more inferences;    analyzing the one or more inferences to determine one or more relationships between at least one of the inferences, contactor preferences, contactor communication needs and contactor capabilities; and    applying one or more inference formulae to maximize the expected utility of the communication between the communicating parties.    
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 12  wherein establishing the communication comprises: 
 presenting information concerning the communication to one or more communicating parties; and    performing at least one of scheduling, calendaring and initiating one or more communications between the communicating parties based, at least in part, on one or more responses to the information presented concerning the communication.    
   
   
       20 . A computer readable medium storing computer executable components for a system that facilitates communication between entities, comprising: 
 an identifying component that identifies a plurality of communication modalities that respectively provide for communication between at least two entities; and    an analyzing component that analyzes a first communication data set associated with a first entity and a second communication data set associated with a second entity, where at least one of the first entity and the second entity is a human being, the analyzing component identifying one or more communication modalities of the plurality of modalities based at least in part on analysis of the first and second communication data sets and the analyzing component establishing a communication between the entities using at least one of the identified communication modalities.