Managing Assets

Abstract

A method for managing assets including receiving a task across a network to be performed by a set of assets, identifying a subset of assets owned by an owner, transmitting a personalized direct communication across the network to the owner, wherein the personalized direct communication requests approval for use of the subset of assets to execute the task, and responsive to receiving an approval communication across the network from the owner indicating respective approved assets from the subset of assets producing a set of approved assets, automatically transmitting a set of communications across the network to the set of approved assets for execution of the task.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of managing assets comprising:
 receiving a task across a network to be performed by a set of assets;   identifying a subset of assets owned by an owner;   transmitting a personalized direct communication across the network to the owner, wherein the personalized direct communication requests approval for use of the subset of assets to execute the task; and   responsive to receiving an approval communication across the network from the owner indicating respective approved assets from the subset of assets producing a set of approved assets, automatically transmitting a set of communications across the network to the set of approved assets for execution of the task.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the task includes a description of the task, a set of relevance criteria for the task, and an action to be performed by the set of approved assets. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the personalized direct communication to the owner is an email. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  wherein the email to the owner utilizes an SMTP/POP infrastructure. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the set of communications to the set of approved assets is a set of emails, each email to one of the set of approved assets. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  further comprising receiving an email from each of the set of approved assets indicating whether the task was performed. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6  wherein each of the set of emails transmitted to the set of approved assets includes a tag identifying the email and wherein the email from the set of approved assets includes a reference to the tag. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising transmitting, prior to transmitting a personalized direct communication to the owner, a set of communications to the subset of assets to ascertain which of the subset of assets are relevant to the task, and wherein the personalized direct communication to the owner only includes assets that are relevant to the task. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising transmitting, prior to providing a personalized direct communication to the owner, a set of communications to the subset of assets to ascertain which of the subset of assets are relevant to the task; wherein the personalized direct communication to the owner only includes assets that are relevant to the task; wherein the task includes a description of the task, a set of relevance criteria for the task, and an action to be performed by the set of approved assets; wherein the personalized direct communication to the owner is an email utilizing an SMTP/POP infrastructure; wherein the set of communications to the set of approved assets is a set of emails, each email to one of the set of approved assets; and wherein each of the set of emails transmitted to the set of approved assets includes a tag identifying the email and wherein any email from the set of approved assets includes a reference to the tag. 
     
     
         10 - 25 . (canceled)