Action Technologies, Inc.

Raul M Mora

Terry Allen Winograd

Chauncey F Bell, Iii

Juan J Ludlow

Michael J Graves

Carlos F Flores

A method for managing business, social, and/or personal communications utilizing a programmed computer system including certain defining steps. All communications between a set of participants are defined as moves in conversations for declaring specific realizable possibilities or as moves in conversations for producing actions to complete specific possibilities. These conversations are defined as taking place within a set of declared or understood domains of possibilities. A set of conversational roles played by participants in the conversations is defined. Each participant plays at least one conversational role in any conversation. A set of types of incompletions which occur recurringly within the conversations is also defined. A set of types of permitted moves in conversations is defined on the basis of the defined incompletions, the defined roles, and the specific types of incompletions produced by the permitted moves. For each of the types of moves a set of associated data is defined. A conversation record format for the conversations is defined relative to a data base to be created and maintained for the conversations. The method also includes establishing a conversation management program for enabling interactive computer-controlled management of each of a plurality of the conversations of the participants. The program also includes facilities for use of each participant to review new moves by other participants in all conversations in which the participant plays a conversational role.

Method and apparatus for structuring and managing human communications

A method for managing communications between individuals utilizing a programmed computer system. The method involves several definitional steps that are critical to achieving a practicable methodology for conversation management. The integrated concepts of 'moves in conversations' of two basic types (Conversation for Action and Conversation for Possibilities), conversational roles, types of incompletions, and logical/functional relationships between moves, incompletions, and roles, provide a set of constructs on which a powerful and practicable methodology for conversation management may be built. They provide a basis for defining a meaningful conversation record format which can be integrated into a conversation data base using standard data base building and management tools. A system for managing communications which incorporates the methodology of this invention provides a powerful framework for structuring human conversations. The method further involves creating a body of recommended declarative text for each move which the participant may include in the message as part of the data elements of the move. The method also features a variety of conversation database access facilities using different record sort or collection criteria including the individual incompletions, the domains of the conversation, the participants, and dates. The invention and the conversation record management and retrieval which it facilitates enables time and date commitments related to calendar activities, such as meeting schedules, appointments and appointments and the like, to be integrated into the database.

Growing community of inventors

Tlalpan, Mexico

Raul M Mora