International Business Machines Corporation

Shruti Kumar

Michael R O'Brien

Niklas Heidloff

Fang Lu

Azadeh Salehi

Shobha C Hiremath

Patrick Joseph O'Sullivan

Latoya Sankey

Aruna Kalagnanam

A method, system, and computer program product for generating content of a topic for an intended audience are described. Topic information regarding a topic to be presented to an intended audience is obtained, as well as knowledge information regarding the intended audience. One or more metaphors relating to the topic and understood by the intended audience can be determined based at least in part on the topic information and the knowledge information. Content can be generated for the topic information based on a comparative analysis of the topic information to at least one of the one or more metaphors.

Using metaphors to present concepts across different intellectual domains

A system for minimizing the time required to initiate and terminate an instant messaging session. An initial message in an instant messaging session is checked to determine whether it has any significant content. If the received initial message has insignificant content, then a non-intrusive notification is provided to the user, without changing the current focus in the user interface. A pre-composed response message may also be automatically transmitted to the initiating user, requesting that a more significant message be sent. When an initial message in an instant messaging session is received that is determined to have significant content, the user is promptly notified in a different manner, which may be intrusive such that the current focus of the user interface is changed to a new window or the like containing the newly initiated instant messaging session.

Minimizing the time required to initiate and terminate an instant messaging session

A system for automatically generating request-specific backup contact information in an out of office message that automatically generates an out of office message with specific backup contact information based on an automatically determined correspondence between the contents of a received e-mail message and one or more responsibilities of the user an e-mail message is addressed to. A user interface object allows a user to specify one or more keywords for each different one of their roles/responsibilities, and to also specify corresponding backup contact information for each role/responsibility. Incoming e-mail messages are analyzed to detect the user's keywords used to identify one or more corresponding roles/responsibilities. Based on this detection of keywords in the received message and the correspondence of the detected keywords with role/responsibility back up contact information in the persistent storage, only relevant backup contact information is retrieved and included in the out of office reply.

Automatically generating request-specific backup contact information in an out of office message

A system for minimizing the time required to initiate and terminate an instant messaging session. An initial message in an instant messaging session is checked to determine whether it has any significant content. If the received initial message has insignificant content, then a non-intrusive notification is provided to the user, without changing the current focus in the user interface. A pre-composed response message may also be automatically transmitted to the initiating user, requesting that a more significant message be sent. When an initial message in an instant messaging session is received that is determined to have significant content, the user is promptly notified in a different manner, which may be intrusive such that the current focus of the user interface is changed to a new window or the like containing the newly initiated instant messaging session. Detection of instant messaging session termination by the local user triggers a period of special processing of received instant messages from other participants in the terminated instant messaging session. Instant messages received from other participants in the terminated session during this time period that are insignificant farewell messages are processed without disturbing the local user.

Linked non-shared documents within email messages are made accessible to a recipient. Upon initiation of sending of an email message by a user, the MIME of the email is automatically parsed through to detect URL tags indicating that a linked document is contained within the email message. Upon detection of a URL tag, the prefix of the URL is checked to determine if it is accessible to a recipient. If the prefix indicates that the link is not accessible to the recipient, the sender is provided with at least the following options for making the linked document accessible to the recipient: sending the linked document as an in-line document by converting the document into HTML format and embedding it into a multi part MIME message, sending the linked document as an attachment with a link to a file system or document library, or converting the linked document into a pdf file and sending it as an attachment. If the prefix is set, by default, as one that is not accessible to the recipient, the option of converting the document into HTML format and embedding it into a multi part MIME message may be automatically selected.

Method, computer program product, and user interface for making non-shared linked documents in electronic messages accessible to recipients

A system for automatic generation and updating of tags based on type of communication and content state in an activities oriented collaboration tool. Content type tags are automatically generated for content items received from different content sources and aggregated into an activities based collaboration tool. The automatically generated content type tags are associated with content items stored in the activities based collaboration tool. The automatically generated content type tags also provide indications of states associated with the content items they are associated with in the activities tool. As the state of content items change over time, the disclosed system detects those state changes and automatically updates the associated content type tags to indicate the state changes. A top level content type tags view lists all automatically generated content type tags across all activities. The top level content type tags view enables a user to select from the content type tags available across all activities, to cause all content items to be displayed that are associated with the selected content type tag, across all activities. An activity level type tags view lists all automatically generated content type tags associated with content items contained in a currently open activity, and enables a user to select from the content type tags available within the currently opened activity, to cause all content items associated with the selected content type tag, and contained within the currently opened activity, to be displayed.

Method and system for automatic generation and updating of tags based on type of communication and content state in an activities oriented collaboration tool

A system and method allows an email user to solicit an email thread from another user (or from a server) in situations where the first requesting user may have been added to an email thread after the email thread was started, or in situations where the user may have an incomplete thread (for example, where a user is being added to a thread where an attachment was removed). The complete thread is returned to the first requesting user, after permission has been sought and granted, and after data mining and intelligent aggregation of a plurality of relevant threads in to one interleaved result is performed and returned to the first requesting user.

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Littleton, MA, United States of America

Shruti Kumar