Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7624125?ie=ISO-8859-1&dq=6031454
Timestamp: 2015-08-29 19:31:43
Document Index: 73573878

Matched Legal Cases: ['arts 105', 'arts 105', 'arts 105', 'arts 105', 'arts 105', 'arts 105', 'arts 105', 'art 125', 'art 115']

Patent US7624125 - Machine-implemented activity management system using asynchronously shared ... - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsMachine-assisted methods and apparatus are described for allowing individual users to develop and organize respective activity descriptions and supporting journal items according to their respective preferences. Cross-referencing mappings may be created between activity descriptions and journal items...http://www.google.com/patents/US7624125?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7624125 - Machine-implemented activity management system using asynchronously shared activity data objects and journal data itemsAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7624125 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/708,106Publication dateNov 24, 2009Filing dateFeb 16, 2007Priority dateFeb 18, 2004Fee statusPaidAlso published asUS7197502, US9002900, US20050182773, US20070150496, US20100070542, WO2005079405A2, WO2005079405A3Publication number11708106, 708106, US 7624125 B2, US 7624125B2, US-B2-7624125, US7624125 B2, US7624125B2InventorsJason B. FeinsmithOriginal AssigneeFeinsmith Jason BExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (51), Referenced by (12), Classifications (18), Legal Events (3) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetMachine-implemented activity management system using asynchronously shared activity data objects and journal data items
US 7624125 B2Abstract
Machine-assisted methods and apparatus are described for allowing individual users to develop and organize respective activity descriptions and supporting journal items according to their respective preferences. Cross-referencing mappings may be created between activity descriptions and journal items in order to find, filter and organize disparate data. Cross-referencing mappings may also be created between the developed activity descriptions of different users so they can better understand each others perspectives and possibly overlapping goals. Different users' activity descriptions can be presented to a user even while the user may be disconnected from communication networks. Hierarchical relationships between activity descriptions may be provided. Machine-assisted means may be provided for creating work-sharing, work-delegating and/or informational sharing agreements between different users. Further machine-implemented means may be provided for automatically and asynchronously updating users on shared activities by other users even though all users are not necessarily connected to one or more respective communication networks at same time.
1. An expression storing and transmitting system for use by a first user to develop expressions of ideas for one or more activities and share selectable ones of the expressed activity ideas with one or more other users, wherein the expression storing and transmitting system comprises:
activity description recording means for recording in an activity description in a hierarchy within a holding area belonging to a first user, a first set of first one or more activity descriptions wherein each said recorded activity description comprises an activity data object (ADO) and wherein each given ADO comprises:
at least one of a short activity descriptor field and long activity descriptor field for respectively providing a relatively short description and a comparatively longer and more detailed description of a corresponding activity of the given ADO; and
an ADO owner identifying field for identifying an owner-user who has ownership and modification rights over the said ADO for thereby creating or modifying at least one of said short description and comparatively longer and more detailed description of the corresponding activity of the given ADO;
a uniqueness providing field for use alone or in combination with said ADO owner identifying field for providing the given ADO with a unique identification so as to make the given ADO uniquely identifiable respectively among other ADO's owned by said owner-user of the given ADO and among other ADO's owned by a specifiable pool of other users with whom the owner-user of the given ADO is sharing activity idea information; and
at least one parent activity description associated therewith and at least one child activity description associated therewith within the hierarchy;
first sharing means for transmitting copies of selected activity description expressions stored in the said activity descriptions holding area to other systems for use by one or more other users; and
progeny presenting means for automatically selecting children activity descriptions of the selected activity description expressions and transmitting the automatically selected children activity descriptions to said other systems.
2. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further wherein:
the said activity description recording means includes means for recording in one or more activity descriptions holding areas, corresponding ones of activity descriptions.
3. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further comprising:
journaling means for recording in one or more journal data items holding areas corresponding ones of journal data items.
4. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further comprising:
second sharing means for receiving and recording a second set of second one or more activity description expressions where the second set includes ADO structures associated with second users of said other systems, wherein portions or wholes of said second set of activity descriptions are recorded into the said activity descriptions holding area as at least one of updates to and new members of respective first one or more activity descriptions; and
expressing means for presenting to the first user in an integrated presentation, expressions of the first set of one or more of the recorded activity descriptions and expressions of the received and recorded second set of one or more activity descriptions.
5. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further including:
a common-idea-tying field for identifying each given ADO as being a member of a corresponding and exclusive first group of further ADOs that can be logically tied together under an exclusive, common-idea-tying field such that a first group of common-idea-tied ADOs is unique among at least all other common-idea-tied groups of ADOs that are recorded in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user and in the activity description holding areas of other users in a specifiable sharing pool, and such that no ADO member of said exclusive, first group of common-idea-tied ADOs is also a member of another alike and exclusive group of common-idea-tied ADOs recorded in the said activity descriptions holding area of the first user and the holding areas of other users in a specifiable sharing pool.
6. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 5 and further comprising:
second sharing means for receiving a second set of second one or more activity description expressions where the second set may include ADO structures associated with, and owned by second users of said other systems;
the storage means includes means of automatically updating said activity descriptions in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user wherein if both the common-idea-tying field and the owner-user indicated by a said first activity description respectively match the common-idea-tying field and the owner-user indicated by a said received second activity description, then one or more portions of the received second activity description are used to update the values of the corresponding one or more portions of the matching first activity description in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user.
7. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 5 and further wherein:
the transmitting means includes means of automatically transmitting derived copies of said one or more first activity descriptions that are owned by said first user to machine areas of other users who are respectively indicated as originators of respective activity idea expressions corresponding to the respectively said common-idea-tying fields of the one or more first user owned first activity descriptions.
8. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 5 and further wherein:
the transmitting means includes means of automatically transmitting derived copies of said one or more first activity descriptions that are owned by said first user, to machine areas of other users who are respectively indicated as the owners of respective other one or more of the said first activity descriptions wherein:
the common-idea-tying field corresponding to the respective said owned activity descriptions match the common-idea-tying field corresponding to the said respective other one or more activity descriptions.
9. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 5 and further comprising:
second sharing means for receiving and recording a second set of second one or more activity description expressions where the second set may include ADO structures associated with, and owned by second users of said other systems; and
expressing and preview means for presenting to the first user a presentation including one or more of said second activity descriptions that may not yet have been reviewed by said first user, for which the ADOs corresponding to said presented second activity descriptions comprise said common-idea-tying fields that do not match such fields corresponding to any other ADOs that are already recorded in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user.
10. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further wherein:
the transmitting means includes means of automatically transmitting derived copies of said one or more first activity descriptions that are owned by said first user, to machine areas of other users who are indicated as supervisory users relative to said first user and wherein:
said automatic transmitting means is initiated directly and/or indirectly when said one or more first activity descriptions are created by said first user or if said one or more first activity descriptions are modified by said first user.
11. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 wherein each given ADO further comprises:
common-idea-tying reference data which alone, or overlappingly with one or both of said ADO owner identifying field and said uniqueness providing field, logically ties the given ADO to one or more other ADO's to thereby define a corresponding, first group of ADOs that are logically tied together under a unique identification for an expressed activity idea.
12. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 wherein each given ADO further comprises:
one or more ADO naming fields which, alone or in combination, uniquely identify the said ADO from amongst at least all other ADO's that are recorded in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user.
13. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further wherein each given ADO comprises at least one of:
an indication of privacy level;
an indication of other users to whom activity descriptions or derived copies of activity descriptions may be transmitted; and
an indication of other users to whom activity descriptions or derived copies of activity descriptions may not be transmitted.
14. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further including:
a sharing request type indicating field for identifying each given activity description as corresponding to a respective sharing request type, wherein the said indication of sharing request type is selected from a group of sharing request types including: a “For Your Information” type (FYI) or equivalent type, wherein the “For Your Information” sharing type does not correspond to a request for receiving users to actively participate in regard to the activity description.
15. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further wherein sharing means for transmitting includes:
transmitting translated ADO copies in one or more formats from the group consisting of:
message body ASCII text;
message body rich text;
message body HTML;
a message and/or email encoded binary attachment; or
data encrypted and/or compressed into message body ASCII text.
16. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further wherein:
the transmitting means includes means of automatically transmitting derived copies of said one or more first activity descriptions that are owned by said first user to machine areas of other users to whom the first user has indicated the activity descriptions should be shared to; and wherein:
17. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 wherein those of said activity descriptions that are owned by a given user are hierarchically organized at least as parent nodes and corresponding child nodes of a primary hierarchical tree, wherein each said activity description has as its parent in the primary hierarchical tree, only one primary parent node, unless said activity description defines a root node, and each said activity description has as its children, zero or more primary child nodes.
18. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1 and further comprising:
expressing means for presenting to the said first user, second activity description expressions owned by users other than the first user, wherein underlying activity descriptions are recorded in the activity descriptions holding area of the first user.
19. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 18 wherein:
said expressing means includes presenting to the first user even when the said expression storing and transmitting system is decoupled from any telecommunications networks.
20. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1, wherein said recorded activity description further comprises at least one parent activity description associated therewith; and wherein the progeny presenting means is further configured for transmitting copies of the at least one parent activity description to said other systems.
21. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1, further comprising a linking means configured to associate a web forum accessed by means of a network with one or more of the activity descriptions.
22. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1, wherein the at least one parent activity description is a primary parent activity description and at least one of the activity descriptions has associated therewith a secondary parent activity description stored in the hierarchy.
23. The expression storing and transmitting system of claim 1, wherein the activity description only comprises a long activity descriptor field.
recording in an activity descriptions hierarchy within a holding area stored in a memory of a computer system belonging to a first user a first set of first one or more activity descriptions wherein each said recorded activity description comprises an activity data object (ADO) and wherein each given ADO comprises:
a uniqueness providing field for use alone or in combination with said ADO owner identifying field for providing the given ADO with a unique identification so as to make the given ADO uniquely identifiable respectively among other ADO's owned by said owner-user of the given ADO and among other ADO's owned by a specifiable pool of other users; and
transmitting copies of selected activity description expressions stored in the said activity descriptions holding area to other systems for use by one or more other users; and
automatically selecting at least one child activity description of the selected activity description expressions and transmitting the at least one selected child activity description to said other systems upon transmitting of the selected activity description expressions.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein said recorded activity description further comprises at least one parent activity description associated therewith, the method further comprising transmitting copies of the at least one parent activity description of the selected activity description expressions to said other systems.
26. A computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a user system including a processor, are operable to cause the processor to execute a method including:
recording by means of an activity description recording means in an activity descriptions hierarchy within a holding area belonging to a first user a first set of first one or more activity descriptions wherein each said recorded activity description comprises an activity data object (ADO) and wherein each given ADO comprises:
automatically selecting children activity descriptions of the selected activity description expressions and transmitting copies of the selected children activity descriptions to said other systems upon transmitting of the selected activity description expressions.
27. The computer readable medium of claim 26, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the processor to
transmit copies of the at least one parent activity description expression of the selected activity description expressions to said other systems.
28. A system including a processor and a memory storing instructions executable by the processor to cause the processor to execute a method including:
29. The system of claim 28, wherein the instructions are further operable to cause the processor to
Benefit is claimed pursuant to 35 USC �120 of the filing date of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/782,414 (filed Feb. 18, 2004 by Jason B. Feinsmith) and the disclosure of said parent application is incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure of invention relates generally to computer-assisted development and tracking of activities and/or activity specifications such as may be used by individuals and/or corporate management when keeping track of projects, activity allocations and activity completions.
The disclosure relates more specifically to an activities development, cataloging and/or organizing system which may be used in stand-alone computers by individual developers as well as being used in network-interconnected machines by activity developers who are sharing ideas and/or work product. The disclosure focuses on systems that may be used by people who have different points of view, different needs, different goals, different actualization options and/or different understandings and where the users may nonetheless agree to cooperate in respective subsets of shared work product, or shared thought product.
(A) U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,275 issued Jan. 29, 2002 to Charles Wong and entitled “Integrated business-to-business web commerce and business automation system”
In order to avoid front end clutter, this cross referencing section (2) continues as (2 a) at the end of the disclosure, slightly prior to recitation of the patent claims.
Countless types of manual and automated tools already exist for helping business managers and/or individuals to organize their own activities and/or the activities of others.
An example of a simple, manual tool is the paper calendar book. Room is provided in it for making daily journal entries so a user can record what the user plans to do on a given future day, or what he/she has done recently. Examples of more complex tools include charting software programs that assist corporate managers in filling out detailed “to-do” lists and in keeping track of their own progress or that of others in accomplishing goals. The automated tools can be in some ways superior to the manual ones because most automated tools provide ways to dynamically adjust information, quickly sort items in some basic manner according to some priority or other sort criteria, and/or efficiently copy over electronic data items from previous days of activity for use in a current period of activity.
Beyond the automated “to-do” lists there are yet more elaborate software systems that try to integrate the disparate operations of many different departments in a large corporate organization. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,275 contains over 100 drawings for describing an elaborate system described as an “Integrated Business-to-Business Web Commerce and Business Automation System”. The author of the U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,275 patent acknowledges that in complex business transactions, different groups of people get involved and very often the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. This is due to failures in communication between one corporate department and the next (between different “domains”). Although the Biblical, Tower of Babel story is an ancient one, it is still something that plagues mankind, especially when international cooperation is attempted.
Each person can think differently. Despite the plethora of available activity-organizing tools and corporate-intercommunication tools, there is no set of automated tools that allow for easy collection of random electronic data items and association of those random electronic data items with structured activities so that the random electronic data items can be easily retrieved at a later time when it might be useful for further developing or implementing a structured activity. There is no set of automated tools that support teamwork yet easily adapt themselves to the unique preferences of each individual user (e.g., to the needs of a particular “sales” person as opposed to the needs of a particular “engineering” or “accounting” department person or to the needs of another, individual sales “person” as opposed to the needs of the first sales person). There is no set of automated tools that support a comprehensive activity management capability yet easily adapt to the unique environments which an individual user may find him or herself in as that individual user moves about, for example from a location that has full network access capabilities (e.g., a WiFi hot spot) and maximal computing power availability to a location that has limited or no network access capabilities and/or which makes available only computing resources of comparably reduced processing capabilities (e.g., the user is limited to using a low-power handheld device as opposed to a full power, engineering workstation on a desktop). There is no set of automated tools that allow for easy entry, development, and sharing of everyday thought product among unique individual users and easy tracking of agreements and accomplishments.
Structures and methods may be provided in accordance with the present disclosure of invention for improving over the above-summarized shortcomings of prior, automated tools for activities development, organizing and/or tracking.
(A) More specifically, in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, techniques are provided for allowing one or more of the following machine-implemented processes to take place:
(A.1) The developing and exchanging of organized expressions of activity ideas between users is made easier, where the developed and shared expressions can be organized relative to one another according to each user's preferences, and where each expression of activity ideas can describe one or more ideas about a corresponding activity according to each user's preferred way of describing that activity. In one embodiment, a so-called Activity Data Object (ADO) is used in an automated machine system to express ideas about a respective activity or subactivity. Each Activity Data Object may identify the corresponding developer/owner of the ADO, indicate an Active or other status for the underlying activity, and/or its development, indicate a work sharing agreement if any was or is being established with other users, indicate a priority given to the described activity, and/or indicate other structured attributes that may be desired by a given user of the system for expressing ideas about the underlying activity and/or its development and/or implementation.
(A.2) The collecting of unorganized or organized data items for supporting development of organized activity descriptions is made easier. In one embodiment, a so-called Journal Data Item (JDI) is used in an automated machine system to indicate ideas that are relatively unstructured and which may or may not be used in support of one or more ADOs. Provisions are made in one embodiment for optionally linking selected ones of the supporting journal data items to corresponding, Activity Data Objects (ADO's). The collected, unorganized and/or organized journal data items may then be conveniently retrieved when a corresponding Activity Data Object is referenced for review or refinement.
(A.3) Mappings are enabled between one user's organized descriptions of a set of given activities and another user's possibly different description and organization of corresponding activities.
(A.4) Sharing of thought-product with others on a For-Your-Information basis is enabled so that voluntary cross pollination can occur.
(B) For one embodiment in accordance with the present disclosure, each organizable Activity Data Object (ADO) includes one or more of: (b.1) a reference to a primary parent Activity Data Object(parent1-ADO); (b.2) One or more references to corresponding, primary child Activity Data Objects (child1-ADO's), if any, of the given ADO; (b.3) a description of a corresponding activity, which description can be according to description preferences of the user who owns the given ADO; (b.4) an identification or reference of some kind regarding the originating idea, or original idea expression, of the given ADO; (b.5) an indication of an Active, or other, status for the given activity or its development; (b.6) an indication of a work sharing agreement, if any, established between the object owner and other users; and (b.6) an indication of a priority given to the described activity by activity data object's owner.
(C) For one embodiment in accordance with the present disclosure, each Journal Data Item (JDI) may include one or more of: (c.1) an entry time indicator that indicates when the journal entry was made; (c.2) an indication of a data type for the correspondingly entered, journal data item such as text or other; (c.3) a reference to the corresponding data item; (c.4) references to one or more associated, Activity Data Objects (ADO's), if any;
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an environment in which two unique individuals (users) develop activity plans of their own and optionally share electronic data items about parts of their plans and/or accomplishments with one another;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a set of layers through which data can migrate as individual users develop and/or track plans on their own or with the assistance of other users and/or of external resources;
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a possible structuring of a plurality of machine storage components for use by two independent users in accordance with the disclosure;
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing how each individual user might relate to his or her own individual world and interrelate to the personal domains and/or organizational domains of others;
FIG. 5 is a combined schematic and flow chart for illustrating how activity ideas might be originated and how corresponding activity plans may be creatively expressed, modified and/or shared;
FIG. 6A is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his/her (or someone else's) expressions of hierarchically organized activity nodes and/or associated journal data items, where the illustrated presentation of the journal is provided under an optional, selection-filtered mode;
FIG. 6B is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his/her (or someone else's) expressions of hierarchically organized activity nodes and/or associated journal data items, where the illustrated presentation of the journal is provided under an optional, unfiltered mode;
FIG. 6C is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his/her (or someone else's) expressions of hierarchically organized activity nodes and/or associated journal data items in an optional unfiltered mode, while also indicating linkages that have been made visible by the machine between displayed parts of structured activity data objects and displayed journal data items;
FIG. 6D is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his/her (or someone else's) expressions of hierarchically organized activity nodes and/or associated journal data items in an optional selection-filtered mode, while also indicating linkages that have been made visible by the machine between structured activity data objects and journal data items in response to the selection-filtered mode;
FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a possible set of sharing states between 3 users and how such sharing states might be summarized in a presentation of the corresponding, structured activity data objects;
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing another user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his/her (and someone else's) expressions of hierarchically organized activity nodes in graphical tree presentation mode and/or associated journal data items in sticky-note mode, while also indicating that logical linkages have been made visible by the machine between certain ones of the structured activity data objects and corresponding journal data items;
FIG. 9A is a schematic diagram showing a journal entry interface in accordance with the disclosure and showing how items may be entered into the journal (as journal data items) for purposes of chronological tracking and/or for easier manipulation or comprehension and/or for aggregation and/or for linking with extra-journal objects (e.g., with ADO's);
FIG. 9B is a diagram showing a possible data structure for a Journal Data Item (JDI) in accordance with the disclosure;
FIG. 9C is a diagram showing an alternative to the possible data structure for a Journal Data Item (JDI) in FIG. 9B;
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a possible physical data structure for a journal that may include one or more Journal Data Items (JDI's) in accordance with the disclosure;
FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a possible schema of privacy settings for activity data objects in relation to privacy settings for their respective parent and child activity data objects;
FIG. 12A is a diagram showing a possible data structure for an Activity Data Object (ADO) in accordance with the disclosure and further showing a simple interrelation between a primary parent Activity Data Object, a corresponding primary child activity data object, and possibly associated, journal data items;
FIG. 12B is a state diagram showing how Activity Data Objects, or bundles of ADO's (with or without attached JDI's), may be transmitted for sharing with other users; and for further showing how acknowledgements and/or sharing agreements may be developed and how the other users can further develop or transform their own organized activity descriptions and share those;
FIG. 12C is a diagram showing an alternative to the possible data structure for an Activity Data Object (ADO) in FIG. 12A;
FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram which introduces some differences and interrelationships which may exist between Foyered ADO's and Embedded Activity Data Objects of a given user's machine area;
FIG. 14 shows how an activities exchange center can be structured to assist users with the exchanging of activity descriptions and/or journal data items;
FIG. 15 is a schematic diagram showing how various embedded ADO's in a given user's machine area (Max's) may be logically linked to a set of corporate or other foyered ADO's;
FIG. 16A is a diagram showing an email or other messaging container that may be used for transmitting one or more derived copies of activity data objects, and optionally derived copies of their associated journal data item(s), to other users;
FIG. 16B is a diagram showing how an activity data object and optionally its associated journal data item(s) can be received into the foyered regions of a recipient's machine area (Harry's) and how the recipient may subsequently drag or otherwise integrate or embed a corresponding copy into an embedded activity tree owned by that recipient;
FIG. 16C is a diagram showing how the state of FIG. 16B may be advanced with the received and embedded activity object being altered by the recipient and expanded upon with addition of child ADO's in accordance with the recipient's perspective of the world;
FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an email or other message container that may be used for messaging a derived copy of an activity data object and optionally a derived copy of it's a associated journal data item(s) to other users, where the activity information is provided as text and/or encrypted and/or compressed text in the body of the email or other message container;
FIG. 18A is a schematic showing how explicitly shared activities and/or associated journal data items can be shared in a possible WorkShared and/or a possible FYI Shared mode, and how the different machine areas may contain various representations thereof;
FIG. 18B is a schematic showing how explicitly shared activities and/or associated journal data items can be shared in a possible Delegated mode, and how the different machine areas may contain various representations thereof;
FIG. 19 is a diagram for explaining why it may be advantageous in different situations to transmit activity updates either in essentially real time, or in chronologically-accumulated batches, and/or in batched groupings on a per recipient basis;
FIG. 20A is a flow chart diagram showing a machine-implemented process for determining which other users should receive update information when an explicitly shared activity data object (ADO) and/or a corresponding JDI has been modified by its owner;
FIG. 20B is a flow chart diagram showing a machine-implemented process for determining which other users should receive update information when an activity data object (ADO) with foyered parent ADO(s) and/or a corresponding JDI has been modified by its owner;
FIG. 21 is a flow chart diagram showing a machine-implemented process for determining which local machine area ADOs and/or JDIs possibly should be modified when a new or updating ADO and optionally its related JDIs are received from another user's machine area;
FIG. 22 is a diagram showing a possible set of presented menu items, including a possible set of View related items, that a user may be able to select in order to cause his system to execute various instructions;
FIG. 23 is a diagram showing a possible user interface for a user to indicate his preferred set and order of activity description attributes, and to thereby cause his system to present a tabular or spreadsheet presentation of activity description expressions accordingly;
FIG. 24A is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user his owned expressions of activity descriptions and/or associated journal data items, where presentation options are provided for presenting rows and/or columns of activity description expression values according to their or others' owned activity description expressions;
FIG. 24B is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user a different user's expressions of activity descriptions and/or associated journal data items, where presentation options are provided for presenting rows and/or columns of activity description expression values according to their or others' owned activity description expressions;
FIG. 24C is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user a combination of his and other user's expressions of activity descriptions and/or associated journal data items, where presentation options are provided for presenting rows and/or columns of activity description expression values according to their or others' owned activity description expressions;
FIG. 25A is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user, in a tabular or spreadsheet format, expressions of his owned activity descriptions as well as expressions of respectively related activity descriptions owned by one or more other users;
FIG. 25B is a schematic diagram showing a user interface presentation in accordance with the disclosure which simultaneously presents to a given user, in a graphical or icon-based format, expressions of his owned activity descriptions as well as expressions of respectively related activity descriptions owned by one or more other users;
FIG. 26 is a diagram showing a possible set of presented menu items, including a possible set of File management, Search and Filtering, and other Tools related items, that a user may be able to select in order to cause his system to execute various instructions;
FIG. 27 is a diagram showing a possible set of presented menu items, including a possible set of Editing and Sharing related items, that a user may be able to select in order to cause his system to execute various instructions;
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an activities-plan development and sharing environment 100 which may incorporate one or more aspects of the here disclosed invention. For simplicity sake, just two individual users, 101 and 102, are initially shown to be interacting with respective parts 105 a-105 b of an Activities Coordinating & Management software system (ACMAN system) 105 that is provided in accordance with the present disclosure in respective machine areas of the users. In the illustrated example, the first and second software parts 105 a-105 b are provided at least partially within respective first and second computers 110 and 120 although they could have been provided in different user's accessible machine areas of a same computer or another kind of data processing machine.
A first of the illustrated users, 101 is shown utilizing desktop computer 110 as his respective machine area while the second user, 102 is shown employing laptop computer 120 as part of his respective machine area. (Each user's machine area can include one or both of local and remote storage resources as shall be later seen.) The first and second software parts 105 a-105 b may operate independently or they may asynchronously communicate with one another as shall be further detailed below. There can be many more participants beyond 101-102 and many more interconnectable software parts beyond 105 a-105 b as will become apparent shortly. (See briefly, FIG. 4.)
An important aspect of the present disclosure is that of recognizing each human being as being an individual person and not merely a ubiquitous, interchangeable entity (not just as a generic “user”). In order to assist in this recognition, the present disclosure gives the first user, 101 an exemplary name: Max Manager. The second user 102 is also given a name: Adam Assistant. These stereotype-propagating designations (supervising “manager” and subordinate “assistant”) are used here merely to provide readers with a quick frame of reference. The manager and assistant designations are just two of an innumerable set of designations that may be given for describing possible human-to-human relationships among participating users of the disclosed ACMAN system 105. Any other designation may be used to describe plural users such as 101 and 102. The users could instead have been described as peers, or as random teammates participating in one or more group activities wherein different participants take on temporary leadership roles for the corresponding group. The users could even be described as persons who have no clearly defined, hierarchical relationship with one another. (E.g.: They could be strangers who just met on the Internet, who happen to have intercommunicative software parts 105 a-105 b, and who agreed to exchange some expressed ideas by use of computer-usable data signals that are to be exchanged between software parts 105 a-105 b through signal transmissions made over the Internet communications or otherwise.) Incidentally, each of the so-called software parts 105 a-105 b may be constituted by manufactured instructing signals and/or manufactured data signals (e.g., code plus data) that is operatively coupled to a corresponding instructable machine (e.g., computer hardware) for carrying out machine-implemented operations described herein. Each user may have his/her own private machine area for storing the user's data and/or machine code, or users may have overlapping access to parts or all of each others machine areas.
Let us focus first on Max 101 and on our growing appreciation that this “user” is actually an individual person who may have unique likes, dislikes and needs. Max may have a certain set of “activities” ongoing or developing within his life. (See briefly FIG. 4.) One example of an activity developing in Max's life can be a new project that Max is working on at his job. More broadly, an activity can be almost any mental or physical action or a combination of both. Breathing is an activity. However the present disclosure will be focusing on voluntary activities (i.e., not breathing), and more particularly on activities which self-justify themselves to Max as being worthy of his spending some time to think about them and to record them in his ACMAN system. Such activities may also self-justify themselves enough to plan them out with some degree of specificity, and perhaps to physically act on such worthwhile activities in some substantial way. (The categorizing of other activities is itself an activity, and as will be seen in the below details, a user may create an activity description where the name of the activity (e.g., All_My_Work_Activities) inherently categorizes the subtasks, or hierarchical children, of that parent activity.)
FIG. 1 indicates that Max's activities may be distributed along a spectrum having at one end, purely physical actions 101 a and having at an opposed other end, purely mental actions 101 b. In the context of the present disclosure, most of Max's activities will be a mix of both physical and mental actions, each having some element of precognition and some element of physical actuation (e.g., clicking a keyboard key is physical). Many of Max's pre-cognated activities (101 a-101 b) will be “based” on some sort of local, mental model or models 101 c which Max may have pre-established or may be continuing to develop in his own mind. The models 101 c are unique to Max. Adam Assistant 102 can have his own unique model(s) 102 c which are unique to Adam.
Max, incidentally, does not have to be a male person. She 101 could have been a female. The male identity was chosen merely as yet another stereotyping convenience. The same applies to the gender of Adam 102 and/or other players 403-404 (FIG. 4) who will be later introduced.
It should be rapidly becoming apparent from the above that the present disclosure intends to view each player (101, 102, etc.) as a unique individual and as a person who may elect to use the to-be-described, software system 105 (e.g., ACMAN) in a very uniquely personal way. The present disclosure recognizes that each user 101/102 is entitled to have his or her own unique set of local mental model(s) 101 c/102 c and ideas about how the world is to be appreciated. One person may choose to see things on an enterprise wide or global scale and to interrelate concepts on such a grand scale. For example, that first person may ask himself: “How does the recent action by my nation's Government affect international trade and how does it affect my local operations and future plans? How does it affect Major Organizational Objectives, also known as Management By Objectives (MBOs) 103 of my organization?” Another person may prefer to think about certain items in a very compartmentalized way. For example, that second person may ask himself: “How does recent local news about the ABC town project affect my job in department DEF of company XYZ?” Neither of the global and local approaches is right or wrong, or more noble than the other. It could be that the first person, i.e. Max, in his managerial role, has a broader set of responsibilities and/or action options 101 o than the options 102 o that are presently available to the second person, i.e. Adam in his assistant's role.
Things could change rapidly however. Adam may shift into a position of greater responsibilities and/or wider action options. Max may switch his focus to new areas. The respective software parts 105 a-105 b of each user should be able to correspondingly grow and/or change to adapt to the personal needs and/or desires of their corresponding users (101, 102) over time. Each participant should be allowed to develop his/her own perspective about how matters should be organized, prioritized, described, and/or otherwise managed. Personal perspectives can grow, shrink, evolve and/or refocus into new areas over time as shall be detailed below. Environment 100 may be constantly restructured to accommodate the changing options 101 o-102 o available to the respective users, the changing mental models 101 c-102 c of each user, and the hardware/software resources 110-120 available to each respective user 101-102 as that user moves about.
The local, mental model(s) 101 c/102 c of each user may be preferentially formulated under one or more different languages. Max 101, for example, may prefer to read and think in American English (or alternatively in British English). Adam 102 may prefer to read and think in Japanese. In our example, Adam can read and speak in English,- but he prefers to work in Japanese. Max does not understand Japanese too well but has a crude working knowledge of that language. If Max Manager (and/or the system 100) were to force Adam to work in English whenever Adam uses an available computer, say laptop 120, Adam could do so. But in doing so, Adam (102) may become frustrated, less efficient and/or less creative than he would have been had he instead been allowed to use his language preference, Japanese. Similarly, if Max were forced to review Adam's work product only in the Japanese language, Max's efficiency and productivity may suffer. The here disclosed system 105 allows each user to work in his/her language(s) of preference—provided that is, that the locally used computer (110 or 120) supports that/those language(s). The here disclosed ACMAN system 105 also allows each user to maintain cross-referencing translations (see briefly 263 of FIG. 2) of a co-worker's work product if that work product is shared. Thus each user is empowered to work in the language environment he/she prefers and each user can create cross-referencing translations of another worker's contributions. As will be seen, a worker who maintains a cross-referencing translation can show that cross-translation to the originator of the work product so that each of sharing users can better verify what the other user understands the work product to be. In other words, Max may allow Adam to look at Max's translations of Adam's terminology so that Adam can provide feedback on how accurate those translations appear to be. Max may then modify his translations in response to Adam's feedback. This helps to cure the Tower of Babel problem.
In one embodiment, Adam may work in Japanese, and a software automated translation of Adam's work product may be optionally presented to Max as shared work product. The original and automatic translated expressions may optionally be incorporated into a cross reference dictionary shared by Max and Adam. If desired, Max can also view the work product in Adam's native language if his computer supports that language font. In this way, Adam can work in his own native language, yet Max can view Adam's activity in Max's language with no manual effort required to translate Adam's work.
Language is just one example of personal work-style preferences. There are many other factors that may affect user productivity, creativity and/or satisfaction. Max may be a verbally-oriented person who likes to see everything in writing and/or who likes to hear about things in spoken form. On the other hand, Adam may be a visually-oriented person who likes to work with complex graphics, such as flowcharts, schematics, and graphs. The here disclosed, ACMAN System 105 allows each user 101/102 to work with the various languages of choice and/or other forms of expression that he/she personally prefers, including graphic expression (visual), auditory expression (sound), kinesthetic expression (e.g., sign language, video, etc.), and so forth. There is of course one proviso, namely, that the respective computer 110/120 being used by the given user supports the personally-preferred one or more modes of expression or imagery 101 d/102 d that the user likes.
New forms of expression are often developed by artisans in the computer arts and thereafter adopted by computer users. There is a broad spectrum of available choices currently and more expected to come in the future. Examples of expression types include the options of expressing ideas as simple text (e.g., .txt files), or as simple graphic bitmaps (e.g., .bmp files), or as combinations of these, or as mark-up language formulations (e.g., .html files or .xml files), or as color animations with sound and/or other sensory inputs (e.g., haptics), and so forth. The present disclosure contemplates a system environment 100 that can grow to accommodate new types of computer-supported expression as such develop. By way of a concrete example, it has been proposed that computers could be used to transfer impressions of touch, smell and/or taste over a network. If Max and Adam were in the food business and they wanted to share certain understandings about a new food products menu they were co-developing, and they where sharing their work ideas via the transmission of computer-usable signals, then the software of system 100 may be expanded to accommodate the handling of expressive signals for such sensory concepts. Incidentally, in the examples given here, it will turn out that Max and Adam are indeed in the food business. They both work for a fictitious company called IFWC (International Food Wholesalers Corp.). See briefly item 430 of FIG. 4.
Referring still to FIG. 1, there can be much more to personal preferences than merely the choice of language(s) and/or of format(s) of expression. Differences can exist between how each person chooses to organize and describe various items, or objects, or objectives, or ideas within his/her personal mental model 101 c/102 c of things. Max (101) may have formal training in financial matters and may prefer to structure his thoughts under a finance-world model, say for example, by ordering items into a balance sheet format which has assets, liabilities and equities as its major sections. Adam (102), on the other hand, may have formal training in the sciences and may prefer to structure his thoughts under a scientist's-world model, say for example, by ordering work projects as belonging either to a food-chemistry category or to a food-packaging category. When Max and Adam start exchanging ideas with one another, it is easy to see how a Tower of Babel problem can easily arise. (Each participant 101/102 may fail to clearly and fully understand how the other is structuring his thoughts.) The here disclosed Activities Coordinating & MANagement software system (ACMAN system) 105 can include mechanisms for helping each user to better understand the other in this regard.
The forms of imagery, expression, model structuring, etc. (101 c/101 d, 102 c/102 d) which each user may prefer to work with can depend on a complex set of variables beyond language and educational background. The individuality-establishing variables (101 e) can include the person's cultural background. People from different cultures may have different approaches to how they think about things. The ACMAN software package 105 respects such diversity. A person's personal experiences may affect the local mental models 101 c/102 c which they bring with them to the arena when those people first start to interact. The combination of past personal experiences, original mental models 101 c/102 c and newly-experienced interactions (115 b, 128 b) may determine how each person's model(s) 101 c/102 c evolves going forward into the future. The disclosed ACMAN System 105 can include mechanisms for helping each user to learn from others and develop more sophisticated understandings of matters and to incorporate representations of such more sophisticated understandings into their local, computer-held models (e.g., into tree structure 115 of FIG. 1). The disclosed ACMAN system 105 allows each user to determine his/her level of preferred resolution. Max may like to have very detailed expressions of all his ideas (see spreadsheet 116) while Adam prefers less detail. (Compare for example, Adam's spreadsheet at 126 versus Max's at 116.) A single, well chosen word or phrase is sufficient for Adam. The system 105 respects each user's preferences. The system allows for the inclusion of detailed, background or support data in an unstructured, but possibly chronologically-sortable journal (see briefly 820 of FIG. 8 and 620′ of FIG. 6B) to be associated (871) with any structured Activity Data Object(s) (871 b and 872 b). (Note Max's journaling of his Research Efforts in box 117). The system at the same time allows for use of short activity descriptors (see briefly 1234 of FIG. 12A) so that tree representations of several hierarchically related Activity Data Objects can be graphically represented (see briefly 810 of FIG. 8).
More to the point, FIG. 1 shows Max 101 viewing (111 a) an on screen presentation 111 provided by his desktop computer 110. The desktop computer 110 may be configured in accordance with the present disclosure to present, among other things, a structured graphical presentation 115 of projects, tasks or other activities which Max may be working on and how they interrelate to one another on a hierarchical and/or other basis. The display 111 may alternatively or additionally present local textual representations 116-117 of matters which Max 101 is working on. For example, one local text representation may be structured as a spreadsheet 116. Another local textual representation may be items in an unstructured journal 117 that belongs to Max. The illustrated example at 117 indicates that among the unstructured entries made into the Max's journal there can be random and detailed personal notes, details about research efforts, pointers to specific email messages in Max's email application, data copied from the Internet or hyperlinks to internet locations, or any electronic data items in any data format, not necessarily limited to text, that a user might wish to include in his unstructured daily journal. The journal might be thought of as the electronic equivalent of a notebook or daytimer booklet that many people carry around with them and use on a daily basis. The relatively unstructured nature of the journal data items (117, 127) invites use because the user is not forced to engage in any data-organizing actions at the time the entry is made. The user can type, electronically scribble, copy and paste, or simply drag and drop the electronic data item into the journal area (see briefly 901 of FIG. 9A) and forget about it. The user can freely insert unrelated notes without concern for how they may become useful or how they may relate to one another. The determination as to which may be useful and which relate to what one or more ADOs can occur much later, on an as needed basis. Perhaps the user (Max or Adam) does not have time to do more at the moment than save miscellaneous pieces of found electronic data items into his journal on an as-found basis. Later, the user may revisit the one or more recorded journal data items and develop it/them some more. The user may use one or more journal data items as a foundational basis on which to create new activity data objects or modify existing activity data objects (represented by the darkened circles in 115). The user may use one or more journal data items as supporting information for implementing one or more of his planned activities. FIG. 6A-FIG. 6D, FIG. 24A, FIG. 8, FIG. 9A, and others embellish this concept of the unstructured journal versus the structured ADOs in more detail and will be covered later in this disclosure.
Max's desktop computer 110 is shown to have a full-size keyboard 114 which allows him to easily make text entries into his journal 117. The computer may further include a mouse 113 and/or other graphical user input devices which allow Max to easily select certain areas (e.g. 115 a) of his local presentation and/or to make changes to graphical objects 115 displayed on that presentation 111. Max may use the mouse (113), the keyboard (114) and/or a microphone and/or other user interface devices (not shown) for inputting electronic data items and/or activity descriptions of various formats and/or data types, as well as for scrolling (e.g., by using bar 116 a) and/or otherwise navigating through data that can be shown on the screen 111. The possible user interface devices can include other devices not yet in wide use or even invented yet-for instance there are devices that allow a user to write on a paper pad and then automatically translate those physical scribblings into electronic data items on a data processing machine, and such a device, or others, might be incorporated into use as an input device to the ACMAN system. Max may use his user interface devices for activating on-screen drop-down menus and/or other such tools (not shown). Max's, managerial-level computer 110 is understood to have relatively maximal computer processing power and maximal connection availability to the Internet (115 c) and/or to various extranets and/or to various corporate servers (130). As such, when Max is at his desktop computer 110, Max has relatively fast access to a wide range of computing and data resources. (It is understood that any one or more of the networks may become temporarily inoperable or that MAX may elect to temporarily decouple his machine area from one or more of the networks.)
The total and persistent network access condition is not always true. Max 101 is not always in his office and/or nearby his desktop computer 110. Sometimes Max is traveling on the road with a laptop computer or a handheld computing or another mobile device. At those times Max may not always have full access to the Internet 115 c and/or to other data resources (130) which Max may be accustomed to. Sometimes, Max may only have an audio tape recorder at his disposal, or a paper napkin on a restaurant table. That does not mean that Max has to then stop thinking (101 c) of new ideas. That does not mean Max needs to stop recording his thoughts in some fashion so that Max can thereafter gainfully use his recorded expressions. A system is needed wherein Max can easily transfer his on-napkin scribblings or other expressed ideas into computer system 110 and thereafter make gainful use of those recorded expressions. A system is needed wherein Max can manage his short-term and long-term development goals 101 g. A machine system is needed which accommodates Max's busy time schedule 101 t and serves him rather than taking away from his time and making him a slave to the machine system. (It is unwise to have a system where response time 101 r to user actuations is slow because every transaction with the local machine 110 includes a wait for a network transaction e.g., 131 to complete.) A machine system is needed which custom fits Max's uniqueness. At the same instance, a system is needed which custom fits Adam's unique time schedule 102 t and Adam's modeling preferences 102 d-102 e. More to the point, because each of Max and Adam is a unique individual, there may be correspondingly unique ways in which Max/Adam prefers to express his respective ideas and present them back to himself (111 a/121 a) so he can develop them further or pass on some of his self-expressed ideas to others for those others to work on. Due to his personal background (101 e), Max may prefer to work with a graphical and detailed hierarchical tree structure such as is schematically represented at 115. Adam may prefer a pie-chart 125. Additionally or alternatively, Max may prefer to work with a complex spreadsheet such as is schematically represented at 116. Adam may prefer a simpler table format 126. Additionally or alternatively, Max may prefer to have some of his expressed and evolving ideas (e.g., Research Efforts) strewn randomly, chronologically or in some other organized and searchable fashion within a free-form personal journal 117. Adam may have a similar journal 127 that is organized on a different, free form basis.
The local presentations 111 on computer 110 may suit Max perfectly well. Consider however what happens when Max Manager wishes to transmit at least a small part 115 a of his expressed ideas (his recorded thought-product) to Adam Assistant (102) so that Adam may understand it and/or further work on the underlying ideas. In one embodiment, the transmission comes in the form of one or more asynchronously shareable signal packets referred to herein as Activity Data Object(s) (ADO(s)) 115 b. Max may choose to include just one or a group of several such Activity Data Objects to transmit to Adam (or more correctly to a machine storage area that is accessible by Adam). How is Adam to manage with Max's preferred way(s) of expressing activity ideas by way of expression form 115 a? Adam is a unique individual who may have his own ways of modeling (102 c) the world. Adam may have a completely different educational background (102 e) and different personal preferences and use of languages and imagery (102 d). Adam may prefer to (or may be forced to) use a laptop computer 120 with less computing power and/or less access to corporate internal resources (130) and/or public external resources than those available on Max's computer 110.
Adam may have his own unique preferences for how various ideas about activities or other things are presented (121 a) from his computer 120 to himself. For example, Adam may prefer to use pie-chart presentations such as shown at 125 (or quickly viewable bar graphs) rather than the complex hierarchical tree structures shown on Max's computer at 115. Perhaps this is so because in Adam's work domain the same type of activities are performed repetitively over and over again at a fast pace and in the sequence expressed by the pie chart. Adam may be mostly interested in knowing what percent of time and/or other resources is/are expended in performing each of those consistently repeated tasks. In such a case, it makes perfect sense for Adam 102 to view those tasks as belonging to a circular pie-chart-like model (125) or bar graph rather than as being part of a more complicated and ever-growing tree format (115). Adam may have a less complex spreadsheet 126 for representing to himself the projects he is working on. The columns and rows of Adam's spreadsheet 126 may have several different labels than those of the more complex spreadsheet 116 used by Max. Adam may also have different ways of expressing things in his local journal 127. Adam's vocabulary may be quite different than Max's.
Adam may also have his own unique preferences for how various ideas about work activities or other things are organized or described. Briefly, as shown in FIG. 15, Max may have created an activity-describing expression “Hire Veggie Product Manager” 1524 and may have hierarchically positioned that expression (e.g., as an ADO) within Max's own organized set of other activities, as shown in area 1520. Because of his view of the world, Max may have established his own hierarchy of activities within which this new “Hire Veggie Product Manager” activity fits. He might decide to asynchronously share this activity idea with Harry H. Resources (briefly, see FIG. 16A), who is in the Human Resources department. “Harry HR” as we'll call him, is using an ACMAN system, and the system might automatically record a possibly derived copy 1616′ (briefly, see FIG. 16B) of Max's transmitted activity expression into a so-called, foyer region 1651 of his, Harry's machine system. Harry can further elect to participate in the underlying activity by dragging yet a further possibly derived copy (1635) of Max's expression into a so-called, embedded activities region (1650) of Harry's machine area. The embedded copy (1635) may be deemed as being “owned” by Harry. Because he owns it, Harry can position that copied activity expression as he pleases into his own set of organized, activity descriptions (e.g., 1639, 1636, etc.), where Harry's activity descriptions may be organized quite differently from the way Max organizes his, Max's activities (see again, area 1520 of FIG. 15). Furthermore, Harry HR may choose to change the way in which the description (Harry's description 1635) of this underlying activity is expressed. Harry can change some of the words or even the whole language of this activity description (briefly, see the revised description 1635′ of FIG. 16C) so that the embedded and modified activity description better fits his (Harry's) understanding of what his participation in the activity means to himself and/or how it may interrelate to other activities Harry is involved with. Harry may choose to expand his definition of the activity by breaking down the activity description to include a top-down flow into one or more child activities (e.g., 1640, 1641, and 1642 of FIG. 16C) where the child activities better describe, or describe in more detail, to Harry what he plans to do as part of his participation in the activity. In one embodiment, Harry's system retains a copy (1651′) of Max's ADO's and their organization as originally received into Harry's machine area. Harry's machine (e.g., local computer) allows Harry HR to see how the activity idea was organized from Max's viewpoint. In the same embodiment, after Harry accepts participation in the activity (by embedding a derived copy into his, Harry's tree), Harry's computer might automatically send an update back to Max's computer, showing how the embedded copy is situated in Harry's activities tree. Max may then be able to see how Harry HR incorporated the activity description into Harry's view of the world. FIG. 15 and FIG. 16A through FIG. 16C will be further detailed below.
Referring again to FIG. 1, one problem in the organizing of group activities is how to get fast, efficient and productive cooperation between Max and Adam, so that each better understands what the other is thinking while each is using a respective, and potentially-decoupled computer (110 or 120, and the use is not necessarily at the same time—their work exchanges 115 b/128 b can be asynchronous). Simply providing a computer to each is not good enough. It is difficult enough to even “force” a user to gainfully use his computer because of the training involved. It is more difficult to get a user to productively use his/her computer if that computer does not provide presentations (111 a, 121 a) that are agreeable to that viewer (101, 102) and if that computer does not provide information management tools that make it easier rather than more frustrating for the given user (person) to manipulate the provided information. The present disclosure shows how to overcome such problems.
There can be different ways in which users cooperate in the development and/or implementation of activity ideas. Suppose that Max 101 wishes to delegate a certain subset 115 a of his currently-developed plans 115 to Adam Assistant 102 for Adam to carry out and/or further develop. One of the many frustrations which Max Manager 101 may face in doing so is the lack of a real time communications link (115 c) being consistently present between Max's computer 110 and Adam's computer 120. Even if their common business organization provides a central organizational server 130, this may be insufficient because Max may not always be operatively connected to a network when he wants to plan his own activities and/or share various activities with Adam. It could be that Max is traveling on the road at the time and Max's computer 120 is not connected to a network. Alternatively, the network may be temporarily inoperative (the network is “down”). Even further, it may be that Adam and Max do not work for the same organization and both do not have network access to a central organizational server. Either way, Max may not be able to easily access the central organizational server 130 every time he has a brainstorm of ideas. This can be frustrating. Another possible source of frustration is that Max and Adam may be working in different time zones, 101 t-102 t, or that Max and Adam are on different work schedules. Yet another possible source of frustration for both computer users is that each may worry that the other does not fully understand what was intended by a given communication. Max may have a formal education in business management while Adam has a formal education in computer engineering. They may use completely different vocabularies to express their respective ideas. It would be useful to have a system wherein Max 101 can verify that Adam 102 correctly understood what was meant by a shared activity description 115 b and wherein Adam can verify that Max understood what was meant by a returned progress update report 128 b. It may be useful for Adam to know what set of other activities Max is additionally or alternatively exploring even though the shared activity description 115 b does not extend to the domain of all of Max's additional activities (beyond 115 a). It may also be useful for Adam to know what context or scope the shared activity description(s) 115 a fits within so that he can better understand what the shared idea involves. In accordance with one aspect of the disclosure, when activity descriptions are shared by way of transmitted Activity Data Objects (ADO's), the context, or hierarchy of so-called, primary parent ADO's (and optionally secondary parent ADOs, to be described later) may be automatically passed along with each explicitly shared ADO. This allows the recipient to see the context in which the sending user views the shared ADO. According to another aspect of the disclosure, Max can send representations of selected work to Adam to be informationally shared with Adam as For-Your-information (FYI) transmissions, as opposed to activity descriptions that are actively shared with an intention to request active involvement in the expressed activity idea. Such active sharing can be further defined as Delegated (Dg) or WorkSharing (WS). Possible different types of sharing arrangements will be described in more detail later in this disclosure. The FYI option allows for informal and/or informational exchange of activity ideas information while the other options such as WS or Dg allow for more formal and/or active exchanges.
Referring to FIG. 2, a relatively broad overview of a system environment 100′ in accordance with the present disclosure is shown and described. (Many of the concepts described for FIG. 2 will be further explicated later in this disclosure. The present disclosure is to be seen as covering both the broader concepts and the detailed embodiments.) In FIG. 2, data can be seen as migrating through a series of layers, moving from storage towards presentation to respective users (101′, 102′) and moving between storage areas that belong to different users when thought-product sharing occurs. Presentation, incidentally, is not limited to visual presentation of expressed ideas. Expressed ideas may be presented to users in a variety of multimedia ways including by sound, touch and/or otherwise. Each user may deal with his/her individually-tailored part of a user interface layer 240 according to the user's personal likes when that user interfaces with his/her local computer (e.g., in FIG. 1, 110 for Max, 120 for Adam). This user interface layer may include means for enhancing the user's experience in terms of ease of use and speed of responsiveness (101 r′). More on this when FIG. 9A is explained. Hidden behind the user interface layer 240 (FIG. 2) may be a presentation filtering & updating layer 245 and a local data storage layer 250. For each user, the local data layer 250 can include one or both of Activity Data Objects (e.g. ADO's 251) and unstructured or structured journal data items (e.g., JDI's 252 a). The local data layer 250 typically might also include a local storage media (e.g. 258, which might be a hard disk, an optical disk drive, a holographic storage media, a tape media, flash memory media, DRAM, SRAM, or any other electronic, magnetic, or other media storage device that might be conceived) which might store most of the given user's structured activity data objects (251) and possibly at least some of his/her not-necessarily-structured electronic data items (252 a) and/or other electronic data items related to his ACMAN system. Other unstructured data items (252 b) may be stored remotely (e.g., on media 298 which couples to the user's computer via one or more networks).
More specifically, Max Manager's (101′) structured activity data objects are referred to here as Max's Activity Data Objects 251, and alternately as Max's ADOs. His locally-stored, not-necessarily-structured data items are referred to as Max's local Journal Data Items 252 a. The data of elements 251 and 252 a may be stored in a same local storage media 258 whose storage area may be directly accessible only to the owning user, Max 101′. (In other words, not directly and/or synchronously shared with others via a network.) Therefore Max may elect to keep personal plans on the media as well as work-related ones without worrying that his privacy might be easily compromised. Similarly, the structured activity data objects of Adam Assistant (102′) are referred to here as Adam's Activity Data Objects 253, or Adam's ADOs. His local not-necessarily-structured data items are referred to as Adam's local Journal Data Items 254 a. These may be stored in a local storage area 259 which only Adam Assistant might have direct access to.
In one embodiment, each user's machine may have installed therein, one or more automated background agents (e.g., Charlie's Agent 203″) that belong to other users, where the other users are listed on the machine owner's whitelist as being allowed to have such background agents. The permission-wise installed background agents might automatically crawl through the activity trees as permitted by the owners of the local tree(s) (e.g., Max's tree(s)) in the background mode and they might perform a peek at activity data objects and associated journal data items in a way similar to how the agent's owner (e.g., Charlie Chief 403 of FIG. 4) would be permitted to do it manually and in the foreground if the tree's owner (Max) knew that was going on. For example, the ACMAN system may provide Max with a means to identify ADOs (and/or JDIs) with certain privacy settings (to be discussed later in FIG. 11). Max may allow Charlie's agent to look at only certain, “non-private” areas of Max's full collection of activity data objects and/or journal data items. The background agent might automatically generate an updates list 266 containing updated or new activity data objects and/or associated journal data items and identifying deleted ones, if those changed/deleted items are non-private with respect to the agent's master. The background agent (203″) may automatically post the update list 266 for emailing or otherwise asynchronously sending back to its master's machine area (e.g., Charlie's machine area) the update information.
In an alternative or further embodiment, Max's machine area may contain a list identifying a set of supervising users to whom Max is expected to automatically report. Max's machine may automatically send updates of non-private collections of activity data objects and/or journal data items to such supervising users. For each such supervising user, an update list of activity data objects and/or journal data items may be maintained in Max's machine area. When Max causes his machine to modify a corresponding activity data object and/or journal data item, a possible update listing for the each corresponding supervisor may be appended with a pointer back to the activity data object and/or journal data item that was just changed by Max. (This, of course, assumes there is a permissive match of privacy level of the ADO and/or JDI versus the privacy access level of the given supervising user.) At various intervals, as may be determined by Max's machine, copies of the modified ADO's and/or JDI's may be emailed or otherwise asynchronously sent to the machine area of each supervising user who was listed for updating in Max's machine. When a supervisor's machine receives a set of updates, the supervisor's machine may automatically update the corresponding copies (foyered copies) of the revised activity data objects (Max's revised, added or deleted objects) where the corresponding copies logically reside in the supervisor's machine (e.g., Charlie Chief's machine). The supervisor's machine may optionally present the updated copies in highlighted form so that the supervisor (Charlie Chief 403 of FIG. 4) can visually spot what was changed when he next uses his machine.
For each local user (e.g., Max, Adam, Charlie—last not shown in FIG. 2), a respective presentation filtering, updating and highlighting interface 245 may be interposed between the local data layer 250 of that respective user and the presentation-providing interface layer 240 of that respective user. The presentation filtering & update interface 245 may be used to select certain ones of the user's ADOs and JDIs for presentation on that user's respective display and/or other presentation means 111′, 121′ in a format desired and specified by that user. Thus a particularly selection-filtered version of some of Max's activity data objects 251, which Max has asked for, may pass through programmed presentation filters (246) of layer 245 to be presented as activity data object presentations 115′ in Max Manager's viewing area 111′ in a format that Max likes. Similarly a subset of Max's local and/or remote journal data items 252 a, 252 b, which Max has asked for, may pass through further, programmed selection filters 247 of the presentation filtering layer 245 to appear as journal data item (JDI) presentations 117′ in Max's presentation area 111′ in a format that Max likes. Examples of filtering options that Max may ask for from his computer may range from simple to complex, and as an example, might be described in pseudo-terms as, “Show me all my activity descriptions dealing with the category of Refinancing of My House and also show me all my unstructured journal data items that have been associated with the same. At the same time also show me all my structured activity descriptions dealing with the category of Banks that have a due date before Aug. 5, 2003” (see briefly FIG. 6A).
A set of presentation controlling tools and navigating tools may be included in area 241 of presentation area 111′ so that Max Manager 111′ can control which structured activity presentations appear in area 115′ (corresponding to selected ADO's of storage area 251) and which JDI presentations appear in area 117′. In one embodiment most of Max's activity data objects 251 and most of Max's local journal data items 252 a are stored in a local storage media 258 that is immediately accessible to Max Manager 101′. This means that Max does not require an active connection to an operative network 291. Max Manager can work alone (280) and get quick response time from his part of the system when he is referencing his activity data objects 251 and local JDIs 252 a. This is so because such referencing does not require an active connection 291 to a network 115 c′ or completion of a network-based transaction (such as with exchange or message server 295). Max could be working alone (280) on a stand-alone laptop computer or handheld personal digital assistant. The quick response time and immediate availability helps to give Max Manager 101′ an impression of ease of use 101 r′ and persistent accessibility.
In one embodiment, presentation filters 246-247 of layer 245 have bi-directional cross referencing capabilities. Max can use these capabilities to see all journal data items related to one or more pre-specified activity data objects and/or to see all activity data objects related to one or more pre-specified journal data items (and ask for them to be presented in various ways including chronological, alphabetic or other sorted fashion). Max should be able to simultaneously or alternatively request presentations of items from the ADO category (251) or the JDI category (252 a, 252 b) using other filtering and/or sorting specifications, such as asking for all ADO's whose short descriptor (detailed below) includes the string, “finance” and all journal data items whose body content includes the phrase, “interest rate*”. The asterisk (*) might act as a wild card in this possible example. Max's ability to perform cross-referenced filtering of Max's activity data objects by association to Max's journal data items 252 a (and/or Max's remote JDIs 252 b) and vice versa helps to give Max an impression that his organized activity data objects are seamlessly tied to his journal data items and vice versa. Graphical, for example drawn hierarchical tree with icons, presentation (115 of FIG. 1 or 810 of FIG. 8) or tabular, for instance spreadsheet, presentation (see briefly 610 of FIG. 6A) may be used to help Max clearly see how certain ones of his activity data objects may be logically associated to one another and/or to journal data items (JDI's). Various linking icons and/or color codings (see briefly 927 of FIG. 9A) can be used by the presentation layer 245 to help Max perceive his JDIs (252 a, 252 b) as being logically associated to one another and/or to his ADOs 251 (see briefly 631 of FIG. 6D). These filter-enhanced perceptions allow Max 101′ to build mental models in his mind of relationships between the presented activity data objects 115′ and the presented JDIs 117′. More specifically, Max 101′ can use the simultaneous presentations on display 111′ of selected activity data objects 115′ and selected unstructured data items 117′ to reinforce in his mind (within his mental models 101 c′) some earlier recognized and recorded linkages between certain ones of the structured activity ideas (say, those described by objects ADO.1 and ADO.2). The earlier recognized and recorded linkages (represented as solid, double ended arrow lines in area 101 c′) may also be between certain ones of the unstructured data items and the structured ones (say, between the ideas underlying the expressions of JDI.1 and ADO.1). Max may use the presented ADOs (115′) and JDIs (117′) of screen view 111′ to recognize in his mind (101 c′) new associations such as say, between the ideas of ADO.1 and JDI.2 (the new mental linkages are represented as dashed, double ended arrow lines in area 101 c′). More particularly, suppose that ADO.1 represents an expressed idea for a work related activity. Suppose that ADO.2 represents an expressed idea for a leisure-related activity, for example taking a vacation in the Bahamas. In viewing the associated journal data items (JDI.1 and JDI.2) of ADO.1 and ADO.2, Max suddenly realizes that concepts expressed by unstructured data item, JDI.2 might usefully contribute to further development of the structured activity described by data object ADO.1. Max then might use editing/navigating tools 241 to modify the activity data object (in storage 251) of ADO.1 so that the modified activity data object will be logically linked (in computer 110 of FIG. 1) to the underlying JDI (in storage 252 a) represented by JDI.2. The next time that Max reviews a presentation of his organized activities tree, the presentation for JDI.2 will be shown as being logically linked to the presentation for ADO.1. (See briefly linkage 631 of FIG. 6D). Max may then take further action accordingly, such as by adding new child-activities to the ADO.1 parent or such as by searching for and entering into his journal, new journal data items.
In contrast to the presentation filtering options described above, the modifications that Max may elect to make to the content, properties or attributes of activity data objects 251 and/or journal data items 252 a, 252 b that Max owns are schematically represented by modification element 248, which for convenience sake is shown to also be in the presentation filtering & updates layer 245. In performing a modifying action via element 248, Max may alter his computer-recorded version of his structured activity data objects and/or unstructured journal data items. He can allow his machine to immediately transmit representations of these modifications as updates to other workers (e.g.,. Adam) or he can continue to review and revise his own work product by himself while delaying the updating operation. If a given modification (248) is made only to locally stored ADOs and/or JDIs of local storage media 258, the response time should be relatively short. There need not be any reliance on an active and operative connection 291 to external networks and servers. Thus Max gets a sense that his own activity descriptions (defined by ADO's) and supporting data (defined by JDI's) are available on a relatively immediate and persistent basis. There need not be any waiting for network-mediated transactions to complete.
The same advantages might apply to how Adam Assistant 102′ interacts with his local computer 120 (in FIG. 1). Adam may use his own, individually crafted filters 243-244 to present to himself filtered versions of his respective and individually-crafted activity descriptions 253 and of his locally journaled data items 254 a and/or his remotely journal data items 254 b in formats of his choosing. Adam may use the generated and viewed presentations 125′, 127′ to build his own local mental model(s) 102 c′ of associations between various interrelated activity ideas (represented by data objects ADO.3, ADO.4) and/or unstructured data items (e.g. JDI.3, JDI.4). Adam may use his tools 242 to modify, refine or update any of his local or remote activity data objects and journal data items and how they are presented back to himself. Adam can work alone (280) during this phase of the process. His filtering, analyzing, and refining operations (243, 244, 249) do not necessarily rely on their being an active connection 293 between his computer and the network (128 c′) or on there being an active connection 291 between Max Manager's computer and a network. Of course, for Adam to access his remote journal data items 254 b, Adam's network connection 293 should be active at the time of access. It may be left to Adam's discretion to decide which journal data items are important enough to preserve as locally-maintained ones 254 a on the local storage media 259 and which may be relegated to remote storage such as on remote media 299. Privacy issues and accessibility by himself and/or others may of course be used in making such determinations.
In one embodiment, the ACMAN system also stores its users' structured activity descriptions and, optionally, its users' journal items onto a centralized storage means via a centralized network when user's local machine is actively and persistently connected to the centralized network. In this embodiment, Max and/or a system administrator can give permissions to outside persons (e.g., Charlie) to come in as ghost viewers via a network and to see for themselves, the presentations 111 (in FIG. 1) that Max is, was, or could have been seeing on his machine (110) when using his, Max's, underlying data (251, 252 a, 252 b) and optionally his filters 246-247. Parts of Max's filters 246-247 can be pre-programmed by Max and stored in his machine area (110). Visiting ghost viewers (e.g., Charlie, represented by 203″) can retrieve and present expressions of the underlying ADOs and/or JDIs, and optionally use Max's pre-configured and stored filter specifications, for use in quickly seeing what Max was (may have been) seeing. The ghost view presentations may be automatically limited, or filtered, based on privacy level settings per ADO versus the privacy access level that may be granted to each ghost viewer. If a JDI has extra-journal links to more than one ADO that have different privacy level settings, that JDI may also be filtered according to the most restricting privacy level setting. In addition, Max may entirely turn off ghost viewing access to his journal presentation area. In one variation, Max or Adam can also control which ghost viewers have retrieval access to which of their pre-configured filter specifications. Because a ghost viewer like Charlie 203″ may be able to come virtually into Max's machine area and see essentially what Max was seeing (view 111′), that ghost viewer (203″) has better opportunity to understand what Max is thinking about. The ghost visitor can start to see things from Max's perspective. This live, real-time ghost viewing capability may require an active network connection from Charlie's machine (not shown) to Max's machine 110 (in FIG. 1).
Such a ghost viewing capability may alternatively be emulated (without requiring a live and continuous connection) on an ACMAN system user's local machine by using foyered copies as shall be better detailed below. Briefly, this may be achieved through asynchronous updates 266 messaged, or transmitted, from Max's machine area to Adam's machine area and/or asynchronous updates from Adam's machine area to Max's machine area. Such updates may be determined with supervisory relationships that Adam can indicate on Adam's ACMAN system, or through explicit and/or passive activity sharing wherein a given ADO contains its own information about other users that may be sharing involvement in the activity represented by that same ADO. Such explicit activity sharing may be of one of several possible types, including Dg (Delegated), WS (WorkShare), and/or FYI (For Your Information) sharing types. These will be further described below. Briefly, Delegated sharing may be understood as expression-sharing where accountability is passed on to another participant. WorkShare (or sometimes called WorkSharing) may be understood as expression-sharing where accountability is mutually shared by two or more people. FYI may be understood as expression-sharing where accountability is at least initially, not be shared at all, but rather where information about one's activity(ies) is being relayed to other users merely so they can become aware of it. In the case of supervisory relationships, Adam may identify in his system whitelist which other supervising users should be updated for his Activity Data Objects and/or JDIs, provided the changed ADO's or JDI's meet the privacy access level for each respective supervisor. This can be done without necessarily needing to identify the supervisory users on a per activity data object basis. In the case of explicit activity sharing, ADOs on Adam's ACMAN system might respectively list other user(s) that may happen to be participants in the activity represented by the ADO. If Adam did not originate the idea for the activity, then one of the other participants is actually the master, or originator of the activity idea. If Adam himself originated and shared the activity idea with other users, those other users can be considered as being regular participants. Copies of ADOs and/or extra-journal linked JDIs that are modified, added or deleted by Adam may be sent as updates to corresponding participants by transmitted updates as will be detailed later below. Briefly, if Adam modifies a specific ADO, the ACMAN system may look up all of the participants specified within that ADO's data structure and may add them to a temporary update list, and then it may add further users listed in the “supervisors” whitelist to this temporary update list. Then Adam's ACMAN system can send updates to the machines of the users identified in this temporary update list, providing of course, that each so-identified user further meets the privacy/access level setting(s) stored in the ADO data structure.
Regardless of whether asynchronous updates occur due to supervisory relationships or due to explicit activity sharing, such asynchronous updates may be messaged indirectly through an email exchange server, through an instant messaging service, ftp, or any other direct or indirect messaging scheme that might be available. As a result of the messaging exchanges, users that receive update messages then may have in their own machines, local, updated copies of the respective updated activity data objects and/or JDIs owned by other users. Both the live (or synchronous) and the asynchronous embodiments described above are improvements over systems that do not allow users to persistently see things from the perspective of other users.
As implied already, as Max and Adam work alone on their respective projects, there will generally come a time when Max and/or Adam decides it is worthwhile to collaborate on part or all of his respective project. This can be done by sending out Delegation, WorkSharing, or FYI updates, supervisory updates, or ghost agent information to selected recipients, or by otherwise invoking cooperation on the refinement and carrying out of various activity ideas and their corresponding activity descriptions. When this collaboration stage (270) is reached, various parts of the communications layer 290 should be operatively coupled to the computers of respective participants at the time of use by each. The participants do not need to be online all at the same time. A data exchange server 295 such as an email exchanger or other internet server may be used for transferring data between Max's local domain and Adam's local domain. (While email is a highly convenient means of transferring Activity Data Objects because most users have email exchange capabilities, other exchange methods may be additionally or alternatively used, including instant messaging, ftp based transmission, etc.)
When a thought-product exchange occurs, all the problems about use of different language, etc. can come into play. Suppose Max Manager 101′ wishes to transfer (261) to Adam Assistant 102′ a selected subset of Max's activity describing objects 251. Adam may additionally or alternatively wish to transfer to Max a selected subset of Adam's activity describing objects 253. (They may also elect to exchange copies of their pre-configured presentation filters 246-247, 243-244.) Such collaborative, unidirectional or bidirectional transmissions are represented by dashed path 261 in FIG. 2. Adam and Max may use different terms for representing similar concepts and neither may realize that this is what is happening. A cross-referencing dictionary means such as shown at 263 may be provided to help each of Adam and Max to better understand one another. Max may use a specific Term1 for representing a certain concept while Adam uses a slightly different Term1 a for representing the same or a slightly different concept. (E.g., Max may say “tubers” while Adam may prefer to say “potatoes”.) This cross referencing may just as easily be used for mapping different languages, say between Japanese and English. However, a problem with having unabridged cross-referencing dictionaries is that the participation group may expand may expand to include more players than just Max and Adam (see briefly FIG. 4). Storage for many such dictionaries can become a problem.
In one embodiment, shared activity ideas may have both an “embedded” representation and one or more “foyered” representations, both of which may be stored locally on each activity participant's machine area (or an associated storage). For example, the embedded representations may be a user's own activity data object that are embedded within his own personal activity data object tree. Each activity participating user can edit his own embedded version of an Activity Data Object because he owns that embedded object. At the same time, each activity participating user can also view the locally stored, and sporadically-updated, copies of the other participants' ADO's where those other ADO's correspond to the same activity idea, even if they describe the activity idea differently. The locally stored, and sporadically-updated, copies of the other participants' ADO's are referred to herein as a “foyered” activity data objects. As each participant modifies his own embedded activity descriptions, updates representing these modified activity data objects may be messaged, or transmitted, asynchronously to the other activity participants so that their foyered versions of these activity descriptions can present the latest version, with the appropriate updates, as soon as the messaging takes place. In this manner, there can be a persistently-updated cross referencing scheme developed between the differently worded and/or differently organized activity descriptions of different users. This cross referencing scheme may allow for the viewing of other participants hierarchy trees as well as some or all internals of their respective activity data objects. (This will be described in further detail later in this disclosure.) So, if Adam sees the differently structured linkages which Max has established between respective activity data objects 251 in Max's tree (see briefly also item 1460 b of FIG. 14), Adam should be able to better understand how Max's plans may interrelate or not with corresponding activity data objects in Adam's tree 253. The mapped cross-linkages between embedded ADO's and foyered ADO's allow each user to create a very different hierarchical structure for his/her activities and to, at the same time, see how one or more other users are structuring their own activity descriptions. More specifically, in FIG. 1 it is seen that Max Manager 101 may have an elaborate tree structure 115 representing his various structured activity data objects. On the other hand, Adam Assistant 102 may have a relatively simpler representation of the interrelations between his activity data objects 125 (or 126). It is often helpful therefore to have some means of cross-mapping organizational structure in addition to or instead of just a terminology cross-referencing dictionary 263. The tree-to-tree, organizational cross-mapping and terminology cross-referencing can help Max to better understand how Adam uses his, Adam's terminologies in various contexts and it allows Adam to similarly understand how Max uses his terminologies in various contexts. (See briefly FIG. 16B 1635 and 1616′ for a similar example, where Max is sharing an activity with Harry HR and their activity trees can be compared within their respective work-focused contexts 1650 and 1651.)
Another of the problems that has been mentioned above is that of establishing work sharing agreements. Without agreements, the left hand may quickly lose sight of what the right hand is doing in a project that involves many people. A rudimentary schematic for the concept of making and recording agreements is shown at 265 (in layer 260 of FIG. 2). In a case where Max wishes to delegate to Adam the completion of a particular, structured activity (or of a group of activities), Max may send a copy 115 a (FIG. 1) of the activity description to Adam's computer. If the communications layer 290 is working and Adam receives the delegation request, Adam may have the option of accepting the delegated task or rejecting it. (In some environments Adam might not have a choice.) Max may need to know which option Adam has chosen. If Adam has declined the delegated work, then Max 101′ may have the option of asking another worker, say Bob (not shown) to instead accept the proposed delegation of work. It could be that Adam's network connection 293 is inactive at the time and that is why Adam is not responding to the request. Max Manager may need to know what the situation is so that he can efficiently distribute collaborative work. By the same token, Adam Assistant 102′ may request that Max Manager accept delegation of some other structured activity as indicated by activity sharing agreement #2 in table 265. Max Manager may also send so-called For Your Information (FYI) structured activity data objects to Adam, as indicated by agreement #3 in table 265. Adam may not need to reply, and Adam's system may or may not respond; accordingly, the response may be recorded as “Not Expected” (“NE”) in Max's system since it was only FYI. Or Adam may reply by saying thanks but no thanks (i.e., “Denied” as in 704 in FIG. 7, which will be embellished later). Alternatively Adam may volunteer to join the collaborative effort so that it becomes an “Active” ADO (see 704) for Adam, although it was not initially “Delegated” to Adam or offered as a “WorkSharing” activity. In one embodiment, machine-recorded indications may be provided for each structured activity data object in Max's pool 251 and Adam's pool 253 for what activity sharing agreements are being negotiated, what the state of negotiations is, and what specific compacts may have been made between the various participants. This is shown for instance in 614 a (FIG. 6A) at a summary level and expanded by Max in 700 (FIG. 7) at a detailed level. Activity sharing agreements are not limited to the Dg, WS and FYI types described here. The system may be simplified with fewer arrangement options, or expanded to handle more complex activity sharing type arrangements. Such more complex arrangements may be defined by programmable templates that have Dg, WS and FYI as some of their elemental components. Much of this disclosure describes the system as having four sharetypes: Not Shared, so called Dg (Delegated), so called WS (WorkShared), and so called FYI (For Your Information). But that does not necessarily have to be the case for the ACMAN system. For instance, there could be no distinct sharing types. The system could alternatively have any number of sharing types (two, three, four, or more) with different sharing properties and/or meanings. Such sharetype sets could include one or more of:
a) one sharetype (i.e., no distinction of shared or not); or b) two sharetypes {no sharing, sharing} or equivalents; or c) three sharetypes {no sharing; active involvement sharing; awareness sharing but no active involvement (for your information)} or equivalents; or d) four sharetypes {no sharing; multiple-participant involved sharing; delegated involved sharing; awareness but no involvement sharing (for your information)} or equivalents; or e) any number of more granular states of sharing.
Yet another example of a more complex arrangement could be, contingent cross-delegation: “I'll take over responsibility for your tasks A and B only if you agree to take over responsibility for my tasks C and D.”
The schematically illustrated communications layer 290 of FIG. 2 is simpler than that which may actually exist between Max and Adam. There can be one or more private servers which provide data exchange communication between Max Manager and Adam Assistant in addition to the Internet-based data exchange server shown at 295 (e.g. email server). The intent here is to allow circumvention of the private organization servers (e.g. 130 of FIG. 1) so that any two or more persons can use the public Internet or an alike communications media for more freely exchanging activity ideas (as represented by data objects 251, 253) and to more freely exchange activity sharing proposals and agreements. Aside from exchanging (261) structured activity data objects, each of Max Manager and Adam Assistant may use their respective connections 291, 293 to the Internet (115 c′, 128 c′) for mining for various journal data items from web forums 296-297 or from other parts of the Internet. The web forums 296-297 may be seen as providing slightly-less availability due to possible server or client network decoupling, but would be and collaborative sharing of relatively unstructured data items, useable as externally stored journal data items that might otherwise have been local to each user's machine area. So ACMAN system users may have attributes of their ADOs that point to one or more specific web forums, and those web forums might act as a shared journal for the given ADOs. In one embodiment, the web-forums may be organized as threads of conversation about a particular activity idea or activity data object. Presentation filtering and update layer 245 can be used to limit or otherwise control the presentation of these web-forum items to each respective user. For instance, such web-forums may be presented in place of the local journal data items presentations, in such a way that threads of discussions related to a given selected ADO may be shown in one place. Alternatively, the user may instruct the presentation filtering layer 245 to show only the local JDIs (i.e. the JDIs stored in the user's local journal) associated with a selected ADO. Or, the user may even instruct the presentation filtering layer 245 to integrate into the ACMAN journal presentation area a presentation of both the local JDIs and the non-local data items from the web-forum. This scheme will be described further, later in the disclosure.
FIG. 3 is an overview diagram of one embodiment 300 where separate machine area storage components for two independent users, User A and User B, are shown. User A may have a machine area 312 provided on media 302 upon which several aspects of his/her electronic data items or other data items pertaining to his ACMAN system may be stored. One possible structuring of the data items that User A's machine area might include is shown in the expanded view of area 312. Media 302 may be a single physical storage device or a set of multiple physical storage devices. Media 302 may be located in the same physical hardware system as User A's CPU, or it may be located elsewhere on a local or other network or even at an internet-accessed location. Media 302 may correspond to the local storage media 258 (described in FIG. 2). In one embodiment, User A has at least read and/or write access, and/or he maintains general ownership of the data stored in machine area 312, and as needed, he can establish limited network-access and/or other security measures (e.g., encryption) over machine area 312 so that other users will not be able to intelligently read, write and/or execute to this machine area of storage. Occasionally, User A may wish to archive or backup some aspects of his work product, and the ACMAN system might support such archiving or backups of data items onto a backup storage device 301 that may be separately located from media 302. Optionally, items 301 and 302 may be either the same physical storage device (hard disk drive, etc.) or separate storage devices.
User A and User B may typically be different individuals. In one embodiment it is possible that User A and User B could represent the same individual person, but as that person has logically separate identities with separate work product and separate User Names. In either case, from the perspective of the storage components and network inter-relationships described in FIG. 3, User B might have correspondingly similar properties and description as that of User A above, except of course that as shown in FIG. 3, User B has a machine area indicated by 313 on media 308 instead of machine area 312 on media 302. Moreover, User B may have archive storage area 309 instead of 301. In one embodiment, User A and User B machines may be peers in a network with possibly similar physical storage components and or other physical resources.
As such, this following description of the possible components in machine area 312 for User A may apply in a corresponding manner for User B with respect to machine area 313. We may occasionally refer to User A as “Max” just for the sake of an example, and similarly, we may refer to User B as “Adam”, again, just for convenience. Machine area A may contain a Profile and Preferences section 321, that may indicate Max's User Name, his contact address(es), his ACMAN system setting preferences, and other overall user & system related indicators. Machine area A may also contain an Activities Folder area 315 for storing structured Activity Data Object items as well as other Activity Data Object management header information. For instance, the ACMAN system may create various database indexes referencing the various ADOs in folder 315. Such management header information might improve the ACMAN system performance or provide other benefits. Within the Activities Folder 315, there may be a first storage area 315 a that includes ADOs, if any, for Max's embedded activity tree. There can be yet a second storage area 315 b that is used for storing “foyered” ones, if any, of Adam's ADOs. There can be yet a third or more storage areas 315 c that are used for storing “foyered” ones of ADO's belonging to yet other respective users, if any. These embedded and foyered ADOs might be arranged in storage in no particular order, but the distinction of the possible three or more tree areas indicated in 315 is intended as a logical distinction, whose ramifications will become more apparent later in the disclosure. Journal Folder 316 area might store unstructured Journal Data Items and other journal related information as later explained in FIG. 10. Similar to section 315, the Journal Folder might contain a first storage area 316 a for Max's embedded journal data items, if any. There can be yet a second storage area 316 b that is used for storing “foyered” ones, if any, of Adam's journal data items. There can be yet a third or more storage areas 316 c that are used for storing “foyered” ones of JDI's belonging to yet other respective users, if any. Section 317 might include current display preference settings as well as current display settings that might be reset when Max re-activates his ACMAN system software application. This section might also include Max's customized meta-search criteria, which will be described later in this disclosure. Section 318 might include an optional Supervisor(s) List. This might include a list of User Names and/or possibly their contact address(es), representing people that Max may want his ACMAN system to automatically transmit to and/or update regarding his ADOs and optionally his JDIs, without Max having to manually cause each ADO update to occur. In one embodiment, the supervisor indications in the Supervisor's List 318 might be derived from a corporate organization chart or supervisor module 335 that might exist in an organization's pre-existing human resources or other systems. The ACMAN system might include tools to import 336 such a pre-existing org-chart or supervisor list 335 into the local Supervisor List 318, or alternatively, such a pre-existing list 335 might be used instead of the local Supervisor List 318. Section 319 might include a Contact Table, which might include references to other ACMAN system users and/or other people Max might interact with. Such a table might include User Names, their respective real world names, their contact address(es), and/or the level of privacy/access level that Max or a system administrator might want to indicate for other such users. Note that a contact table 332 from a different software application and/or storage location 334 might be modularly socketted in and used in lieu of or in addition to this local one 319. Additionally or alternatively, modular plug-ins from different software applications and/or storage locations might be used in conjunction with data sections 317, 318, and/or 319. The local, non-socketted data may contain data required by ACMAN but not provided by the external source(s). (Such possible arrangements in conjunction with section 319 are indicated by the logical connection line 333 in the diagram.) For instance, there may be some fields unique to ACMAN, such as User Name or possibly privacy level, that may not exist in such other contact tables. So a common identifier between the local table 319 and an external table 332, such as possibly a user's real world user name or alternatively their email address, could be used as a query joining variable to tie them together. Although it is not shown in the diagram, a separate external contact table similar to 332 as described above could similarly replace or coexist with User B's contact table 329. This external contact table could be specific to User B or it could be a shared contact table, such that many users' machines, including User A and User B, might utilize the shared contact table. Lastly, a transactions table 320 might optionally be included. This table might historically record one or more types of transactions including the actions Max performs on his ADO's, JDI's or other work product, and the data items his machine transmits to and/or receives from other alike machines (as well as possibly data items his machine transmits to other unalike machines, described later in FIG. 17). Transactions table 320 can therefore provide a listing of modified and updated ADOs and/or JDIs and the times that they were last modified, updated, and so on. A transactions table 320 for recording database transactions and/or user-to-machine instructions should be familiar to those skilled in the art. It should be readily apparent that such a transaction table might enable the ACMAN system to provide its users with a means to cause their machine to undo and optionally and subsequently redo one or more machine instructions. Such instructions could include ADO and/or JDI record modifications and/or different requested screen presentations (similar to a web browser's “go back” or “go forward” button). By maintaining a record of ADOs and/or JDIs that have been modified by Max, and which therefore may need to be transmitted to other users as updates when Max's machine is coupled to a communications network, the corresponding update messages can be more efficiently generated since Max's ACMAN system would only need to access the ADOs and/or JDIs listed in the transactions table as recently modified. Without such a transactions table, the ACMAN system might need to access and check each ADO and/or JDI on Max's machine area to determine if an update transmission might be required.
Machine Area A 312 may well include further or alternate storage components. For instance, not shown are any temporary buffer memory areas, or any review areas for temporary storage of incoming ADOs, JDIs, and/or other electronic messages. So, FIG. 3 illustrates only a possible set of components described in other parts of this disclosure.
FIG. 3 is intended to also indicate that Max and Adam might instruct their machines to manually or automatically transmit and receive messages to/from each other across the internet or any other network 303. Max and Adam may not be the only users that may communicate in the context of this ACMAN system. There may be many other participants in other parts of the internet or other networks, 310 or 311 who are communicating with one another, and/or with Max and Adam regarding shared activity ideas. However, focusing for now only on Max and Adam's machine areas, it can be seen that Max's machine may transmit first electronic or other energy signals 307 to Adam's machine area regarding an activity idea represented by expression “X”. That expressed activity idea “X” may be represented by a copy or derived copy of an ADO obtained from Max's embedded tree area 315 a. (Note at times within this description, the word copying is used loosely to indicate that a portion rather than all of a given data structure is being replicated. For example, when a derived copy of an owner's ADO is processed so that it can be transmitted as an outbound ADO, certain attributes or attribute values from the original ADO may be left out and/or others may be respectively appended or modified for a given purpose.) The first signal may include this ADO copy as well derived copies of other ADOs from Max's system (for instance, as illustrated in area 1604 of FIG. 16A and/or as in 115 b in FIG. 1). The expressed activity idea “X” may optionally be supplemented by transmitted copies of JDIs from Max's embedded journal area 316 a. The initially transmitted expression “X” may be further supplemented by other signaled data items.
If and when Adam receives the initially transmitted expression “X” 307 from Max, Adam's ACMAN system may record a derived copy of the expression into Max's foyered area 325 b on Adam's machine area. Adam may review a presentation of that expression. Adam may choose to integrate an expression of that initially transmitted expression “X” 307 into his embedded activities tree. Adam may also modify this derivative workproduct that is in his embedded activities tree according to his own preferences and perspective. Adam's modifications to his owned, derivative workproduct might generally be stored in Adam's embedded data areas, 325 a and 326 a. In order to inform Max of the modifications, Adam's machine may transmit update messages 306 back to Max's machine area. The modified, derivative workproduct 306 is now designated as