Patent ID: 6988132

Claim:
A system to facilitate communications between parties, comprising: a first component associated with a request for attentional resources of a contactee, the first component is a contactor data store that includes preferences of a contactor relating to the request; a second component that facilitates a response to the request based in part on the utility of the request to the contactee, the second component is a contactee data store that includes preferences of the contactee relating to at least one of the request and the response; and a contact manager to facilitate communications between the contactor and the contactee based in part on the preferences of the parties, the request and the response, the contact manager including decision-theoretic formulae to facilitate communications between the parties, the decision-theoretic formulae including the following equation: A * = a ⁢ ⁢ r ⁢ ⁢ g ⁢ ⁢ max j ⁢ ∑ i ⁢ p ⁡ ( context R ⁢ i | E ) × u ⁡ ( A j , A k C , C , context R ⁢ i , context C ) A j is a communication modality being considered; A C k is a communication modality employed by the contactor; context R i is a context of the contactee; context C is a context of the contactor; C is an identity of the contactor; and p(context R i |E) is a conditional probability that the contactee has a certain context given the evidence E and is employed with a utility function u to determine ideal communication actions that maximize the utility of communications between the contactor and the contactee.