Patent Document ID: 8407179
Application ID: 12652962
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of determining influence of a member within an overall dataset in which a plurality of nodes exist, the member represented by one of the nodes in the dataset, comprising: providing a root originator node to a location directly or indirectly accessible to a central server, the root originator node embodied by content and one or more tracking tags that identify the root node, the root node having an ability to invoke a movement action resulting in the publishing of a new successor node to a new location directly or indirectly accessible to the central server, the new successor node receiving a new instance of the content and tracking tags referencing a ne‘.’ instance of the content, tracking tags that identify the successor node, and an ability to invoke the movement action to generate additional successor nodes, wherein the tracking tags further include: primary keys to identify the respective node, the primary keys including an instance identifier associated with the tracking tags that are generated by the central server at the root originator node and passed on to linked successor nodes at node generation, and alternate keys with additional data associated with the respective node, the alternate keys including a person identifier of the person who caused the respective node to be created or a machine identifier of the originating machine which caused the respective node to be created, generating the additional successor nodes by invoking the movement action to pass on a new instance of the content and tracking tags identifying the successor nodes, each additional successor node configured to serve as a distinct originator node for subsequently generated nodes, each subsequently generated node with content and tracking tags identifying the subsequently generated node, capturing, by the central server, raw data from one or more events invoked at each node after a node has been generated, assembling, by the central server, originator and successor nodes into a tree data structure, wherein assembling nodes further includes: assembling the tree structure based on one or more common instance identifiers contained in the primary keys of linked nodes which form the tree, and aggregating the captured raw event data for the events at each node, as well as aggregating by rolling up sibling or successor event data for each linked successor node of the tree, transforming the tree structure into a new graph data structure from alternate keys present in originator nodes of the tree structure, the alternate keys including at least one of a common person identifier or a common machine identifier therein to provide the new graph data structure with a set of nodes comprising a complete dataset with established connections between all members thereof, each member possessing supporting metadata and aggregated event data associated with the transformation, and calculating an influence factor from the graph data structure that reflects the member's influence within the dataset by dividing the total occurrences of an event at a specific node by the total occurrences of the event in the complete dataset.