Knowledge Management Systems
• Week 5 Schedule
- Syllabus Updates
• Questions
• Assignments
- Blogging
• More Commentary
• Evaluations of the blog process
- Email
Email Systems, Uses and Habits
• What email client(s) do you use?
- Why?
- How Long?
• Multiple Mailboxes?
- How Many?
- For What?
• Filters?
- How Many?
- For What?
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Other Features?
Other Devices?
Social Networks
Protocols
Email Overload – PIM
• New Uses Causes Overload
- Task Management
- Personal Archiving
- Asynchronous Communication
• Study of Mailboxes and User Interviews
• Does Speed/Reliability of Email Transmission
and Replying Change It’s Use?
- Conversational
- Accountable
• Email not “One touch” (informational)
• Changes Work Throughout the Day
• Constantly Checking
Email as Habitat
• Traditionally
- Messaging - Communication
- One to One, One to Many Communication
• Increasingly
- Information Management
• Access to Documents
• Address Books - Contacts
• Portal for (Networked) Information
- Coordination and Collaboration
• Tasks
- To Do’s
- Reminders
• Workflow
- Document Creation and Editing
- Meeting Planning and Coordination
Email as Habitat 2
• PC Users Spend Most of Their Day in
their Email Application
- Defining “Knowledge Workers”?
- Support Staff
• Personal Information Management
- To Do (Marking up or Sending to Oneself)
- Contact Management
• Project Tracking
• EVERYTHING?
Email as Habitat 3
• Too Much of a Good Thing
- Filters
- Folders
• Searching May Be Faster
- Time to File
- Time to Find
• Searching Not Helping to Build
(Traditional) Conceptual Model of Tasks
or Messages
Email as Habitat 4
• Types of Folders
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Who – Sender
Where – Organization of Sender(s)
What – Project
Personal Interests
• Professional
• Private
- What Else?
• Archives
• Templates
Email as Habitat 5
• Problems with Email Applications
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Folder Organization
Sorting
Finding
Filtering
• Easier to Set up
• Filter after Reading or Event
• One Application Not Suited for All Users
- Outlook - Outlook Express
- Status & Occupation
- Roles and Responsibilities
Email as Habitat 6
• More Exposure to Email Use = More
Checking Email
- Alternate Devices
- Always-on Devices
• More Experience = More Feature Use
• Different Features for Different Users
• Different Features for Different Uses
• Projects
• Types of Tasks
Improving Email
• Threads of Messages
- “Conversation Tree”
- Automatic vs. Manual Configuration
- Types of Conversations (GIBIS)
• “Thrasks”
- Individual (feedback)
- Group (assignments)
• Views & Visualization
- Oldest/First at Top (contrast with blogs)
- Multiple Windows, Icons, Graphics
TaskMaster
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3.
4.
5.
Keeping Track of Concurrent Actions
Marking Items
Managing Activities Over Time
Managing Deadlines and Reminders
Collating Related Items and Associated
Files and Links
6. Application Switching and Window
Management
7. Getting a Task-Oriented Overview
Easily
TaskMaster
• Helping with Overload
- Number of Threads
- Frequency of Related Messages
• Assigns Meta-Information
- From the Thrask View
- Within an Open Item (Contact Info)
• Warning Bars
• Action Clusters
• Task-Specific Contact Lists
TaskMaster
Reinventing Email
• What Kinds of Messages are Suited for
(Current) Email ?
• What Other Types of Messaging Tools?
- Instant Messaging
- Newsgroups
- Document Management
• Annotations
• Approval
• Distribution Lists
Reinventing Email
• Separation or Integration?
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Messages
Address Book – Contacts
Documents
Links
Web (other)
• Indexing and Classifying Email
- Logging (transaction, permission, task)
- Searching (internal, personal, external)
- Ranking (most email currently equal)
Redesigning Email for 21st Century
• Little Change – GUIs & Attachments
• Overloaded & Overwhelmed
- Slow Response – No Response
- Loss
• No One Solution
- Multiple Features
- Appropriate for each User, Organization or Task
- Improved Interface & Interaction
• Timelines
• Document Summarization
• Annotations
21st Century Email Interfaces
FLANNEL
• Adding Computational Capabilities to
Email
• Email is traditionally just text, in
chronological order
• Improve Endpoints: Sending &
Receiving
- Interfaces
• Improve Medium: Protocols &
Infrastructure
- Web Server – HTTP
FLANNEL 2
• Features
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Translations
To Do List with Tracking
Dynamic Signature (or other)
Links (Keyword Searching) Integrated
Workflow
• Processing While In Transit or Upon Receipt
• Based on Sender, then Receiver?
• More Decisions to Make When Sending?
Ishmail
• Support 3 Basic Methods
- Don’t File & Search
- File Frequently in Many Mailboxes
- File Intermittently
• Server-Based with IMAP extension
• Filtering
- Alarms
- Mailboxes
- Incoming & Outgoing
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Interface with Multiple Windows/Views
Deferral of Message (Sending) Delivery
Archiving – Periodic & Stack
Personas
MailCat
• Filing with an Intelligent Assistant
- Adaptive Text Classifier for Guessing (3) Folders
- Action Classifier? (Maxim’s Memory Based
Retrieval Matching)
- 80-90% Accurate
• Filing Can Compliment Searching
- How Many Actions to File?
• Multiple Locations (Aliases, Links)
• Simple (Only) Interface (“Move To” buttons)
Bitfrost
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Categorizing Messages from Inbox Automatically
“Programming” Filters Too Difficult
Categories of Interest
Improve on Known Email Use
- Four Types of Users
- Filters vs. Losing Sight of Email
• Understanding Automatic Categorizing Difficult for
Users
• Too Much Categorization?
• Categories vs. Folders
• New Messages Difficult to Deal With
• Notification vs. Filing or Hiding
Email Protocols
• POP
- Decentralized Storage
- Personal Archives
• IMAP
- Centralized Storage
- Server Archives
• How Will New Devices Extend These Protocols?
- Filtering as Ringtone?
- Caller ID
• How Will P2P or other Collaborative/Cooperative
Technologies (or paradigms) Change Email Use?
- Always On (for Categorizing, Filtering and Automatically
Respondng)
Email on the Desktop
• Integrate Mailboxes with OS File
Structure
• Group Files and Messages in Interface
• Provide Direct and Indirect Manipulation
of Information
- Centralized on Servers
- Synchronized with All Devices (PIM Hub)
Email Use Improvement
• New System Evaluation (for Improvement)
- Real Users
- Actual Work
• Difficult to Get Individuals to Switch to New
Applications or Technologies
- Current Features Not Used
- No Learning Curve for Critical Application
- Lock-in vs. Import/Export
• More Difficult to Get Organization To Switch
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Installed Base
Migration
Licensing
Training