Validating the tone of an electronic communication based on recipients

• US 10,574,605 B2
• Filed: 05/18/2016
• Issued: 02/25/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Pinel, Florian, Seabolt, Edward E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Christensen, Scott B
• Application Number:
  US15/157,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20170339082A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,378 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/063 Content adaptation, e.g. replacement of unsuitable content

Abstract

A mechanism is provided for validating the tone of an electronic communication being composed based on the recipients of the electronic communication. At least one tone of the electronic communication being composed by a sender and an identity of each of one or more recipients to whom the electronic communication is to be sent and the sender are identified. One or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients and at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications are identified in order to generate one or more preferred tones. The tone of the electronic communication being composed is compared to the one or more preferred tones. Responsive to identifying a tone discrepancy between the electronic communication being composed and the one or more preferred tones, a notification is presented to the sender.

Claims

1. A method, in a data processing system comprising at least one processor and at least one memory coupled to the at least one processor, the at least one memory comprising instructions that are executed by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to implement an electronic communication tone evaluation mechanism for validating a tone of an electronic communication being composed based on the recipients of the electronic communication, the method comprising:

identifying, by the data processing system, at least one tone of the electronic communication being composed by a sender;

identifying, by the data processing system, an identity of each of one or more recipients to whom the electronic communication is to be sent and the sender;

determining, by the data processing system, at least one of a relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients;

identifying, by the data processing system, one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients;

responsive to a failure to identify previous electronic communications in the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients, identifying, by the data processing system, one or more other persons having a same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications;

using the identified identity information of the one or more other persons with the same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications, searching, by the data processing system, a corpus of the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications for one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position;

identifying, by the data processing system, at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position in order to generate one or more preferred tones;

comparing, by the data processing system, the tone of the electronic communication that is being composed by the sender to the one or more preferred tones; and

responsive to identifying a discrepancy between the tone of the electronic communication being composed by the sender and the one or more preferred tones, presenting, by the data processing system, a notification to the sender about the discrepancy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identification of the at least one tone of the electronic communication being composed by the sender is analyzed for at least one of language tones using a linguistic analysis that studies the correlation between various tones and linguistic features in the electronic communication;

social scores based on the openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism of the electronic communication;

or writing style of the electronic communication using a linguistic analysis of each sentence.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients comprises:

identifying the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients from at least one of an organizational chart for the company where the sender is employed;

organizational charts gathered from websites associated with a domain name of an email of the one or more recipients representing the administrative realm for the electronic communication;

information from social media sites;

or a hierarchical or informational data structure.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients comprises:

determining a relative distance between the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of each of the one or more recipients.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients comprises:

searching a corpus of the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications for the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more of the one or more recipients.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients comprises:

identifying one or more other persons that have the same or similar position to that of the sender; and

using the one or more other persons that have the same or similar position to that of the sender, searching a corpus of information of electronic communications for one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from persons with the same or similar position to that of the sender.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications in order to generate the one or more preferred tones comprises:

differentiating between those previous electronic communications that were sent by the sender to each of the one or more recipients versus those previous electronic communications that were received by the sender from each of the one or more recipients; and

comparing the tone of the previous electronic communications sent by the sender to the one or more recipients to the tone of responses to the previous electronic communications received by the sender from the one or more recipients in order to generate the one or more preferred tones.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification notifies the sender that the tone of the electronic communication may annoy or irritate one or more of the one or more recipients.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification notifies the sender that the tone of the electronic communication may annoy or irritate one or more of the one or more recipients;

identifies one or more specific recipients the electronic communication may annoy or irritate; and

identifies a position of each of the one or more specific recipients.

10. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to implement an electronic communication tone evaluation mechanism for validating a tone of an electronic communication being composed based on the recipients of the electronic communication, and further cause the computing device to:

identify, by the computing device, at least one tone of an electronic communication being composed by a sender;

identify, by the computing device, an identity of each of one or more recipients to whom the electronic communication is to be sent and the sender;

determine, by the computing device, at least one of a relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients;

identify, the computing device, one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients;

responsive to a failure to identify previous electronic communications in the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients, identify, by the computing device, one or more other persons having a same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications;

using the identified identity information of the one or more other persons with the same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications, search, by the computing device, a corpus of the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications for one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position;

identify, by the computing device, at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position in order to generate one or more preferred tones;

compare, by the computing device, the tone of the electronic communication that is being composed by the sender to the one or more preferred tones; and

responsive to identifying a discrepancy between the tone of the electronic communication being composed by the sender and the one or more preferred tones, present, by the computing device, a notification to the sender about the discrepancy.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the identification of the at least one tone of the electronic communication being composed by the sender is analyzed for at least one of language tones using a linguistic analysis that studies the correlation between various tones and linguistic features in electronic communication;

social scores based on the openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism of the electronic communication;

or writing style of the electronic communication using a linguistic analysis of each sentence.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer readable program to determine the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients further causes the computing device to:

identify the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients from at least one of an organizational chart for the company where the sender is employed;

organizational charts gathered from websites associated with a domain name of an email of the one or more recipients representing the administrative realm for the electronic communication;

information from social media sites;

or a hierarchical or informational data structure.

13. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer readable program to determine the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients further causes the computing device to:

determine a relative distance between the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and the at least one relative position, rank, title, or standing of each of the one or more recipients.

14. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer readable program to identify the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients further causes the computing device to:

search a corpus of the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications for the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more of the one or more recipients.

15. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer readable program to identify the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients further causes the computing device to:

identify one or more other persons that have the same or similar position to that of the sender; and

using the one or more other persons that have the same or similar position to that of the sender, search a corpus of information of electronic communications for one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from persons with the same or similar position to that of the sender.

16. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the computer readable program to identify at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications in order to generate the one or more preferred tones further cases the computing device to:

differentiate between those previous electronic communications that were sent by the sender to each of the one or more recipients versus those previous electronic communications that were received by the sender from each of the one or more recipients; and

compare the tone of the previous electronic communications sent by the sender to the one or more recipients to the tone of responses to the previous electronic communications received by the sender from the one or more recipients in order to generate the one or more preferred tones.

17. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the notification notifies the sender of at least one of:

that the tone of the electronic communication may annoy or irritate one or more of the one or more recipients;

identifies one or more specific recipients the electronic communication may annoy or irritate;

or identifies a position of each of the one or more specific recipients.

18. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the at least one memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to implement an electronic communication tone evaluation mechanism for validating a tone of an electronic communication being composed based on the recipients of the electronic communication, and further causes the processor to;

identify by the apparatus, at least one tone of an electronic communication being composed by a sender;

identify by the apparatus, an identity of each of one or more recipients to whom the electronic communication is to be sent and the sender;

determine, by the apparatus, at least one of a relative position, rank, title, or standing of the sender and each of the one or more recipients;

identify, by the apparatus, one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients;

responsive to a failure to identify previous electronic communications in the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications sent to or received from one or more of the one or more recipients, identify, by the apparatus, one or more other persons having a same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications;

using the identified identity information of the one or more other persons with the same or similar position of the one or more of the one or more recipients for which there are no previous electronic communications, search, by the apparatus, a corpus of the sender'"'"'s history of electronic communications for one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position;

identify, by the apparatus, at least one tone of each of the one or more previous electronic communications sent to or received from the one or more other persons with the same or similar position in order to generate one or more preferred tones;

compare, by apparatus, the tone of the electronic communication that is being composed by the sender to the one or more preferred tones; and

responsive to identifying a discrepancy between the tone of the electronic communication being composed by the sender and the one or more preferred tones, present, by the apparatus, a notification to the sender about the discrepancy.