FACILITATING A DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

• US 20090112782A1
• Filed: 10/26/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Trinkala, Michael D., Starling, Robert P., Porter, Brandon W., Ruff, Joseph, Clayton, Gary, Cross, Karen M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,504,621 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Systems and methods for facilitating a decision-making process are disclosed. In one aspect of the present disclosure, in response to receiving a request to facilitate a decision making process, the decision-making agent participates in a communications thread where users are attempting to reach a decision regarding a business to frequent and/or an activity to partake. Since group activities are oftentimes scheduled via common communication threads, the decision-making agent can intervene in such communication threads, when requested, and assist the participating users in making a decision or making informed suggestions toward reaching an agreement.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving from a user a request to facilitate a decision making process for a group of users, including the user, participating in a communication thread;

identifying a set of criteria associated with the user within which at least one suggestion towards a decision is to be made;

searching for a set of search results in accordance with the set of criteria;

generating a suggestion from the search results in one or more formats to be deliverable over the communication thread to each member of the group;

presenting the suggestion to the group.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of criteria associated with the user comprises one or more of explicit options and implicit options to be decided upon.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of criteria comprises one or more elements selected from the group consisting of a type of business listing, a type of activity, a time frame, a start time, a start location, an end time, an end location.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is a first user and the set of criteria is a first set of criteria, further comprising identifying a second set of criteria associated with one or more second users of the group of users, wherein the searching for a set of search results includes searching in accordance with the first set of criteria and the second set of criteria.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising randomly selecting the suggestion from the search results.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the suggestion is a first suggestion and the user is a first user, further comprising:

generating one or more second suggestions, wherein the first suggestion and the one or more second suggestions comprise a set of suggestions;

presenting the set of suggestions to the group via the at least one of the one or more communications protocols;

providing a facility for the first user and second users of the group of users to participate in a game to select the first suggestion from the set of suggestions.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a set of parameters having relationship data between the user and the group, wherein the set of criteria include the set of parameters.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a set of parameters associated with the user that includes a communication history, wherein the set of criteria include the set of parameters.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a set of parameters associated with user preferences of the user, wherein the set of criteria include the set of parameters.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, identifying a set of parameters associated with real-time geographical data of the user, wherein the set of criteria include the set of parameters.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising, identifying a set of parameters including one or more elements selected from the group consisting of a type of business listing, a type of activity, a time frame, a start time, a start location, an end time, an end location, wherein the searching involves matching the set of criteria to the set of parameters.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising, identifying a set of parameters associated with real-time information of a business listing, wherein the searching involves matching the set of criteria to the set of parameters.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising, identifying a set of parameters associated with special events, wherein the searching involves matching the set of criteria to the set of parameters.

14. A system, comprising:

a communications module to establish a communications session via one or more communications protocols with user devices over a network connection, wherein, in operation, the communications module processes user input received from the user devices;

a user database to store user data;

a content database to store business listing data;

a decision-making module coupled with the user database and the content database;

wherein, in operation, the decision-making module communicates with the communications module to generate a suggestion to facilitate a decision-making process based on the user input, the user data, and the business listing data.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising an audio repository module to store pre-recorded audio to be provided to the user devices over the network connection.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising a translation module to perform convert speech to text, text to speech, or both.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising a multicast module, wherein, in operation, the multicast module presents the suggestion to the user devices over the network connection.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more communications protocols include a protocol selected from the group consisting of an internet connection, an extranet connection, a LAN connection, a PSTN, a PSDN, a telephonic connection, a 3G connection, a GSM network, a PCS network, D-AMPS network, an SMS protocol, a USSD protocol, an MMS protocol, a WAN connection, and a Bluetooth connection.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more communications protocols include a protocol selected from the group consisting of an instant messaging protocol, comprising a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an Application Exchange protocol (APEX), a Presence and Instant Messaging Protocol (Prim), an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), an Open Mobile Alliance Protocol (OMP), an Instant Messaging and Presence Service protocol (IMPS), and a proprietary protocol.

20. A machine-readable medium embodying instructions, wherein the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause a machine to perform a method comprising:

receiving a request to facilitate a decision making process for a group of users on a common communication thread;

identifying a set of criteria associated with each of the users of the group of users within which at least one suggestion towards a decision is to be made;

searching for a set of search results to generate the at least one suggestion to facilitate the decision making process;

providing the at least one suggestion in a format to be deliverable to the group of users;

presenting the at least one suggestion to the group of users via the common communication thread.