WORKSPACE-AWARE SOCIAL NETWORKS IN AN ENTERPRISE

• US 20120198358A1
• Filed: 06/01/2011
• Published: 08/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Zhou, Chen, Arun, Gopalan, CARRER, Marco, Dhuleshia, Amit C.
• Granted Patent: US 9,071,567 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with generating social networks are described. In one embodiment, a method includes generating recommendations for expanding a social network for a user based at least in part on the user'"'"'s membership to a workspace and other members of the workspace.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying one or more workspaces;

determining members of the workspaces identified; and

generating recommendations for expanding a social network for one member of the workspace based at least in part on the other members of the workspace.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein a workspace from the one or more workspaces defines at least a work project and a group of members that are assigned to collaborate in the work project.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising generating a public summary of information for the one or more workspaces where the public summary is accessible to determine the members of the workspace and wherein other portions of the workspace are secured from access.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising defining the one or more workspaces as a nodes, and assigning a weight to one or more of the nodes that affect the recommendations of the members of the node.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more workspaces are identified by searching a corporate enterprise that defines the one or more workspaces within the corporate enterprise.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein generating the recommendations for a first member includes combining recommendations based on the members of the workspace and recommendations based on members of a contact list of the first member.

7. A system comprising:

a plurality of workspaces defined in one or more computer storage mediums, wherein each workspace defines a work project and includes a list of workspace members that collaborate on the work project;

a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a social network application configured to make recommendations to expand a social network of a selected user by;

identifying one or more workspaces that the selected user is a member of and determining other members of the identified workspaces based on the list of workspace members; and

generating the recommendations for the selected user based at least in part on the other members of the identified workspaces.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein at least one workspace within the plurality of workspaces is defined by metadata, and wherein the list of workspace members is defined by metadata.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein identifying the one or more workspaces that the selected user is a member of comprises searching metadata that defines the list of workspace members for each of the workspaces.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein generating the recommendations comprises generating suggested names of people that the selected user may add to the social network.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein a workspace from the plurality of workspaces defines at least a work project and a group of members that are assigned to collaborate in the work project.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the plurality of workspaces include a public summary of information where the public summary is accessible to determine the members of the workspace and wherein other portions of the workspace are secured from access.

13. The system of claim 7, wherein the social network application is configured to compare the list of workspace members from two workspaces and if a threshold number of members overlap, a suggestion to merge the two workspaces into one workspace is generated.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein the social network application is configured to generate and display workspace networks in a visual presentation as a workspace-centric layout where workspaces are display as connected nodes based on common members.

15. A method comprising:

for a targeted user, identifying workspaces that the targeted user is a member of;

determining other members of the identified workspaces based on a list of workspace members; and

generating recommendations to expand a social network of the targeted user based at least in part on the other members of the identified workspaces.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein generating the recommendations includes identifying names of the other members that belong to the same workspace as the targeted user.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein generating the recommendations includes:

determining an assigned working role for each member within the identified workspace; and

adding a weight factor for members that have a similar working role as the targeted user.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising comparing membership lists from two workspaces and if a threshold number of members overlap, generating a suggestion to merge the two workspaces into one workspace.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the workspaces are identified within a corporate enterprise.