Techniques for objectively measuring discrepancies in human value systems and applications therefor

• US 6,647,355 B2
• Filed: 06/06/2001
• Issued: 11/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Relational Technologies LLP
• Original Assignee: Proleamers LLC
• Inventors: Heinberg, Paul, Marabella, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Huff, Marc S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Barbee, Manuel L.
• Application Number:
  US09/875,611
• Publication Number:
  US 20020013676A1
• Time in Patent Office: 888 Days
• Field of Search: 702/108, 702/127, 702/179-181, 705/10
• US Class Current: 702/179
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Techniques for finding sets of values that are relevant to attaining desired results, determining discrepancies between how different entities regard a set of values, and employing the discrepancies to determine how well individuals “fit” with other individuals or communities, how well communities fit with each other, how an entity'"'"'s values compare with a desired set thereof, how an entity'"'"'s values change over time, and what progress an entity is making towards acquiring value hierarchies that are useful in attaining the desired results. All of the techniques involve having entities assign values to hierarchies, with the value'"'"'s position in the hierarchy being represented by a rating number upon which arithmetic operations may be performed. Discrepancies between value systems may be determined by comparing the rating numbers which the entities assign the values. Values and ratings of them that are useful for attaining a desired result may be found by selecting values that appear to be useful for attaining the desired results and having sources rate the values and specify how well they have attained the desired result. Values and ratings with a high correlation to the desired result can thus be found and used to establish an ideal hierarchy of values for reaching the desired result. Hierarchies of values of entities may then be compared with the ideal hierarchy.

Claims

1. A method of employing a computer system to determine how a first entity relates to a second entity with regard to a set of values,

the method comprising the steps of:

for each entity, receiving inputs into the computer system that indicate for each value in the set thereof a rating number indicating a position which the entity has assigned the value in a hierarchy; and

in the computer system, comparing for each value the rating numbers for the entities for that value to obtain a comparison result and using the comparison result to determine how the first entity relates to the second entity.

2. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the rating numbers belong to a predetermined range; and

in the step of receiving inputs, for each entity, each value is associated with one rating number.

3. The method set forth in claim 2 wherein:

a fixed number of values is associated with each rating number.

4. The method set forth in claim 3 wherein:

the number of values that have a given rating number decreases towards the ends of the predetermined range.

5. The method set forth in claim 4 wherein:

in the predetermined range, the rating number at one end of the range indicates a value that is least important to the entity and the rating number at the other end of the range indicates a value that is most important to the entity.

6. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

in the step of comparing, for each of the values, the difference between the rating number of the value for the first entity and the rating number of the value for the second entity is determined and the differences are added to produce the comparison result.

7. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first entity and the second entity are individuals and the comparison result indicates whether the individuals will be good matches for each other.

8. The method set forth in claim 7 wherein:

for each of the individuals, the step of receiving inputs receives a first set of rating numbers indicating how the individual applies the values to himself and a second set of rating numbers indicating how the individual applies the values to his or her ideal partner; and

in the step of comparing, each rating number in the first set of rating numbers for one of the individuals is compared with the corresponding rating number in the second set of rating numbers for the other individual.

9. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first entity is an individual being and the second entity is a community; and

the comparison result is used to determine differences between the individual'"'"'s values and the community'"'"'s values.

10. The method set forth in claim 9 further comprising the step of:

using the differences to determine whether the individual should join the community.

11. The method set forth in claim 9 further comprising the step of:

using the differences to determine how the individual is progressing in acquiring the values of the community.

12. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first and second entities are communities that are considering a closer association and the comparison result indicates whether the closer association is desirable.

13. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first and second entities are communities and the comparison result indicates how one of the communities is progressing in acquiring the values of the other.

14. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first and second entities are a single entity;

the values and ratings for the first entity represent an ideal set of values and ratings for the single entity; and

the values and ratings for the second entity represent current ratings for the values for the single entity.

15. The method set forth in claim 14 wherein:

the comparison result indicates how the single entity is progressing in acquiring the ideal set of ratings.

16. The method set forth in claim 15 wherein:

the single entity is an individual.

17. The method set forth in claim 15 wherein:

the single entity is a community.

18. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein:

the first and second entities are a single entity;

the values and ratings for the first entity represent a set of values and ratings for the single entity at a first point in time; and

the values and ratings for the second entity represent ratings for the values for the single entity at a second point in time.

19. The method set forth in claim 18 wherein:

the comparison indicates how the entity'"'"'s values have changed in the interval between the first and second points of time.

20. The method set forth in claim 19 wherein:

the single entity is an individual.

21. The method set forth in claim 19 wherein:

the single entity is a community.

22. The method set forth in claim 1 wherein at least one of the entities is a community of one or more individuals and

the method further comprises the steps of:

for each individual in the community, receiving inputs into the computer system that indicate for each value in the set thereof a rating number indicating a position which the individual has assigned the value in the hierarchy; and

determining the community'"'"'s rating number for each value by aggregating the rating numbers indicated for the value by the individuals.

23. A method of employing a computer system to find a hierarchy of values that is relevant to attaining a desired result,

the method comprising the steps of:

for a plurality of entities, receiving inputs into the computer which indicate the extent to which the entity has attained the desired result and a hierarchy which the entity gives values in a predetermined set thereof;

using the computer to find correlations between ratings of values in the hierarchies and the extent to which entities have attained the desired result;

retaining values whose ratings show a high correlation with attaining the desired result and discarding others that do not;

repeating the foregoing three steps with new values in addition to the retained values until a sufficient number of values whose ratings have a high correlation have been acquired; and

using the values and rating numbers therefore from the last iteration as the hierarchy that corresponds to the desired result.