User context based distributed self service system for service enhanced resource delivery

• US 8,306,863 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2009
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Biebesheimer, Debra L., Jasura, Donn P., Keller, Neal M., Lee, Juhnyoung, Rolando, Steve J.
• Primary Examiner(s): ADE, OGER GARCIA
• Application Number:
  US12/543,887
• Publication Number:
  US 20100049625A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,175 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and system of providing user context-based services over computer networks, using mechanisms for collecting and specifying one or more user context elements, each element representing a context associated with the current buyer state and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith, mechanisms for collecting affective (emotive) data to inform the user context, and also an interactive graphical view to gain insight into available services for assisting in understanding available service information and making decisions on purchasing.

Claims

1. A self service system for composing, delivering and monitoring content-based, service enhanced customized service bundles, the system comprising:

a computer system including one or more processing units to implement a service enhanced resource delivery program for buyers to select service choices, said computer system being configured for;

using affective or emotive data to assist the buyers in said service choices, including receiving from each of the buyers input identifying a buyer context for said each buyer and selecting types of affective or emotive data about said each buyer, relative weights to give to the selected types of data, and actions authorized based on changes in the data;

for each of the buyers, using said affective and emotive data and said relative weights in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of service response sets for the buyer, each of the service response sets including a bundle of services for said each buyer;

providing said each of the buyers with the plurality of the service response sets; and

identifying a relevance of each of said service response sets in terms of the buyer context of said each buyer to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the service response sets for purchase;

using said affective or emotive data to inform the identified buyer context of said each buyer to aid in said each buyer selecting and fine tuning of the service response sets;

receiving from each of the buyers input changing the weight given to one or more of the selected types of data; and

showing to said each of the buyers the effect on the plurality of the service response sets of changing the weight given to said one or more of the selected types of data.

2. A self service system according to claim 1, wherein the affective or emotive data is used to assist buyers during their selection and fine tuning of identified, relevant service bundles.

3. A self service system according to claim 1, wherein the affective (emotive) data is used to assist buyers in responding to recommended changes in service configurations during delivery of the selected service choices.

4. A self service system, according to claim 1, wherein the computer system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) to enable the buyers to select the types of data about them to be collected, the relative weighting to give each type of data, and the actions authorized based on changes in the data.

10. The self service system according to claim 1, wherein the computer system is further configured for

each of the users selecting additional service enhancers to add to the service response sets provided to said each of the users, directly comparing two of the service response sets.

11. The self service system according to claim 10, wherein:

a service provider views a service enhancer combination page for a selected user context, said page showing available service enhancers for a selected primary service; and

the service provider combines a plurality of the service enhancers presented in said page to see the effect on previously selected business effectiveness measures.

12. The self service system according to claim 1, wherein:

the computer system shows a two-dimensional plot including one data point representing each service enhanced resource delivery provided to the buyer over a time period plotted against the buyer'"'"'s own satisfaction rating of said each service enhanced resource delivery;

the service enhanced resource deliveries are in different domains;

said data points are coded to distinguish the different domains in which the buyer has purchased and executed service enhanced resource delivery;

the computer system receives input from the buyer comparing previously purchased service bundles to select one of said previously purchased service bundles as a best bundle to use as a template for selection of future service bundles; and

the computer system receives input from the buyer changing context attribute values, value resource parameters, and combined primary service and service enhancers criteria to obtain a desired response set.

5. A self service system for composing, delivering and monitoring content-based, service enhanced customized service bundles, the system comprising:

a computer system including one or more processing units to implement a service enhanced resource delivery program for configuring service response sets, each of the service response sets including a bundle of services for said each buyer, said computer system being configured for;

enabling service providers to use combinatorial auctions to configure said service response sets, including enabling each of a plurality of suppliers to view an auction request from a service requestor and to submit one or more bids to the service requestor, the service requestor initiating a reverse auction process for a new service package developed in real time in response to criteria and conditions specified on a user detail specification workspace, said criteria and conditions including affective and emotive data identified by the user, and relative weights identified by the user to give to the affective and emotive data;

receiving from the service requestor input changing the relative weights; and

showing to the service requestor the effect on the service response sets of changing the weights given to the affective and emotive data.

6. A self service system according to claim 5, wherein the computer system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) to enable the service providers to respond to reverse, buyer initiated auctions including proposals for the bundling of services from different providers.

7. A self service system according to claim 5, further comprising a network connection for connecting said computer system to the Internet, and wherein said network connection and the Internet are used to make real time recommendations to buyers.

8. A self-service method for composing, delivering and monitoring content-based, service enhanced customized service bundles, the method using a computer system implementing a service enhanced delivery program, and the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by using the computer system, from a buyer a query for a service and one or more user context elements, each context element representing a context associated with a current state of the buyer and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith, said receiving step including the step of receiving from the buyer input specifying relevant service selection criteria for expression of relevance of service results in terms of the user context element from the buyer, said criteria including affective and emotive data identified by the buyer and relative weights identified by the buyer for said data;

using said affective and emotive data and said relative weights, by using the computer system, in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of service response sets for the buyer, each of the service response sets including a bundle of services for said each buyer;

providing the buyer, by using the computer system, with the plurality of service response sets having services that match the buyer'"'"'s query, the user context attributes and user defined relevant service selection criteria;

presenting the service response sets to the buyer, including expressing a relevance of each of the service response sets in terms of the user context attribute values to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the service response sets for purchase and to enable increased specificity and accuracy of the query from the buyer,

receiving from the buyer input changing the weights assigned to the service selection criteria, and

showing to the buyer the effect on the plurality of the service response sets of changing said weights given to said one or more of the selected types of data.

13. The method according to claim 8, further comprising,

ranking the sets of service responses based on the service selection criteria received from the buyer;

and wherein;

the changing the weights assigned to the service selection criteria causes the rankings of the sets of service responses to change; and

the showing to the buyer the effect on the service response sets of changing said weights includes showing to the buyer the changes of the rankings of the sets of service responses caused by the changing the weights assigned to the service selection criteria.

14. The method according to claim 8 further comprising;

the buyer selecting two or more of the bundles of services, visually comparing said two or more bundles side-by-side, and ranking each of said two or more bundles based on the service selection criteria, and to fine tune interactively said two or more bundles to convey visually an impact of changes in a configuration of one of the bundles on the service selection criteria;

each of the selected bundles having one or more of a set of defined service enhances;

the buyer executing one of the bundle of services; and

during said executing one of the bundles of services, said buyer managing said one of the bundle of services by adding to said one of the bundles one of the set of defined service enhancers, and by removing from said one of the bundles and then one of the set of defined service enhancers.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein;

the buyer had previously purchased a plurality of defined service bundles; and

the method further comprises the buyer selecting one of the purchased service bundles as a template, and using said template to select one of the set of service response sets for purchase.

9. A tangible program storage device readable by a computer system, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer system to perform method steps for a self-service system for comprising, delivering and monitoring content-based, service enhanced customized service bundles, said method steps comprising:

receiving from a buyer a query for a service and one or more user context elements, each context element representing a context associated with a current of the buyer state and having context attributes and attribute values associated therewith, including using the computer system to receive said query;

receiving from the buyer input specifying relevant service selection criteria for expression of relevance of service results in terms of user context, said criteria including affective and emotive data identified by the buyer and relative weights identified by the buyer for said data;

using said affective and emotive data and said relative weights in an adaptive algorithm to determine a plurality of service response sets for the buyer, each of the service response sets including a bundle of services for said each buyer, including using the computer system to determine the plurality of service response sets;

providing the buyer with the plurality of service response sets having services that match the buyer'"'"'s query, the user context attributes and user defined relevant service selection criteria, including using the computer system to determine the plurality of service response sets;

presenting the service response sets to the buyer, including expressing a relevance of each of the service response sets in terms of the user context attribute values to facilitate said each buyer selecting one of the service response sets for purchase and to enable increased specificity and accuracy of the query from the buyer, and including using the computer system to present the service response sets to the buyer;

receiving from the buyer input changing the weights assigned to the service selection criteria, and

showing to the buyer the effect on the plurality of the service response sets of changing said weights given to said one or more of the selected types of data.