ADVISORY SERVICES NETWORK AND ARCHITECTURE

• US 20120107787A1
• Filed: 04/04/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zimmerman, Dana, Grudin, Jonathan, Sharma, Pallaw, Holder, Warwick, Lowe-Norris, Alistair, Maguire, Rick, Brinkman, Donald, Martinez, Frank
• Application Number:
  US13/079,464
• Publication Number:
  US 20120107787A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/322
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided to implement an advisory services network that enables organizations to identify complex business problems from apparent business problems, immerse a diverse group of people in the businesses of the organizations, and promote collaboration to develop viable solutions to the complex business problems. An enterprise organization can supply case studies of real-life scenarios, data, ethnographic interviews to convey multiple views of problematic areas, etc., to enable members of the diverse group of people to immerse themselves into the problem space, participate in creative communications, such as discussions, and brainstorm potential solutions. Further, the advisory services network can include a gaming platform on which instances of serious games can be developed and deployed. The serious games enables sharing of ideas among players, discussions among players, and other player interactions to facilitate compounding of perspectives and solutions among a diverse group while providing an entertaining and through-provoking environment.

Claims

1. An advisory services system, comprising:

an evidence store configured to retain a set of media items related to a real-world problem of an entity;

a browsing module configured to retrieve an item from the set of media items stored in the evidence store and provide the item retrieved for review by a user of the advisory services system;

a social interaction module configured to manage a discussion board through which a plurality of users drawn from a diverse group engage in communications regarding media items in the set of the media items stored by the evidence store; and

an interaction store configured to retain artifacts generated from interaction input from the plurality of users, wherein the artifacts represent the communications hosted on the discussion board,

wherein the browsing module and the social interaction module enable the plurality of users to collaborate to devise a solution for the real-world problem of the entity.

2. The advisory services system of claim 1, further comprising an evidence index module configured to receive the set of media items from the entity and store the set of media items in the evidence store.

3. The advisory services system of claim 1, wherein the set of media items include ethnographic information regarding the entity and the real-world problem of the entity.

4. The advisory services system of claim 1, further comprising an interface module configured to generate a user interface displayed to the plurality of users and to obtain user input from the plurality of users,

wherein the interface module is further configured to forward the user input to one or more of the browsing module or the social interaction module based at least in part upon a content of the user input.

5. The advisory services system of claim 1, further comprising a dossier store configured to store a digital dossier associated with the user of the advisory services system, wherein the digital dossier retains one or more media items selected, in response to input from the user, from the set of media items stored in the evidence store.

6. The advisory services system of claim 5, further comprising a dossier module configured to manage the digital dossier stored in the dossier store in accordance with a dossier command received as input from the user.

7. The advisory services system of claim 6, wherein the dossier module is further configured to, in response the dossier command, at least one of add a media item from the set of media items stored in the evidence store to the digital dossier, remove items from the digital dossier, reorder items in the digital dossier, or publish the digital dossier to a discussion thread managed by the social interaction module.

8. A method facilitated by at least one processor of a computing system, comprising:

obtaining a set of media and configuration information from an entity with a real-world problem for which a solution is yet to be found;

instantiating a network game based upon the set of media and the configuration information; and

deploying the network game on a gaming platform, wherein a diverse group of players interact and collaborate via the network game to solve the real-world problem based upon the set of media.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the instantiating the network game further comprises:

storing a set of evidence included in the set of media in an evidence store associated with the network game;

storing a set of narrative scenes include in the set of media in a scene information store of the network game;

linking the set of narrative scenes based upon the configuration information to generate a graph of narrative scenes representing a plurality of paths among the narrative scenes navigable by the diverse group of players within the network game; and

associating a subset of evidence from the set of evidence with each narrative scene from the set of narrative scenes.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving input from a player via a user interface of the network game;

evaluating the input based upon a state of the network game;

generating a set of commands for executing actions in response to the input; and

issuing the set of commands to a set of subsystems of the network game.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a selection command from a player of the network game;

retrieving one or more items of evidence from the set of evidence stored in the evidence store based upon the selection command; and

displaying the one or more items of evidence to the player on a user interface of the network game.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a navigation command from a player of the network game;

retrieving a narrative scene from the set of narrative scenes stored in the scene information store based upon the navigation command; and

displaying the narrative scene on a user interface.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a dossier command from a player of the network game;

obtaining a data item from a disparate subsystem of the network game when the dossier command is an add command; and

modifying a dossier corresponding to the player based upon the dossier command.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein obtaining the data item further comprises at least one of:

obtaining an item of evidence from the set of evidence stored in the evidence store;

obtaining an artifact of a social interaction made via the network game from an interaction store;

or

obtaining a second dossier corresponding to a second player.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the modifying the dossier corresponding to the player further comprises at least one of:

adding the data item from the disparate subsystem of the network game to the dossier;

removing a first dossier item from the dossier;

or

modifying metadata associated with a second dossier item from the dossier.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a social interaction command from a player of the network game;

generating an interaction artifact based upon a social interaction indicated in the social interaction command; and

storing the interaction artifact in a social interaction store of the network game.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

obtaining a referenced data item in response to a command in the social interaction command;

determining relationship metadata associated with the interaction artifact and the reference data item; and

storing the relationship metadata in the social interaction store in association with the interaction artifact.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising updating relationship metadata associated with disparate interaction artifacts affected by the social interaction command form the player.

19. A gaming platform of an advisory services network, comprising:

a game engine associated with an instance of a game and configured to manage execution of the game, wherein a variety of players participate who attempt to solve a real-world problem for which a solution is yet to be found based on evidence input to the game;

a plurality of data storage locations, comprising;

an evidence data store configured to retain a collection of data related to a complex business problem faced by a sponsor of the game, wherein the collection of data includes media files conveying ethnographic information received from the sponsor;

a scene information data store configured to store a collection of narrative scenes of the game, wherein each narrative scene includes a portion of a story and is associated with a portion of the collection of data;

an interaction data store configured to store discussion threads; and

a dossier data store configured to retain digital dossiers generated by players of the game; and

a plurality of subsystems, comprising;

a browsing module configured to select items of evidence from the collection of data stored in the evidence data store;

a scene navigation module configured to retrieve a narrative scene from the scene information data store in response to navigational input;

a dossier module configured to manage and maintain the digital dossiers stored in the dossier data store; and

a social interaction module configured to manage a discussion board via which players of the game can create discussion threads and participate in discussion threads.

20. The gaming platform of claim 19, further comprising a game builder module configured to generate the instance of the game based upon the ethnographic information and configuration information received from the sponsor.