Method and apparatus for sociological data analysis
View Patent ↗A method to enable improved analysis and use of sociological data, the method comprising identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents, identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, proximate events of relevance, and enabling a user to query based on available characteristics.
1. A method to enable improved analysis and use of sociological data, the method comprising:
identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents;
identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, proximate events of relevance, and a tone used by an actor in the communication; and
enabling a user to query based on available characteristics.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of characteristics further comprises a predominant tone used in a discussion.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a percentage of communication with respect to a topic which utilizes a tone; and
tagging the communication with an appropriate indicator to illustrate a predominant tone.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying a pattern of tonal usage on the part of an individual actor with respect to other actors;
identifying deviations from the pattern of tonal usage; and
associating specific topics, actors, events of importance, or changes in communications patterns associated with the deviation.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
identifying unusual quotes or capitalization as indications of sarcasm.
6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
classifying an item as hot or worthy of special examination, based on a tone associated with the item.
7. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
displaying overall tonal content per time period for an actor, to identify anomalies.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the display is a matrix, with years displayed along the Y-axis, to enable a comparison on a seasonal basis.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
identifying, for a particular actor, divergence in tones in communications with different actors on a particular topic within a given timeframe.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
illustrating a range of tones used in communications between two actors over time, for sending and receiving messages.
11. A method comprising:
identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents;
identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, and proximate events of relevance;
enabling a user to query based on available characteristics; and
identifying the modality of the communication when displaying a discussion.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
establishing an actor heartbeat based on an activity level, the activity level differentiated between the modalities of communication.
13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
utilizing the actor heartbeat to identify periods of vacation, illness, or business travel.
14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
utilizing the actor heartbeat to identify missing activities or abnormally low activities to identify deletions.
15. The method of claim 12 , wherein the modalities include:
telephone, instant messaging, calendar, in-person meetings, creation of documents, and editing of documents.
16. A method comprising:
identifying causal relationships between a plurality of documents;
identifying a plurality of characteristics of a communication, including a modality used, actors involved, and proximate events of relevance;
enabling a user to query based on available characteristics;
evaluating actor behavior over time, to create a threshold behavior for the actor; and
identifying deviations from the threshold behavior.
17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
relating the deviation from the threshold behavior to relevant events.
18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the behavior includes one or more of the following: a reply cycle to communications, tone used, communications modality used.
19. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
displaying an average length and a total number of discussions for a topic selected by a user, as well as the number of discussions that ended in a meeting event.
20. The method of claim 19 , further comprising:
highlighting deviations from a normal number of such interactions for a particular occurrence of the topic.