National Science Foundation
Proposal #9961176

For:     System of Metrics for Business Communications


PROJECT SUMMARY


This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop planning for a phase II project to use the Internet for enterprise management. Advances in computer science and cognitive science make possible a method of business "metrics" for communication based on automated integration of time and information. Communication Metrics on the Internet connects information in helpful ways that support key aspects of human intelligence.

Research objectives are (1) to create a search capability on the Internet that assembles chains of chronology by subject content to show causation over specified time spans; (2) a means is needed to assign multiple subjects to chunks of information based on personal and organizational objectives that control how information is assembled for discovering causation, and to share knowledge structures that build and maintain shared meaning; (3) guidelines for clear, concise, complete communication support effective use of the Internet.

Research will apply experience developing and using these features for a PC program the past 15 years, and will obtain theoretical and empirical input from experts on application to the Internet. Phase I will establish design parameters that will be applied in Phase II. Experience the past 2 years creating Communication Metrics on the Internet indicates these features can be developed with proposed funding.

"Intelligence" can be used wherever cause and effect impact performance, e.g., business, government, education, law, medicine. Meetings, calls and analysis need "intelligence," because an expanding information environment causes constant error, increased cost, delay, stress and conflict.

Until now, only the human mind has been able to synthesize time and information to produce knowledge. The alphabet is the primary means of shaping and sharing knowledge, which enables commercial enterprise. Automated integration of time and information increases the value of the alphabet, so that a powerful new form of "intelligence" can enrich enterprise and all community life, which is the aim of communication.