Email Address Derivation for Business Relationship Discovery

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Solution Overview

Problem

As organizations grow, traditional computer and email systems fail to effectively identify, organize, and leverage business relationships due to the complexity of maintaining and organizing outside contacts, leading to stagnated relationships and negative repercussions from duplicate contacts within the organization.

Innovation Solution

A method that receives and filters email data to correlate sender and recipient information, generates filtered email data, and determines relationships based on email traffic, allowing users to input target individual information to identify and prioritize relationships, even without knowing their email address, using statistical data to generate potential email addresses and classify relationships.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If traditional email systems are used to manage business contacts, then email communication functionality is maintained, but the system cannot effectively identify, organize, and leverage business relationships as organizations grow more complex

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveability to identify and organize business relationshipsVSAvoidorganizational complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by automatically collecting and storing email traffic data, sender information, and recipient information in advance. This allows the system to have relationship data ready when queries are made, eliminating the need for manual contact organization and enabling quick identification of business relationships regardless of organizational complexity

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system introduces an intermediary component that analyzes email traffic data and generates relationship information. This intermediary processes raw email data, correlates senders and recipients, and presents organized relationship information to users, bridging the gap between complex email systems and usable relationship insights

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Productivity

If organizations allow multiple departments to independently manage contacts, then departmental autonomy is maintained, but duplicate contacts and stagnated relationships occur

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvebusiness relationship effectivenessVSAvoidduplicate contacts and relationship stagnation
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system merges contact information from multiple departments by collecting email traffic data across the entire organization. It consolidates sender and recipient information into a unified relationship database, eliminating duplicates and providing a comprehensive view of business relationships that all departments can access

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring email traffic and updating relationship information in real-time. This ongoing feedback loop ensures that relationship data remains current, preventing stagnation and allowing the organization to respond to changing business relationships

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Measurement precision

If manual contact management is used, then data privacy and security are maintained, but the system cannot effectively leverage email traffic data to identify relationships

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverelationship identification accuracyVSAvoidtime to discover relationships
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs self-service by automatically collecting, analyzing, and organizing relationship information from email traffic data without requiring manual intervention. It autonomously identifies patterns, correlates contacts, and generates relationship reports, eliminating the time required for manual contact management while maintaining data security through controlled access

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

4Quantity of substance

If comprehensive email data collection is implemented, then relationship information completeness is improved, but data processing complexity and storage requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverelationship data completenessVSAvoiddata processing complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts only the essential relationship information from comprehensive email data, such as sender-recipient correlations, email frequency, and relationship strength metrics. By extracting and storing only the critical relationship attributes rather than all raw email data, it achieves complete relationship information while reducing processing complexity and storage requirements

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS8271597B2Intelligent derivation of email addresses
Publication Date: 2012.09.18 BANK OF AMERICA CORP
  • US8271597B2 patent drawing
  • US8271597B2 patent drawing
  • US8271597B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A method comprises receiving, by a processor, a query comprising at least one name of a target individual. The method further comprises determining, by the processor, a plurality of email addresses. Each of the determined email addresses has a respective prefix based at least in part upon the at least one name of the target individual, and the determination is based at least in part upon statistical data regarding common syntaxes for email addresses. The method further comprises determining email traffic based at least in part upon the determined email addresses. The method further comprises determining, by the processor, one or more relationships of the target individual based at least in part upon the determined email traffic.