The Coordinator Terry Winograd & Fernanado Flores Presented By Josh Introne Brandeis University

Contents Overview of The Coordinator Theory Implementations Summary

Overview MIS system based on Speech Act Theory A tool for interoffice communication (like ) about commitments, scheduling. Commitments are tracked. Conflict notification and reminders provided. Provides a method for filtering and visualizing status of current ongoing conversations.

Overview "Organizations exist as networks of directives and commissives." " People in an organization (including, but not limited to managers) issue utterances, by speaking or writing, to develop the conversations required in the organizational network. " "The Coordinator is a system for managing action in time, grounded in a theory of linguistic commitment and completion of conversations. Conversations are essentially temporal, both as a sequence of acts and in the wider context of conversations and action in a community or organization." ([F88],p.160)

Theory Speech Act Theory (Searle, 1979;Austin, 1962) Motivated by pragmatic aspects of interpersonal communication. The meaning of utterances is construed during the course of social communication. Knowledge is the result of an interpretation in context. The structure of conversations can be formally described at the illocutionary level (intended communicative effect). Modelled as "Conversations for Action" Describe possible sequences of dialogue acts and their interplay in progressive dialogue states.

Theory The CfA model is represented as the traversal of a state- transition network with arcs representing speech acts and nodes representing dialogue states. WF86, pg.64 -The basic "Conversation for Action"

Implementation Each message belongs to a particular conversation. User specifies which linguistic action each message serves. e.g. Request, Offer, Acknowledge, Commit-to- commit, Interim-report, Promise, Counter-offer, Decline, Report-completion. User specifies a time frame where appropriate. e.g Respond-by date, Complete-by date, alert date.

Implementation Converse Menu (pg.161) Menu generated for responding to a request(pg.161)

Implementation Menu's are generated by a conversational state interpreter. Messages are filled with default text to be embellished upon if necessary ("I promise to do your request," "No: I counter-offer"). Time-frames allow the Coordinator to track potential breakdowns and integration with personal calendar. Conversations can be retrieved by either status (conversational state) and/or time-frame.

Summary Organizations are structures for the social coordination of action, generated in converstions based on requests and promises. The Coordinator expands the individuals capacity to observe and assess the state of CfA's. The system will “coach” its user to operate in a system of distinctions that constitute and promote effective coordination of action. By teaching people an ontology of linguistic action... we find that they become more aware of these distinctions in their everyday work and life situations. They can simplify their dealings with others, reduce time and effort spent in conversations that do not result in action, and generally manage actions in a less panicked, confused atmosphere.

Commercialization Product of Action Technologies, Inc. (founded 1983; ) In 1986, a six month study was done with Pacific Bell. The study was not successful - no one used the system. Many subjects claimed that the system was fine, but that there was too much structure, and not enough flexibility. The system has been redesigned to allow more flexibility, but has not yet been widely accepted. There is little association between Winograd & Flores and Action Tech now

References Flores & Winograd (1986), "Understanding Organizations" Ch Management,Decision, and Conversation Winograd, T (1988) "Where the Action Is," BYTE(256a - 259) Flores, F., Graves, M., Hartfield, B., Winograd, T. (1988) "ComputerSystems and the Design of Organization Interaction," ACM Transactionson Office Information Systems, 6:2( )