iotum DEMOs Presence Management

According to the folks at iotum, they are scheduled to give the first public introduction of their Relevance Engine this week at DEMO, the conference scheduled for Feb. 6-8, 2006, in Phoenix, Ariz., devoted to emerging technologies and new products.

I've been writing recently about user-interface issues around the management and control of "presence" and permissions in multi-modal communications. My basic question is, given the multiple devices and applications we use for communications, how does the user manage who can get in touch and when and via which channels? What are the possibilities for user interface and user experience around this issue?

I've known something about iotum since interviewing iotum cofounder Alec Saunders in November 2005, but at that time he didn't have anything specific to show me about the user experience of their Relevance Engine, a technology built to intelligently route the right call to the user at the right time via the right device. As far as I can tell, The Relevance Engine is really only devised to manage voice calls, but I think the principles could be extended to multi-modal communications incorporating text messaging, email and instant messaging.

Now in connection with their presentation at DEMO, iotum has shared with me an interesting series of screen shots that shows how the user manages setup for the Relevance Engine. This series offers some good insight into the management of multi-modal communications, so I am reproducing the screen shots here with iotum's permission.

This opening screen shows the user the major steps in the setup process: Phones ==> Groups ==> Actions.

Next the user inputs his or her voice numbers for different contexts:

Next the user organizes contacts into groups whose calls can be handled according to rules (like permissions groups):

Here the user sees a listing of the groups he or she has set up:

Next comes the "Actions" phase. Here the user can determine under what circumstances calls can be channeled automatically to voicemail:

Next the user can assign priorities and capabilities (similar to group permissions) for each of the groups previously set up:

And here is a review screen showing a summary of actions the user has set up:

This is an account management screen for the user. Note that it gives access to each of the setup stages and also shows logs of calls and appointments:

iotum's interface for setting up the Relevance Engine is the most-developed process I have seen yet for configuring presence-management.

AB -- 2/7/06