Collaborative Data Objects Enhanced Chat in Support of Net-Centric Collaboration
Dan Winkowski, Michael C Krutsch · Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) · 2008
Today, chat is being used to form collaborative communities, within and across disparate groups, (e.g., DoD, Allies, Coalition Partners, State and Local Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations, Private Voluntary Organizations) working on shared purposes towards common goals. Collaborative Data Objects (CDOs) is a new, open, standards track, technology that brings chat into a net-centric world and improves the value of this light weight ubiquitous tool. CDOs are a method of adding tailored structured data (e.g., location, target, manifest, incident assessment task) to unstructured, conversational chat without disrupting the value that chat currently provides the DoD. In addition to organizing and providing a container for data focused conversations, CDOs provide a mechanism to expose the data, and the conversations, taking place in chat following the net-centric data mandate and turning chat into a DoD information service. Finally, the CDOs technology provides a mechanism for users within chat to invoke enterprise information services through the context of the CDO data structures and defined CDO specific actions. This capability reduces cognitive disruptions from application switching, eliminates re-keying errors, allows web service results to be integrated into the collaborative discourse, and provides a means to drive external applications (e.g. GIS displays). We believe that CDO-enabled chat is the new "command-line" of the enterprise.