ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a prototype system, called the Information Lens, that focuses on one aspect of this problem: how to help people share the many diverse kinds of qualitative information that are communicated via electronic messaging systems. It shows that general capabilities that help with information sharing can be used to support a variety of more specific coordination processes such as task tracking and meeting scheduling. One of the key problems when any group of people cooperates to solve problems or make decisions is how to share information. The Lens system is based on a set of semi-structured messages. For each message type, the system includes a template with a number of fields or slots for holding information. To the construction and use of message templates the templates are arranged in a network so that all subtypes of a given template inherit the field names and property values from the parent template.
