Bridging Humans via Agent Networks

Recent drastic advances in telecommunication networks have enabled a newclass of human organization, the teleorganization, which differs from anyexisting organization in the following points.The organization is virtual and remote in the sense that people donot actually shake hands3 The organization is easy to create usingtelecommunication networks.People can join multiple organizations at the same time in a time-slicedfashion. Mouse clicking allows people to navigate from one organiza-tion to another. As a result, multiple organizations are threaded andproceed simultaneously for each person.The organization can involve people who may not know each other.Since no supervisor exists, organizational protocols based on mutualselection mechanisms have to be provided for creating and maintaininga satisfying organization.Suppose humans are required to organize/reorganize the groups by them-selves. Since teleorganizations will appear and disappear more dynamically1Teleorganization includes the organization that is composed of the employees who donot necessarily work at the same building, but instead use modems or some other formof communication device to work remotely. This example was suggested by Douglas C.Schmidt. In this paper, however, we will focus on more dynamic teleorganizations.- 142-