Context-awareness in distributed communication systems

An alternative to the use of adaptive context-aware devices that takes on the role of the secretary, is to address the original problem, namely that the phone call as such is placed out of context. Creating technology that decides what is important or not, is, at least most of the time, much harder than presenting the proper information to the users and letting them decide. If this burden of deciding is placed on the receiver of a message there is little done to help the communication overload, but if it is placed on the sender it can be done as a part of the activity of placing the call itself. Providing the calling party with information about the context of the person she is trying to reach, even before she makes the call, makes it possible for her to decide when to initiate the communication and how.