COMES: collaborative organizational memory system

This paper describes COMES (Collaborative Organizational Memory System) for supporting real-time collaboration in organizational problem solving. A related area of research investigates organizational memory or know-how systems such as Answer Garden and FISH. These systems are generally text-based and asynchronous. However, users must often repeat to exchange question and answer with each other to solve a problem; and only text-based information makes it difficult for them to communicate smoothly. Therefore, COMES allows organizational members to collaborate with each other in synchronous text-and-sketch based problem-solving forums connected via the Internet and makes its process retrievable and visible.