[ChNum] Chapter 7 [ChTitle] Mixing the reactive with the personal: Opportunities for end-user programming in personal information management (PIM) [Authors] Max Van Kleek, Paul André, Brennan Moore, David Karger and mc schraefel [Abstract] The transition of personal information management (PIM) tools off the desktop to the Web presents an opportunity to augment these tools with capabilities provided by the wealth of real-time information readily available. In this chapter, we describe a personal information assistance engine that lets end-users delegate to it various simple context- and activity-reactive tasks and reminders. Our system, Atomate, treats RSS/ATOM feeds from social networking and life-tracking sites as sensor streams, integrating information from such feeds into a simple unified RDF world model representing people, places and things and their time-varying states and activities. Combined with other information sources on the web, including the user's online calendar, web-based e-mail client, news feeds and messaging services, Atomate can be made to automatically carry out a variety of simple tasks for the user, ranging from context-aware filtering and messaging, to sharing and social coordination actions. Atomate's open architecture and world model easily accommodate new information sources and actions via the addition of feeds and web services. To make routine use of the system easy for non-programmers, Atomate provides a constrained-input natural language interface (CNLI) for behavior specification, and a direct- manipulation interface for inspecting and updating its world model. [H1] 7.1. Introduction The end-user programming systems presented in this book feature the common goal of empowering users who are non-programmers to construct custom computational processes thato help them with perform various types of tasks. In this chapter, we examine the application of end-user programming techniques to the management of personal information – a task which, for most of us, ordinarily consumes significant time and effort. Since different individuals’ needs and strategies surrounding their personal information vary greatly, as do their approaches at managing it, the focus on empowering users to construct their own custom automation is of great promise to this problem. The focus of our approach in this chapter is the construction of end-user scripts designed to execute automatically when certain conditions arise, which we refer to as reactive automation. Our motivation for examining reactive automation in personal information management (PIM) derives from the fact that the majority of While most of the PIMpersonal information tools we rely upon on a daily basis are still designed to facilitate user-initiated, manual access to and manipulation of information. By contrast,, human personal assistants, such as secretaries and administrative assistants, work autonomously on behalf of their supervisors, taking calls, handling visitors, managing contacts, coordinating meetings and so on. In order for personal information management tools to