Miro Managing Meetings and their Results?

For some time we talked about the desire for enterprises to manage meetings. Their planning, efficient operation and gathering of results.   Next steps.  The integration of needed expertise. Things like who needs to do what and when, and how that fit into the process.  And visually!   We even built such a system, mentioned here.     Especially now after the explosion of remote group interactions has been so improved.   Now the integration AI and Chat AI capabilities could further optimize meetings.    Saw several attempts, demonstrated but they were not adequate.  Could Miro be the right direction?  Investigating Miro.com and will report later.   Thoughts?    Let me know.  - Franz  

Use of Chat in Meetings

Always thought better use of  chat in meetings would be useful, perhaps a means of asking questions of participants by an advisor?    Invocation of humor?    Microsoft research examines chat:

The rise of parallel chat in online meetings: how can we make the most of it?

Published August 3, 2021   By Advait Sarkar , Senior Researcher  Sean Rintel , Principal Researcher

Why do people chat – and is it a good thing for meetings?

PUBLICATION

The Promise and Peril of Parallel Chat in Video Meetings for Work 

To answer these questions, we conducted a study drawing on two sources of data: (1) the diaries of 849 Microsoft employees who journaled their experiences during the summer of 2020, when COVID-19 triggered widespread remote work and online meetings, and (2) a survey of 149 Microsoft employees that specifically asked how they used chat. The paper was accepted at the 2021 ACM CHI Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

In the survey, the overwhelming majority (85.7%) of participants agreed that parallel chat is a net positive. Only 4.5% responded negatively, and 9.8% were neutral. 

Chat messages themselves can contain a lot of different things: questions; links and documents; agreement and praise that add to what is being conveyed during the call; discussion of related and unrelated topics; and humour and casual conversation. .... '

Google: Duo and Meet: Making Moments that Matter

In the Google Blog, thoughts on making meetings more productive, and their package 'Meet'.   Seems I have used most other packages lately , but not their Meet.  Now connected with Gmail.  Now free and unlimited through the holidays.  Though it seems they have lost some of the inertia caused by the pandemic.    But I like Google's thoughtful look at the problem of how do you make these connections address meaningful goals, whether they are connected to home or business.

Google Meet and Duo help you share moments that matter   By Dave Citron, Director of Product Management, Google Duo & Google Meet

Without a doubt, 2020 was the year of video calling. And for us, that meant making sure every student, team, and family could jump on a call from any device and have a reliable, safe experience. Google Duo and Google Meet hosted over one trillion minutes of video calls globally. For perspective, that’s equal to more than 18 billion hour-long virtual workouts in a single year! 

Here’s a recap of what we’ve done so far.

Productive and engaging meetings at home, work, and school 

In 2020, Meet was put to the test. Our team had to really think through how virtual meetings could bring the key part of what in-person meetings provide: human connection. We launched new features like 49-tile layout, noise cancellation, background blur, and low-light mode plus live captions in five languages to help everyone follow along on the call. 

Earlier this year, we made Meet free for everyone. We also announced that with your Gmail account, Meet calls are unlimited through March 31, 2021 so that families can enjoy their holiday traditions without interruptions. Speaking of Gmail, we added a Meet tab in Gmail, so that with one tap, people can jump from an email to a video call. We also brought Meet to Nest Hub Max and Chromecast to help people get up, move around, and have hands-free calls at home. 

In large group settings like team all-hands or a classroom, it gets harder for people to speak up and to engage everyone on the call. With Meet, participants can use Q&A and hand raising tools, polls and breakout rooms. Organizations and moderators have more control too, keeping their meetings and participants safe, including advanced anti-abuse features, that allow for an enjoyable, safe experience for all. And in 2021, as many companies evaluate a flexible working model, we’ve designed Meet to work with our Series One hardware kits, created to deliver inclusive audio and video clarity that makes you feel like you're all together. So whether you're a Google Workspace subscriber relying on Meet's enterprise-grade functionality, or using Meet’s free version to safely connect with others near and far, Meet has you covered. ... ' 

Microsoft Teams to be Enhanced for Business Plays

Been looking for ways that the now numerous collaborative systems will really improve task and goal oriented business process.   Its still mostly the basics.  Very useful but hardly 'intelligence' in any sense.  For example a system that could analyze the essence of a  meeting and extract decisions like who agreed to do what and what support they need.  Schedule follow ups.  The below is not that, but I get the sense they are considering new things of real value.   We brainstormed some things like that in the early 00s.  Lets see it now.

Microsoft Teams gets an overhauled calling interface, CarPlay support, and more

Microsoft Teams will soon let you transfer calls easily between desktop and mobile

By Tom Warren@tomwarren in TheVerge 

Microsoft is overhauling its calling features inside Microsoft Teams today. A new calling interface will now show contacts, voicemail, and calling history in a single location. It’s designed to allow Microsoft Teams to more easily replace your desk phone, with built-in spam call protection, reverse number lookup, and the ability to merge calls.

Microsoft Teams users will also be able to transfer calls between mobile and desktop soon, allowing people to quickly move locations in the middle of an audio or video call. The Teams app will let people join without audio on an additional device, or simply transfer the call and end it automatically on other devices. Microsoft says this particular feature will be available in early 2021.  ... '

Otter Transcribes Zoom Meetings, It Also Needs to Augment Them

Now take it further.  Who has agreed to do what?     Wat input did we not get?  What resources and especially data do they need?  Has the meeting met pre-stated goals?  ...

This tool automatically transcribes your Zoom meetings as they happen     Otter.ai’s new feature can be launched directly from a call

By Jon Porter@JonPorty  in Theverge

Automated transcription service Otter.ai now integrates directly into Zoom calls to transcribe meetings on the fly. During a meeting, anyone on the call can click the “Otter.ai Live Transcript” button within their Zoom window to open up the Live Video Meeting Notes on Otter.ai’s site, and participants can then annotate them on the fly. Otter.ai quietly announced the new feature in a blog post earlier this month.  .... "

IBM Trials AI Soccer Commentary

Note similarity to the Wimbledon video clip management example.   As I commented there  I would also like this done as real-time assitistive commentary to business meetings.      Say determine who has said they will do and when.  Calculate costs and resources needed.  Calculate forecasts of measures towards goals involved over time.  Suggest possible unintended consequences and their contribution to risks.   And?

IBM Trials A.I. That Can Do Soccer Commentary
By Jeremy Kahn in Fortune

While doing play-by-play, the system tracks players in real-time and can identify passes, crosses and shots on goal. For pre-selected video highlights, it can also incorporate commentary based on statistics and standings drawn from a database, matching the information to whatever is happening in the video.

The system builds on work the company has already done in creating software that can automatically create highlight videos, honing in on the most exciting moments in sporting events such as tennis and golf.

The company is the official technology partner for several Grand Slam tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, as well as the Masters PGA tournament.

"Soccer is a more challenging sport in terms of what can happen on the field and the number of players the system needs to track," said John R. Smith, head of A.I. Tech for IBM A.I. Research.  ... ' 

Dialogue Mapping Talk

Will be attending.

CSIG (Cognitive Systems Institute Group) Talk - July 25, 2019 -10:30-11am US Eastern  

Talk Title: Dialogue Mapping with IBIS for More Productive Meetings  Speaker: Paul Fernhout, Software Developer 

Abstract: Tens of billions of US dollars a year are wasted on unproductive unfun meetings. Worse, even "productive" meetings sometimes fail to consider a diversity of opinions and so produce suboptimal decisions (e.g. Fukushima Daiichi's seawall height). How can Cognitive Systems help people make better decisions in meetings more quickly?  How can we help people with strong disagreements collaborate in mapping landscape of possibilities in a fun way?  One option is to visualize the thinking going on in a meeting using Dialog Mapping(TM) developed by Jeff Conklin and associates, which visualizes discussions using the Issue-Based Information Systems (IBIS) grammar consisting  of Issues/Questions, Options/Answers, and supporting Pros & Cons. This talk will explain more about Dialogue Mapping and (hopefully) provide a live demonstration. 

Bio: Paul Fernhout is passionate about helping people collaborate to make better decisions more quickly using computers. He has worked  as a software developer on decision-support projects for a wide variety of organizations ranging from non-profits to multi-nationals to  governments, as well as on independent FOSS projects with his wife related to educational simulations, evolutionary design tools,  information organizers, and Participative Narrative Inquiry. He has also written about technology and social change. 

Zoom meeting Link: https://zoom.us/j/7371462221; Zoom Call in: (415) 762-9988 or (646) 568-7788 Meeting id 7371462221 

Zoom International Numbers: https://zoom.us/zoomconference 
http://cognitive-science.info/community/weekly-update/ for recordings & slides, and for any date & time changes 

Join Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6729452/  (CognitiveSystemesInstitute)to receive notifications Thu, July 25, 10:30am US Eastern https://zoom.us/j/7371462221 
More Details Here : http://cognitive-science.info/community/weekly-update/

Via Karolyn Schalk,    Susan Malaika

Science of Productive Meetings

Ultimately an important element of efficiency, but the best way is to eliminate as many as possible.

Less Fluff, More Stuff: The Science of Productive Meetings
Author Steven Rogelberg discusses how management science can help business leaders plan better meetings.

Meetings at the office are so productive and efficient, said no employee ever. Surveys show that nine out of 10 workers admit to daydreaming while sitting in meetings, and 25% of the time is spent on irrelevant issues. But what if there was a way to make these mandatory huddles more meaningful – and shorter? Steven Rogelberg, a professor of organizational science, management and psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has some techniques to help managers do just that. He joined the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on Sirius XM to share some tips from his new book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

 An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton: Unproductive meetings have been a topic of discussion for so long, yet it feels like we haven’t fixed the problem. A lot has been written about it. How is this book different?


Steven Rogelberg: I think this book is in a very unique space because it’s leveraging science. For the last 20 years, I’ve been heavily engaged in science around meetings, and other folks have been doing science around meetings and teams. There are evidence-based solutions. These solutions are surprising. I’ll give you a quick example. Every book you pick up about meetings says to have an agenda. Our research shows that having an agenda in and of itself does nothing for meeting effectiveness. It’s a much more nuanced discussion.

Knowledge@Wharton: What are the components of a good meeting?  .... "

GoToMeeting Links to Alexa, Voice Transcription

Like to see the closer integration between voice intelligence and meetings.  A very obvious place to improve meeting efficiency and creating links for meeting supporting knowledge.    But all this needs to be very transparent and error free for it to work for business.

GoToMeeting adds AI transcription features, Amazon Alexa integration
LogMeIn-owned videoconferencing tool also gets text chat function. 
By Matthew Finnegan

LogMeIn has updated its GoToMeeting video and audio conference platform with new features that include a text chat function, AI transcription service and integration with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.

LogMeIn — which also owns cloud meetings tool join.me — acquired GoTo products from Citrix for $1.8 billion in 2016. This immediately positioned the vendor as one of the largest video and web conferencing players, with millions of customers worldwide. .... "

Alexa adds Better Smart Meetings

Probably essential if they hope to have a credible  Alexa for business.  Will be testing. Most of my issues were regarding the voice to text, rather than the appointment entering.

Alexa gets smart meeting scheduling, a boost to its workplace presence
Amazon says the new Smart Scheduling Assistant feature allows the popular virtual assistant to cut the time needed to manage personal schedules in the office. .... " 
By Matthew Finnegan in Computerworld

via Walter Riker.

Chatbots for Setting up and Maintaining Meetings

For some time have been using assistants on Siri, Alexa and Google to manage meetings.   And several times its been suggested that this kind of very common activity should be done by a meeting chatbot.  I agreed, but quickly found it was far less than trivial.  Sounds simple, but the complexity assistant logic among multiple human and machine agents is hard.    Which further suggests that further extending other multi agent intelligent conversations are not easy either.

Read this article for a good intro:

However trivial it may sound, creating an AI program to successfully schedule meetings is a monstrously difficult challenge. But the employees of X.ai are some of the most dedicated nerds you’ll ever meet. 

Author:  John H. Richardson in Wired. 
AI Chatbots try to schedule Meetings without Enraging us.

Voicera's Eva for Meetings

Just reviewing this capability:  Voicera   Have tried it once, will follow with more.

See also:  https://www.voicera.com/how-it-works/

" ... Make Meetings Actionable.

You focus on the people, we’ll help capture what matters.
Meet Eva, your in-meeting AI assistant.
Eva listens and records the conversation, helps take notes and identify action items to be organized for follow up. Connect what gets said to what gets done.
“It’s only human to forget to take notes. That’s why I invite Eva.”
Raphael Tremblay, Vice President of Sales, TableUp

Automated Note-Taking, Easily Share Your Notes, No Hardware or Software, Just Talk or Tap to Highlight, Eva works for all types of meetings .... " 

Cisco on Meetings

From the Cisco Blog, good points made, not very new,  but worth repeating.   Nothing on the possible use of AI attentive methods to gather data about what has happened in a meeting and how it relates to purpose and progress.

Improving the Meeting Experience, One Click at a Time    By Jens Meggers
If you read my blog posts, you know there’s one thing that is very important to me: meetings. It’s how business moves forward. Meetings are where we get stuff done and where we solve problems. That’s why we are continuing to focus on building tools that enable meetings to be as seamless and simple as possible. At the end of the day, we want everyone to focus on the actual meeting content and not the tools.  ... " 

Digital Whiteboards

Over the hears have met with a number of companies aiming to make meetings more effective, and attended many meetings.  Have yet to see it well done. Usually the process used itself is not effective. Most often now, its taking pictures of quite standard boards.   Cisco tries again.

Cisco's Affordable Spark Board Wants To Change How You Conduct Meetings    This plug-and-play wireless screen works as a wireless presentation display, digital whiteboard, and video conferencing tool. .... "

Chatham House Rules

This was brought to mind during planning for a meeting, I researched the background of the 'Chatham house rules', which we used at times when working with external experts:  From the Wikipedia:

" ... The Chatham House Rule or rules is a system for holding debates and discussion panels on controversial issues, named after the headquarters of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (situated in St James's Square, London), also known as Chatham House, where the rule originated in June 1927.

At a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to the meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion.  ... " 

Condensed Guide to Running Meetings

In the HBR: A good guide, we did most of these things in the enterprise, was a guide, not a set of strict requirements.

New at Qwaq

Received a note about updates at Qwaq: Virtual Spaces for Real Work. Much surprised they have not received more traction. We took a look a few years ago and I have posted on it here before. Similar in a general sense to virtual worlds like Second Life, it is far more business oriented and friendly. If you are thinking about remote enabled virtual collaboration, especially cases that require also connecting to data and visuals, this is worth a look. Used at Intel, Media X at Stanford and Fuji Xerox.