Policy driven online meeting updates

• US 20050144231A1
• Filed: 12/11/2003
• Published: 06/30/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Burckart, Erik J., Pulito, Brian L., Galvin, James Patrick Jr.
• Granted Patent: US 10,380,555 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A method and system is provided for policy driven, online meeting updates during the course of an electronic meeting. The invention defines one or more groups of participants in an electronic meeting, and assigns a unique relative priority to each group of participants. Meeting events, such as slide changes or other data that is sent to the various participants for viewing, are transmitted to the various groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priorities assigned to the groups. Alternatively, the invention provides for randomly staggering the delivery of data to the various groups. Both embodiments alleviate the scalability problems that arise for electronic meetings having large numbers of participants.

Claims

1. A method of conducting electronic meetings, comprising the steps of:

defining one or more groups of participants in an electronic meeting;

assigning a relative priority for each group, the relative priority for each group being unique to said group;

generating a meeting event for the electronic meeting; and

triggering logic to provide the meeting event to the groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priority for each group.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

transmitting the meeting event to the groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priority for each group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of transmitting further comprises:

staggering the transmitting of the meeting event to the groups by a pre-configured time interval.

4. A method of conducting electronic meetings having a plurality of participants, comprising the steps of:

generating a meeting event;

selecting at random a first group of participants from the plurality of participants, the first group having a pre-configured maximum number of participants; and

triggering logic to provide the meeting event to the first group of participants.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising the steps of:

transmitting the meeting event to the first group of participants.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the steps of:

selecting at random additional groups of participants from the plurality of participants, each additional group having a pre-configured maximum number of participants, wherein every additional group only includes participants not previously included in any other group of participants;

transmitting the meeting event to the additional groups of participants; and

staggering the transmitting of the meeting event to the additional groups by a pre-configured time interval.

7. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for conducting electronic meetings, said computer program comprising a routine set of instructions which when executed by a machine cause the machine to perform the steps of:

defining one or more groups of participants in an electronic meeting;

assigning a relative priority for each group, the relative priority for each group being unique to said group;

generating a meeting event for the electronic meeting; and

triggering logic to provide the meeting event to the groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priority for each group.

8. The machine readable storage of claim 7, further causing said machine to perform the steps of:

transmitting the meeting event to the groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priority for each group.

9. The machine readable storage of claim 8, wherein the step of sending the meeting event further comprises:

staggering the transmitting of the meeting event to the groups by a pre-configured time interval.

10. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for conducting electronic meetings having a plurality of participants, said computer program comprising a routine set of instructions which when executed by a machine cause the machine to perform the steps of:

generating a meeting event;

selecting at random a first group of participants from the plurality of participants, the first group having a pre-configured maximum number of participants; and

triggering logic to provide the meeting event to the first group of participants.

11. The machine readable storage of claim 10, further causing said machine to perform the steps of:

transmitting the meeting event to the first group of participants.

12. The machine readable storage of claim 11, further causing said machine to perform the steps of:

selecting at random additional groups of participants from the plurality of participants, each additional group having a pre-configured maximum number of participants, wherein every additional group only includes participants not previously included in any other group of participants;

transmitting the meeting event to the additional groups of participants; and

staggering the transmitting of the meeting event to the additional groups by a pre-configured time interval.

13. A system for conducting electronic meetings, comprising:

a meeting server executing a meeting policy configured to define one or more groups of participants in an electronic meeting, and to assign a relative priority for each group, the relative priority for each group being unique to said group; and

triggering logic to provide a meeting event generated by the server to the groups in a sequence ordered by the relative priority for each group.

14. A system for conducting electronic meetings having a plurality of participants, comprising:

a meeting server executing a meeting policy configured to select at random a group of participants from the plurality of participants, the group having a pre-configured maximum number of participants; and

triggering logic to provide a meeting event generated by the server to the group of participants.

15. An e-meeting update method comprising the step of inducing individual e-meeting updates at different times for different selections of e-meeting participants.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein said inducing step comprises the step of inducing individual e-meeting updates at different times for random selections of said e-meeting participants.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein said inducing step comprises the step of inducing individual e-meeting updates at different times according to a pre-defined sequence for particular ones of said e-meeting participants.