Communication collaboration

• US 9,240,970 B2
• Filed: 03/07/2013
• Issued: 01/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Holzman, Michael A., Nebolsky, Charles, Walheim, Jon, Diamond, Steven W., Redey, Frank O., Socher, Larry M., Pierce, Christopher J.
• Primary Examiner(s): LIN, WEN TAI
• Application Number:
  US13/789,270
• Publication Number:
  US 20130238729A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,048 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1059 End-user terminal functionalities specially adapted for real-time communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/75 Media network packet handling
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q

Abstract

A communication collaboration system may include a memory storing machine readable instructions to receive a first signal representing a first mode of communication for a user. The communication collaboration system may further include machine readable instructions to seamlessly escalate the first signal to a second signal representing a second mode of communication for the user. The second mode of communication may be different from the first mode of communication. The communication collaboration system may further include a processor to implement the machine readable instructions.

Claims

1. A communication collaboration system comprising:

a memory storing machine readable instructions to;

receive a first signal representing a first mode of communication for a user, wherein the first signal is an audio signal;

translate the first signal to an intermediate canonical format;

seamlessly escalate the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to a second signal representing a second mode of communication for the user, wherein the second mode of communication is different from the first mode of communication, wherein the second signal includes video and audio signals, and wherein seamlessly escalating the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to the second signal further comprises machine readable instructions to;

seamlessly merge the audio signal associated with the first signal with the video and audio signals associated with the second signal;

determine a number of times the user associated with the first signal has initiated a communication session;

route the user to a predetermined representative of a plurality of representatives based on the determined number of times; and

provide advertising customized to a profile of the user during a hold in the communication session; and

a processor to implement the machine readable instructions.

2. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

receive a plurality of different first signals, including the first signal, representing different first modes of communication for a plurality of users; and

seamlessly escalate each of the plurality of different first signals to the second signal representing the second mode of communication for each of the plurality of users, wherein the second mode of communication is different from each of the first modes of communication.

3. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

record a communication session including the first signal representing the first mode of communication and the second signal representing the second mode of communication.

4. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

determine a first channel of communication from a plurality of first channels of communication associated with the first signal representing the first mode of communication; and

determine a second channel of communication from a plurality of second channels of communication associated with the second signal representing the second mode of communication,

wherein seamlessly escalating the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to the second signal comprises seamlessly escalating the first signal associated with the first channel of communication to the second signal associated with the second channel of communication.

5. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the second mode of communication is selectable by the user.

6. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the second mode of communication is selectable based on a capability of a communication device used by the user for the first mode of communication.

7. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

seamlessly escalate the second signal representing the second mode of communication to a third signal representing a third mode of communication, wherein the third mode of communication is different from the first and second modes of communication.

8. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

provide whiteboard capability with a communication session.

9. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the machine readable instructions to seamlessly merge the audio signal associated with the first signal with the video and audio signals associated with the second signal further comprise machine readable instructions to:

seamlessly merge, in real-time, the audio signal associated with the first signal with the video and audio signals associated with the second signal.

10. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the machine readable instructions to provide advertising customized to the profile of the user during the hold in the communication session further comprise machine readable instructions to:

provide advertising that includes a video and audio advertisement.

11. The communication collaboration system of claim 1, further comprising machine readable instructions to:

prompt a representative of the plurality of representatives that is part of the communication session including the first signal representing the first mode of communication and the second signal representing the second mode of communication to

record a video based on an interaction with the user during the communication session, and

transcode voice for the recorded video to text to provide for intelligent searching and generation of training library content for a training library.

12. A method for communication collaboration, the method comprising:

initiating communication via video from a first video endpoint to a second video endpoint, the communication including a first signal in a first video format;

receiving the first signal, wherein the first signal represents a first mode of communication for a user;

translating the first signal to an intermediate canonical format;

seamlessly escalating, by a processor, the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to a second signal in a second video format, the second signal representing a second mode of communication for the user, wherein the second mode of communication is different from the first mode of communication, and wherein seamlessly escalating the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to the second signal further comprises;

launching a new communication channel on each of the video endpoints, and

converting the first signal from the first video format associated with the first mode of communication to the second video format associated with the second mode of communication by separating signaling data from video content and passing the video content through a transcoder;

determining a number of times the user associated with the first signal has initiated a communication session;

routing the user to a predetermined representative of a plurality of representatives based on the determined number of times; and

providing advertising customized to a profile of the user during a hold in the communication session.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of different first signals, including the first signal, representing different first modes of communication for a plurality of users; and

seamlessly escalating each of the plurality of different first signals to the second signal representing the second mode of communication for each of the plurality of users, wherein the second mode of communication is different from each of the first modes of communication.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein seamlessly escalating the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to the second signal further comprises:

selecting the second video format for the second mode of communication by identifying the modes of communication available at each of the video endpoints.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein seamlessly escalating the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to the second signal further comprises:

launching the new communication channel on each of the video endpoints before converting the first signal from the first video format associated with the first mode of communication to the second video format associated with the second mode of communication.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon machine readable instructions for communication collaboration, the machine readable instructions when executed cause a computer system to:

receive a first signal representing a first mode of communication for a user;

translate the first signal to an intermediate canonical format;

seamlessly escalate, by a processor, the first signal translated to the intermediate canonical format to a second signal representing a second mode of communication for the user, wherein the second mode of communication is different from the first mode of communication;

determine a number of times the user associated with the first signal has initiated a communication session;

route the user to a predetermined representative of a plurality of representatives based on the determined number of times; and

provide advertising customized to a profile of the user during a hold in the communication session.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium according to claim 16, wherein the machine readable instructions when executed further cause the computer system to:

launch, for the communication session including the first signal representing the first mode of communication and the second signal representing the second mode of communication, a virtual meeting by

sending an invite to predetermined invitees, and

automatically uploading relevant materials for the virtual meeting.