Jump to Content

Media Release

August 12, 2005

IntelliMeet – making the most of meetings

Meetings are an integral part of business life and when run properly they help make organisations work more effectively.

Information technology (IT) researchers at the University of South Australia are looking at how IT can help support meetings and they’ve developed an intelligent meeting room to explore the possibilities.

Dubbed IntelliMeet, the meeting room is a system of integrated technologies that records meetings through video cameras and individual microphone headsets. A written transcript and analysis of the key issues discussed is then provided.

Set to be launched during UniSA International Business Week, IntelliMeet will be available for both research and commercial purposes.

Computer and information science researcher and IntelliMeet project leader, Professor Paul Swatman, said the system offers local businesses many services as well as the option to contribute to further research work the UniSA team is conducting.

“We have developed IntelliMeet to assist the business community in more ways than one,” Prof Swatman said.

“People can finish a meeting and walk away with a complete video and audio recording on DVD and a full transcript, which is in itself useful. By running the transcript through text mining software, Leximancer, we get a conceptual map that represents the main ideas and how they are related.

“The combination of a visual record and an analysis of the most significant issues covered during the meeting means that whether businesses are conducting a focus group, a strategy meeting or a brainstorming session, they will be able to make use of their meeting outputs in completely new ways.

“More broadly, the rich research data we can mine from the system will help us understand more about how teams operate, order tasks, share roles and make decisions in non-routine situations.”

Prof Swatman says IntelliMeet is also mobile so groups can have the system set up on their own premises.

“To research ways to make meetings more effective, we want to explore real meetings in real settings, so we can take the meeting room to them,” he said.

“It’s a facility that will aid any organisation or group that holds meetings. We are very excited about the launch and look forward to developing relationships and partnerships across Adelaide.”

Prof Swatman will be launching IntelliMeet at UniSA International Business Week

When: Monday 15th August,11am – 1pm.

Where: Imperial Room, Quality Hotel Rockford Adelaide.

For more information: Visit the International Business Week website http://www.unisaibw.kaz-group.com/events.asp or contact Prof Swatman at UniSA’s School of Computer and Information Science.

Contact for interviews

Media contact

top^