Agenda Planning System Using Email Mining and Feedback

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Solution Overview

Problem

Modern professionals often face inefficiencies in meetings due to the lack of agendas, which wastes time, as they frequently lack the time to generate agendas for each meeting they conduct or participate in.

Innovation Solution

An agenda planning system that generates suggested agenda items for scheduled meetings based on available data such as emails, previous meeting materials, and participants, using email searches and filtering to rank relevance, and adapts based on user feedback.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If manual agenda creation is performed, then agenda quality and relevance are improved, but time consumption and workload increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveagenda qualityVSAvoidtime consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by automatically gathering meeting-related information from emails, calendars, and documents before the meeting occurs. It pre-processes this data to generate agenda items in advance, eliminating the need for manual agenda creation at the last minute while ensuring comprehensive coverage of relevant topics.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables self-service by automatically generating agendas using available meeting data without requiring manual intervention. It autonomously processes emails, calendar events, and participant information to create structured agendas, allowing users to benefit from high-quality agendas without investing personal time in the creation process.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Productivity

If automated agenda generation is implemented, then time efficiency is improved, but agenda relevance and accuracy may deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvetime efficiencyVSAvoidagenda relevance
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The system incorporates feedback mechanisms where users can review, modify, and provide feedback on generated agendas. This feedback loop allows the system to learn from user preferences and corrections, continuously improving agenda relevance and accuracy while maintaining automated generation efficiency.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The system acts as an intermediary between raw meeting data and the final agenda output. It processes and filters information from multiple sources (emails, calendars, documents) through intelligent algorithms that prioritize relevant topics, ensuring that automated generation produces accurate and contextually appropriate agenda items.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Quantity of substance

If comprehensive data analysis is performed to generate agendas, then agenda completeness is improved, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveagenda completenessVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments the complex task of agenda generation into distinct modular components: data collection from multiple sources, information processing and filtering, agenda item generation, and output formatting. Each module handles a specific aspect of the process, making the overall system more manageable and maintainable while achieving comprehensive agenda coverage.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system achieves multi-functionality by processing various types of input data (emails, calendar events, documents, participant information) through a unified agenda generation framework. This universal approach allows comprehensive data analysis across different formats and sources without requiring separate complex systems for each data type.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS10002345B2Conferencing auto agenda planner
Publication Date: 2018.06.19 AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I L P
  • US10002345B2 patent drawing
  • US10002345B2 patent drawing
  • US10002345B2 patent drawing

AI summary

To generate agendas for meetings, an agenda planning system is provided. The agenda planning system can generate suggested agenda items for scheduled meetings based on various available data, such as emails sent on the topic, previous meetings materials, subject and participants in the meeting appointment. The agenda planning system can determine the topic of the meeting based on the meeting request or calendar invitation. With the topic or subject of the meeting, the agenda planning system can then mine various resources in order to determine possible agenda items. The agenda planning system can propose potential agenda items based on agenda items in previous meetings, and perform searches through emails sent between the meeting invitees and/or participants. The email search terms can be based on the meeting topic or subject determined by the agenda planning system.