Rendezvous Conferencing System for Mobile Commitment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing instant group conferencing systems face challenges in ensuring participant commitment and providing sufficient context for informed decision-making, leading to ineffective or canceled conferences due to outdated availability indicators and lack of flexibility in participant commitment.
Innovation Solution
An automated rendezvous mechanism is implemented, where conference invitations are sent with context information, allowing participants to commit or decline explicitly, and a quorum of commitments is obtained within a specified time window before setting up the conference call, using a Group Rendezvous Conferencing System (GRCS) that interfaces with mobile devices to facilitate negotiations and setup.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If the system sends instant conference invitations to participants, then the conference can be established quickly, but participants may not be able to commit at the moment of invitation leading to cancellation
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by sending invitations with context information before the actual conference call. Participants are given advance notice with details about other participants and conference topic, allowing them to prepare and make informed commitment decisions before the call is initiated.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms by monitoring participant responses to invitations and using this information to determine when to proceed with the conference call. The system waits for sufficient commitments from participants before initiating the actual call, ensuring reliability while maintaining speed.
2Reliability
If the system waits for explicit participant commitments before initiating the conference call, then participant commitment is ensured, but the conference setup time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system sends out invitations in advance with all necessary context information, allowing participants to review and respond before the actual conference time. This preliminary invitation phase ensures commitments are made with full information while still maintaining relatively quick setup compared to traditional scheduled calls.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the invitation process based on real-time participant responses. It monitors commitment status and can proceed to call setup when sufficient commitments are received, or extend the invitation period if needed, optimizing the balance between reliability and speed for each specific conference.
3Loss of information
If the system provides detailed context information in invitations, then participants can make informed decisions, but the invitation message becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The invitation message is segmented into distinct components: conference topic, list of expected participants, timing information, and call-to-action. This segmentation makes the information easier to process and understand while maintaining completeness, preventing information overload.
Solution Approach 2:
The invitation mechanism serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides context information, collects commitments, announces timing details, and facilitates decision-making. By combining these functions into a single standardized invitation format, the system avoids message complexity while ensuring comprehensive information delivery.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and a system for supporting rendezvous based instant group conferencing among mobile users allows a conference originator to initiate and setup instant group conferencing to a set of participants even when the participants may not be immediately available to commit to the conference call at the time of its initiation. All negotiations for obtaining commitments from the participants are performed by the system, thus relieving the originator of the time consuming task of negotiating with the participants. The system automatically decides as to when to actually dial out to the participants to setup the conference call after obtaining commitment from all (or a quorum of) required participants.