Abstract:
A system is disclosed that integrates with conferencing platforms and provides real-time information by having intelligent agents running on a networked server that is integrated with the conferencing platform. The intelligent agents may be customized or adapted “on the fly” or be preprogrammed by a user or caller to examine real-time data feeds or actively search websites and other information sources. The agents then report any relevant information or content to the system for injection or broadcast into the conference.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The application relates generally to telecommunications and specifically to conference call technologies. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    As participants on a multi-person conference call discuss a topic of interest, the participants often encounter information deficit problems that may be characterized as: (1) the breaking news problem and (2) the missing expertise problem. The breaking news problem involves a lack of awareness of events occurring in real-time that may be of particular relevance to the discussion topic. The missing expertise problem involves the discovery of a sudden lack of expertise required to perpetuate the productivity of the discussion. The lack of expertise may include the need for a subject matter expert or additional information or data. 
         [0003]    These problems may result in a much less productive conference call and significant losses to an organization&#39;s potential productivity in total time lost. Additionally, these problems may sometimes be destructive to the progress and effectiveness of a business team by creating more problems than they solve, as participants may be acting on information that may be out-of-date or acting on potentially erroneous assumptions. 
         [0004]    The present practice for producing timely and accurate information relevant to a conference call in progress relies on the participants in the call either to manually seek out real-time news sources for relevant information or to receive email or voice alerts. In either event, the participants manually interject relevant information into the conference call in an ad hoc manner. The present practice thus relies on the diligence of the participants and requires manual interruption of a conference call. 
         [0005]    These and other problems are addressed in certain embodiments of the present disclosure. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0006]    These and other needs are addressed by the present invention. The present invention is generally directed to information collecting agents and the active or passive participation of the agents in conference communications. 
         [0007]    In a first embodiment, a method is provided that includes the steps of: 
         [0008]    (a) connecting a live communication between first and second participants; 
         [0009]    (b) during the live communication, searching, by a processor, a collection of information for selected information, the selected information being relevant to the content of the live communication; and 
         [0010]    (c) in response to locating selected information, providing, by a processor and during the live communication, the located selected information to one or more of the first and second participants. 
         [0011]    In a second embodiment, a conferencing system includes: 
         [0012]    (a) a conference bridge to conference together first and second participants; and 
         [0013]    (b) an agent operable, during the conference call, to search a collection of information for selected information, the selected information being relevant to the content of the conference call and, in response to locating selected information, provide the located selected information to one or more of the first and second participants. 
         [0014]    In a third embodiment, a method includes the steps of: 
         [0015]    (a) transmitting by a conference bridge a first audio output stream from a first participant communication device to a second participant communication device and a second audio output stream from the second participant communication device to the first participant communication device; 
         [0016]    (b) identifying, by an information agent, a first keyword in one or more of the first and second audio output streams; 
         [0017]    (c) searching, by the information agent, a syndicated feed (such as from an Internet aggregator) for the first keyword to provide selected information; and 
         [0018]    (d) providing, while the conference call is connected, the selected information to one or more of the first and second participant communication devices. 
         [0019]    The agent, in one configuration, is a real-time information-bot that collects information, such as “breaking news” simultaneous with the communication or conference call. There may be multiple agents connected, at the same time, to the voice communication. The agents commonly run on a networked server that is integrated with the conferencing system via a conference server application programming interface. 
         [0020]    The embodiments can have advantages over the prior art. By way of example, the embodiments can locate relevant, timely information, such as “breaking news”, without manual searches needing to be done by conference call participants. The participants are therefore able to pay greater attention to the actual discussion, thereby increasing the productivity of the discussion and of the project team. 
         [0021]    The Summary is neither intended nor should it be construed as being representative of the full extent and scope of the present invention. The present invention is set forth in various levels of detail in the Summary as well as in the attached drawings and the Detailed Description and no limitation as to the scope of the present invention is intended by either the inclusion or non-inclusion of elements, components, etc. in this Summary. Additional aspects of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the Detail Description, particularly when taken together with the drawings. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0022]      FIG. 1  shows a general network topology of one embodiment of the present disclosure; 
           [0023]      FIGS. 2A and 2B  show typical elements that may be present in an agent server and an intelligent agent in one embodiment of the present disclosure; 
           [0024]      FIG. 3  shows a more detailed relationship between certain elements in one embodiment of the present disclosure; 
           [0025]      FIG. 4  shows a flow diagram of the process of one aspect of the present disclosure. 
       
    
    
       [0026]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the general description of the invention given above and the detailed description of the drawings given below, serve to explain the principles of these inventions. 
         [0027]    It should be understood that the drawings are not necessarily to scale. In certain instances, details that are not necessary for an understanding of the invention or that render other details difficult to perceive may have been omitted. It should be understood, of course, that the invention is not necessarily limited to the particular embodiments illustrated herein. 
       DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0028]    A system and method for intelligent conference call information agents is described herein. Such a system and method may be implemented in a wide range of embodiments. While the present disclosure provides several embodiments of the present disclosure, individuals skilled in the art will understand that the embodiments described herein are not intended to limit the disclosure to only these embodiments. The present disclosure is intended to cover alternatives, modifications and equivalents that may be included within the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the claims below. 
         [0029]      FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of a conference call system with components and interconnections that may exist in one embodiment of the present disclosure. A conference bridge  104  is shown as being connected to an agent server  108  and a network  112 . As one having skill in the art will appreciate, a conference bridge  104  is a system or device that enables interconnection of a plurality of communication devices in a conference connection. A conference bridge  104  is well known in the art, and may comprise a dedicated telephony conference device or a general purpose computer. The following U.S. patent Publications are generally directed to conference bridges, and are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties: U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,095 to LeBlanc et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,534 to Driscoll et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,896 to Anderson et al. and U.S. Patent Publication 2003/0185369 to Oliver et al. Particularly preferred conference bridges are modified versions of IP Office™, Spectel 700™, System 70™, Quick Edition™, Partner™, Definity™, Communication Manager™, Magix™, Merlin Legend™ and Meeting Exchange™, all manufactured by Avaya, Inc. 
         [0030]    The network  112  is a computer network that interchanges data by packet switching and/or circuit switching. The network  112  may be comprised of multiple devices that are in communication with each other, and may include, for example, a hub, a router, an ATM gateway, a switch and a repeater. The network  112  may be, for example, a LAN, a WAN, the Internet and a wireless network. The network  112  may also comprise a public switched telephone network (PSTN), which is a communication network that interchanges data by circuit switching. As one having skill in the art will appreciate, a PSTN may comprise a plurality of central office switching systems, an interoffice signaling network and at least one service control point database coupled to the interoffice signaling network. 
         [0031]    Caller  120  represents a participant in the conference call. In this particular embodiment, caller  120  is in communication with the conference bridge  104  via the network  112 . As such, caller  120  includes packet-based and circuit based communication device including, for example, a cellular phone, a computer, an internet protocol (IP) telephone and a conventional touch tone telephone. As used herein, caller  120  is intended to include one participant or a plurality of participants. One having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that a conference call preferably includes a plurality of participants or collaborators. 
         [0032]    The agent server  108  is a device that integrates with the conference bridge  104 , and manages agent  110  by coordinating or marshaling information and communication between the agent  110  and the conference bridge  104 . In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the agent  110  is a process residing on agent server  108 . In another embodiment, the agent  110  is a process or dedicated device residing outside, but in communication with, the agent server  108 . The agent server  108  may coordinate information or data received from the agent  110  by prioritizing it and introducing it into the conversation according to specific rules. By way of example, in one embodiment of the present disclosure, data that is critical to a conference call may be given high priority, and the agent server  108  may, in these cases, be permitted to intrude into the conversation and announce or broadcast the information. The intrusion may be through one or multiple endpoints to the conference call. 
         [0033]    It is another aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  plays a passive role in the conversation, whereby the agent  110  monitors or receives voice data in the conversation and records the received data into a database. The communicated data may be raw voice data; it may be data that has been analyzed and converted into text; it may be both raw data and converted text; or it may include other types of enhanced data including, for example, whiteboard sketches, presentation and video conference data. 
         [0034]    It is one aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  is a process that searches and/or listens for information or news according to certain conditions, rules or parameters. The information may be particularly relevant to all participants of a conference call, or it may be of specific interest to only a subset of participants or a single participant to the conference call. The certain conditions rules or parameters may be implemented as a generic information access and delivery template (e.g., a web search engine) that could be customized by each user and use, for example, Boolean operators, or column and field-based queries. Depending on the needs of each user, the agent could be customized to select and filter real-time data feeds (e.g., syndicated feeds such as Internet aggregator) including, for example, really simple syndication (RSS) and Atom, and other feeds such as Internet radio, Video News websites, Youtube, news websites, enterprise resource planning software or customer relationship management software, such as SAP R/3™ or SAP ERP™ produced by SAP, Siebel CRM™ produced by Oracle, Human Resource or HR systems, and the like. For example, the agent can be pre-programmed to look and listen for specific types of current events keywords on one or more information feeds. The agent can find information relevant to the conference call discussion in near real time and notify one or more of the conference call participants, which is generally the host, that breaking news is available for review with optional, immediate insertion of the news into the bridge  104 . One having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that there are a wide variety of methods and combinations by which the agent  110  may obtain real-time data. It will be further appreciated that the source of a data feed may exist on the Internet or on a proprietary or private system within an enterprise network (e.g., enterprise knowledge base, database, contact directory, user mailbox, enterprise directory), which may be particularly useful when searching for information collected in a previous or concurrently held conference call. The agent  110  may draw upon text, audio, video or other machine-readable data formats. With most information sources now using keyword tagging techniques, it is possible to construct or program an agent  110  to search for and sort relevant information based on keywords as soon as the information becomes available. As a “live” participant on the conference bridge  104 , each agent can, under full control by the conference host, deliver the relevant real-time information, or breaking news, that the host determines is relevant to a currently active conference call. In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the agent  110  may be activated or programmed by a caller or other participant during a conference call that is already in progress. In this embodiment, agents  110  may be programmed in real-time by a host or participant caller  120  to search for selected topics (e.g., topics “X”, “Y”, and “Z”) as the topics develop or the need for certain information arises during a conference call. In this embodiment, for example, a host or participant caller  120  may selectively engage an agent  110  (e.g., by vocal command, DTMF or web interface) and instruct the agent  110  to search for certain information. It is one aspect of this and other embodiments that an agent  110  is used to find contact information for people or subject matter experts. As noted above, the agent  110  may gather contact information from a plurality of sources and convey the information on the conference bridge  104 . Searching for selected topics as they are revealed during the conversation to be important is preferable in many applications to searching using only pre-selected topics that were believed to be important before the conversation began. This embodiment is preferred for ad hoc conference calls or calls without preset agendas. It will be appreciated that an agent  110 , acting upon explicit instruction by a host or participant caller  120 , may have its search scope determined by the instructing host or participant caller  120 . That is to say, an agent  110  may be explicitly instructed to search, for example, a particular database, or a particular date range, a specific file type or specific file size. In another embodiment, each agent  110  has text, audio, video and/or data connections to the conference bridge, as deemed necessary. In another embodiment, agent  110  participation on the conference bridge  104  is arranged a priori by sending the agent  110  an invitation to attend the conference. The host can allow for each human participant to invite their own agents  110  to the conference call and have them participate, as deemed appropriate by the conference host. In this embodiment, the agent  110  may speak on behalf of a human participant with preprogrammed data or with other data fed to the agent (e.g., Twitter, blog). 
         [0035]    It is another aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  adapts its conditions, rules or parameters to the content of the conference call. This can be achieved by providing the audio data of a conference call to a speech to text module  274 , which translates the audio into text data (i.e., speech recognition). The resulting text data is then analyzed by information management software  258 , which extracts certain subject matter from the text data. One having ordinary skill in the area of data mining or artificial intelligence will appreciate the methods by which the conditions, rules or parameters can be augmented or modified in real-time to adapt to the conversation. 
         [0036]    It is another aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  listens to or records the conference call. In a preferred embodiment, the agent  110  listens to or records only relevant aspects or portions of a conference call. It may sometimes be desirable for particular aspects of a conference call to be recorded or memorialized for historical, auditing or other purposes. It will be appreciated that recorded conference call data may include audio portions and/or text data (having undergone transformation by the speech to text module  274 ), and that this data may be recorded in the database  262 . In a preferred embodiment, automated recording of relevant aspects may be achieved by an agent  110  that is pre-programmed to activate its recording functionality according to a predetermined agenda or other preset timing. In such an embodiment, the agenda may specify amounts of time set aside to discuss particular topics, and as can be appreciated, the agenda may specify the start and end times of portions of an agenda, or the agenda may specify durations of the various portions of an agenda. In yet another embodiment, the agent  110  may be pre-programmed to activate its recording functionality upon detecting certain keywords in the conversation that correlate to aspects of an agenda or that may indicate a transition corresponding to an agenda. In another embodiment, the agent  110  may be pre-programmed to activate its recording functionality when a certain caller  120  enters the conference call or participates in the conference call. In another embodiment, the agent  110  may record an entire conversation, and filter irrelevant or undesirable portions of the conversation. It will be understood by one having skill in the art that any agent&#39;s functionality may be selectively activated or deactivated by a host or caller  120  having sufficient permissions to control the agent  110 . It will be further understood by one having skill in the art that the recorded aspects of a conference call may also include, for example, text, chat, presentation, whiteboard and other data exchanged during the conference call. 
         [0037]    An individual human user or user group can, over time, create and own a growing library of independent, customized agents  110 , each of which corresponds to specific sifting and delivery tasks. For example, a first agent is configured to search for a first set of keywords and a second agent is configured to search for a different second set of keywords. Each individual user or user group can optionally train up a plurality of information agents that, over time, are tuned to provide custom information search and delivery behaviors. Owners of agents can publish/share their respective agents along with descriptions of how the agent is programmed. Further, the agents can be rated by users of the system for quality/utility so that new users of the system can easily find and make use of the best agents  110 . 
         [0038]      FIG. 2A  shows elements that may be present in an agent server  108  in one embodiment of the present disclosure. The agent server  108  in one embodiment includes a user control interface  204 , information management software  208 , a database  212 , an operating system  216 , an optional text to speech module  220 , an optional speech to text module  224 , a network communication interface  228  and an agent  232 . The user control interface  204  is the means by which a user can administer the rules to control the behavior and participation of the agent server  108  and an agent  110 . 
         [0039]    The information management software  208  is the software that implements the functions of the agent server  108  including, for example, creating or spawning agent  232  processes, communicating with agent  110 , communicating with the conference bridge  104 , communicating with a host agent  312  (See  FIG. 3 ), collecting and prioritizing information, transmitting information to the conference bridge  104  and managing agent  110  participation in a conference call. 
         [0040]    The database  112  is a data storage component used by the agent server  108  for information storage and retrieval. The database  112  contains user customized search settings and results that may be customized for specified information filtering and delivery tasks. 
         [0041]    One having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the operating system  216  serves as an interface between the hardware and applications (e.g., information management software  208 ) of the agent server  108 . 
         [0042]    The text to speech module  220  is a component that transforms text data into human-understandable audible data, and the speech to text module  224  is a component that transforms audible data into text data. It will be appreciated that the text to speech module  220  and the speech to text module  224  may be software executed by the agent server  108 , or the modules  220 ,  224  may be specifically designed hardware components that are in communication with agent server  108 . 
         [0043]    The network communication interface  228  is a component that provides the physical interface between the agent server  108  and the network  112 , and may include, for example, a network interface card, a fiber channel adapter, a radio transmitter, a radio antenna, an infrared device and a modem. 
         [0044]    The agent  232  represents a component that may be a hardware device in communication with the agent server  108 , a software process within the information management software  208 , or an independent software process spawned by the management software  208 . One having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the software process may be, for example, a thread, a subroutine or an object. The hardware device may be, for example, a component connected to the agent server  108 &#39;s serial port (RS-232), parallel port (IEEE 1284), industry standard architecture bus (ISA), peripheral component interconnect bus (PCI), universal serial bus (USB), small computer systems interface (SCSI) or IEEE 1394 interface (firewire). 
         [0045]    The agent  232  identifies words, phrases, and other symbols in the text stream of the conference call conversation and, when selected words, phrases, and symbols are identified, collects, in substantial real-time, relevant information and provides the collected information to the conference host. 
         [0046]    In one configuration, the agent  232  directly or indirectly subscribes to the conference bridge audio via a remotely located speech-to-text word-spotting service. This service, if activated by the host, would listen for keywords in the conference discussion using a speech-to-text engine. The agent  232  subscribes to the service and, as keywords are identified by the service and notified to the agent, the agent modifies the information search criteria adaptively as the discussion is in progress. 
         [0047]    Referring now to  FIG. 2B , a dedicated agent  250  is shown having components that may be present in one embodiment of the present disclosure. Similar to the agent server  108  as described above, the dedicated agent  250  has a user control interface  254 , information management software  258 , a database  262 , an operating system  266 , an optional text to speech module  270 , an optional speech to text module  274  and a network communication interface  278 . The user control interface  254  is the means by which a user or other application can administer the rules to control the behavior and participation of the dedicated agent  250 . The information management software  258  is the software that implements the functions of the dedicated agent  250 . The database  262  is a data storage component used for information storage and retrieval. The operating system  266  serves as an interface between the hardware and applications (e.g., information management software  258 ) of the dedicated agent  250 . The text to speech module  270  is a component that transforms text data into human-understandable audible data. The speech to text module  274  is a component that transforms audible data into text data. The network communication interface  278  is a component that provides the physical interface between the agent server  150  and the network  112 , and may include, for example, a network interface card, a fiber channel adapter, a radio transmitter, a radio antenna, an infrared device and a modem. It should be understood that the foregoing descriptions are substantially equivalent to the descriptions of the components of agent server  108 . One having skill in the art will appreciate that agent server  108  and dedicated agent  250  may, in one embodiment, be substantially identical components, except the dedicated agent  250  may be subject to the control of agent server  108  (e.g., having a master-slave relationship). In such an embodiment, the dedicated agent  250  is subjugated to the agent server  108  in a similar way as agent  232 . 
         [0048]    As used herein, the agent  110 , the agent  232  and the dedicated agent  250  may have differing implementations, but perform the same essential functions with respect to the present disclosure, and will generally be referred to as agent  110 . It will be understood, however, that references to agent  110  are interchangeable with agent  232  and dedicated agent  250 . 
         [0049]      FIG. 3  shows a block diagram of components in one embodiment of the present disclosure and the communication between the components and specific modules. The conference bridge  104  has an API  304  (application programming interface) and an IVR module  308  (interactive voice response). The API  304  is an interface by which applications or devices can interact with and access functions of the conference bridge  104 . The API  304  (e.g., a bridge control API (BCAPI)) may allow a host or administrator of a conference call to perform administrative functions including, for example, creating a new conference, opening and closing a conference, reporting the status or state of a conference, dialing out to a caller/participant, muting/unmuting a caller/participant, locking/unlocking conferences to new caller/participants and promoting or demoting a participant to moderator. The IVR module  308  is the component that enables detection of voice and keypad inputs. The IVR module  308  can respond to a caller or participant with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to direct users on how to proceed. The IVR module  308  can be used to control almost any function of the conference bridge  104  where the interface can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices. 
         [0050]    The figure shows a host agent  312  in communication with agent server  108 . The host agent  312  is identical to an agent  110 , but it may be designated as the host or moderator of the agents  110  that are associated with agent server  108 . As a moderator, the host agent  312  may be in communication with the user control interface  204  of agent server  108 , establishing, modifying and enforcing rules related to how the information from agent  110  is prioritized, and how and when the agent  110  may interact with a conference call. In another embodiment, the host agent  312  may serve to collect information from the agents  110 , then make a determination of relevance and priority, enter a conference call and broadcast the information accordingly. The broadcast may be made over the same or a channel different from the channel used for live voice bearing messages and the broadcast may be made over the conference bridge or over an endpoint of a selected participant different from the endpoint being used by the participant for the call. For example, the agent can transmit the information to the participant&#39;s personal computer while the participant is talking over a desk phone. In another embodiment, host agent  312  may be a user or caller  120  who is in communication with user control interface  204 . In yet another embodiment, a caller  120  that is in communication with conference bridge  104  may use the IVR module  308  to then communicate with the user control interface  204  of the agent server  108  and perform host functions. 
         [0051]    The figure shows an agent  316  in caller  120 . It is one aspect of the present disclosure that agent  316 , being functionally equivalent to agent  110 , is personal to the caller  120 . Agent  316  may be a process that is programmed or spawned by the caller  120 , or it may be a hardware device that interacts solely with the caller  120 , by exclusively providing the caller  120  with information. Further, agent  316  may be a device or process that resides or runs exclusively on the caller  120  device or system. 
         [0052]    The figure shows a control communication and a voice/DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) connection between the conference bridge  104  and the agent server  108 . The control communication is the method by which the agent server  108  can interact with the API  304  and transmit information to the conference bridge  104 . The voice/DTMF connection is the method by which the agent server  108  interacts with the IVR module  308  and broadcasts announcements to a conference call. The voice/DTMF connection is also the method by which the agent server  108  may listen to the content of a conference call and receive DTMF signals. 
         [0053]    It is one aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  delivers relevant information to the conference call bridge. As described above, agent  110  may be a dedicated agent  250  that communicates directly with conference bridge  104 , or agent  110  may be in communication with agent server  108 , which may collect, prioritize and ultimately transmit the information to conference bridge  104 . Information from agent  110  may include, for example, text, audio, video, images, documents and applications. In one embodiment, this information and associated metadata may be provided to the conference bridge  104  in all possible formats and thereafter the conference bridge  104  transmits the appropriate data/format to each respective caller  120  based on the caller  120 &#39;s connection, device and preferences. 
         [0054]    By way of example, agent  110  may transmit a relevant video to agent server  108  for transmission to the conference bridge  104 . Accompanying the video may be the associated audio information. Additionally, the text that was converted from the audio information by the agent&#39;s  110  speech to text module  274  may be sent to the conference bridge  104 . Alternatively, the conversion to text may have been performed by the agent server  108 &#39;s speech to text module  224 . Additionally, a pointer to the information (e.g., a uniform resource locator (URL) of the video) may be sent along with the video. It may then be a function of the conference bridge  104  to determine how to ideally transmit an appropriate level of information to a caller  120  or a dedicated agent  250  that is participating in the conference. A caller  120  with a connection/device that is only able to receive audio information may only receive the audio track of the video; a caller  120  that is connecting with a computer may be configured to receive the video, the text and the URL; a caller  120  that is connecting with a limited bandwidth PDA may only receive the text and a decimated (e.g., reduced sample, downsampled) version of the video; and a dedicated agent  250  may only receive the URL. Depending on the connection bandwidth, device capabilities, and caller  120  preferences, the information transmitted by the conference bridge  104  will have varying formats and richness. 
         [0055]    It is yet another aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  transmits information only to certain participants of a conference call. As noted above, metadata may accompany information from agent  110 , and this metadata may be used by the conference bridge  104  to filter or determine to which callers  120  to push the information. In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the caller  120  may have a “pull” type relationship where the caller  120  or dedicated agent  250  may retrieve information from the conference bridge  104  only upon selective indication. Alternatively, the caller  120  or dedicated agent  250  may receive notification that information is available for retrieval. It is yet another aspect of the present disclosure that the agent  110  or agent server  108  may notify the conference moderator and/or participants when new information is available, at which time the agent  110  or agent server  108  may receive a request that the information be played or broadcast to the conference. This notification could be, for example, an audio tone or series of tones broadcast to the conference or to the host/participant. Likewise, the request could be an audio tone or series of tones received by the agent  110  and/or agent server  108 . In such an embodiment, the caller  120  or dedicated agent may inspect the information metadata (e.g., keywords, title) and determine whether to retrieve the information. In yet another embodiment, the caller  120  may have a hybrid push and pull relationship where certain non-essential information is retrieved only upon selective indication, and other essential or urgent information is pushed and automatically broadcast to a caller  120 . 
         [0056]    In one embodiment, the agent  110  may use, as a source of data, a previous agent-enabled call. Furthermore, the previous agent-enabled call may be divided into sections or subsets (e.g., agenda, participant list, and decision/outcome). It is therefore another aspect of the present disclosure that a caller  120  may explicitly tag sections of the call for later retrieval. Tagging portions of a call may also be used, for example, to set permissions or levels of access to certain portions of a call. This may include, for example, tagging part of the conversation as public, and therefore accessible and searchable by anyone while other parts tagged as private are only accessible by callers  120  who participated in the call, or by a specific subset of individuals or agents  110 . 
         [0057]    In another aspect of the present disclosure, the caller  120  may selectively engage agent  110 , and instruct the agent to search for certain information. As one having skill in the art will appreciate, a caller  120  may directly interact with an agent  316  residing on the caller&#39;s  120  handset or system, residing on agent server  108 , or in communication with the agent server  108  and/or conference bridge  104 . 
         [0058]      FIG. 4  shows a flow diagram of the process of one aspect of the present disclosure. The process begins with either step  404  or  412 . In step  404 , a user creates an agent  110  by programming its parameters. This may occur on the agent server  108 , or on a device (e.g., host agent  312 ) in communication with the agent server  108 . The setup parameters may include, for example, the conference bridge number, the conference code (PIN), the time to call into the conference bridge, a prerecorded message to be relayed during the call, an agenda, search terms, a search string and the data feeds to be used. In step  408 , a session is created between the agent server  108  and the conference bridge  104 . As one having skill in the art will appreciate, the agent server  108  may initiate the session by calling into the conference bridge  104  according to the parameters specified in  404 . Alternatively, the conference bridge  104  may initiate the session with the agent server  108 . 
         [0059]    The process may alternatively begin in step  412  where an agent server  108  or, for example, a daemon running on the agent server  108  detects certain conditions (e.g., weather emergency, fire, weekly status meeting, 10% drop in stock price) and activates or spawns an agent. It will be appreciated that in an alternative embodiment, the conference bridge  104  may activate or spawn an agent  110  through the control communication channel for example by a conference host or other caller  120  acting through the IVR  308 . In step  416 , the spawned or activated agent  110  directly participates in the conference call as a regular participant (i.e., having the same access &amp; interaction as a caller  120 ). As illustrated in the figure, step  416  may follow step  404  in one alternative embodiment, and step  408  may follow step  412  in another alternative embodiment. After the initial steps, in  420  the agent  110  is a participant in the conference call either directly or via the agent server  108 . 
         [0060]    In another embodiment, the agent  110  or agent server  108  may initially determine in step  412  that a conference call should take place, the agent  110  or agent server  108  may then determine the relevant participants and agents  110  necessary for the call and proceed with setting up or initiating the conference call with the conference bridge  104 , programming the agents  110  and sending invitations to necessary participants. 
         [0061]    In step  432 , the agent  110  listens to the conference call and processes the audible content and other content (e.g., chat session, white board, presentation slides) to develop keywords or search strings. In  440 , the agent  110 , using the developed keywords, searches for context-specific information from external sources. In an alternative embodiment, in step  428  the agent  110  may search for information using pre-programmed search strings or parameters. 
         [0062]    In yet another alternative embodiment, in step  436  the agent  110  may collect portions or segments of particular interest from within the conference call. In step  444 , the agent  110  may then store the collected information in a database  212 ,  262 . This embodiment is preferable for historical and/or auditing purposes. It will be appreciated that the foregoing embodiments are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that certain embodiments may have more than one or all of the described features. 
         [0063]    In step  448 , the agent  110  communicates information found in the previous step with the agent server  108 . Alternatively, in step  452  the agent  110  may communicate information directly with the conference bridge  104 . As described above, the information may include text, audio, video, images, documents and applications. In  456 , the agent server  108  determines the relevance of the received information and prioritizes the information according to certain rules. The rules used to prioritize information may be call-specific, or may be a broad policy that applies to all conference calls. In step  460 , the agent server  108  transmits the prioritized information to the conference bridge  104 . 
         [0064]    The present disclosure may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative and not restrictive. The scope of the disclosure is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope. 
         [0065]    The disclosure, in various embodiments, include components, methods, processes, systems and/or apparatus substantially as depicted and described herein, including various embodiments, sub-combinations, and subsets thereof. Those having ordinary skill in the art will understand how to make and use the embodiments after understanding the present disclosure. 
         [0066]    The present disclosure, in various embodiments, includes providing devices and processes in the absence of items not depicted and/or described herein or in various embodiments hereof, including in the absence of such items as may have been used in previous devices or processes, e.g., for improving performance, achieving ease and/or reducing cost of implementation. 
         [0067]    The foregoing discussion has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing is not intended to limit the invention to the form or forms disclosed herein. In the foregoing detailed description for example, various features are grouped together in one or more embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the following claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodiment. 
         [0068]    Moreover, though the description has included description of one or more embodiments and certain variations and modifications, other variations and modifications are within the scope of the invention, e.g., as may be within the skill and knowledge of those in the art, after understanding the present disclosure. It is intended to obtain rights that include alternative embodiments to the extent permitted, including alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions, ranges or steps to those claimed, whether or not such alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions, ranges or steps are disclosed herein, and without intending to publicly dedicate any patentable subject matter.