Patent Publication Number: US-2009234721-A1

Title: Persistent collaborative on-line meeting space

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/015,682, filed on Dec. 21, 2007, entitled “A Persistent Collaborative On-Line Meeting Space,” which is incorporated herein by reference 
    
    
     BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY 
     Companies, teams, groups and individuals spend a lot of time in meetings. Most meetings are a “physical” process, you have to be “physically” present at the meeting to be effective. Most meetings are characterized by a coordinator/leader for the meeting, and others (attendees), as well as various stakeholders (e.g. management, employees, vendors, investors, volunteers, etc.) who may or may not be able to attend but need to participate and be kept informed in the meetings and their outcomes. 
     With the increasing number of people involved in meetings (e.g. management, employees, vendors and other relationships inside and outside of a company), information often gets hard to manage, track and disseminate to all parties involved or interested. Adding to that are the complexities of enabling people to contribute to, or even attend, a meeting in a timely and efficient manner; specifically, capturing ideas and feedback in real time, organizing them and making them easy to understand and share. This usually suffers due to the limited amount of time people have and the dispersion of people throughout the state, country or world that are expected to collaborate effectively. The ability to maintain attendance levels over multiple meetings and effectively disseminate the information to keep everyone informed is a growing problem in many environments. 
     One problem is that information collected during a meeting is usually summarized, distributed and maintained by one person. This typically results in the loss of input, filtering of the meeting inputs, and an increase in follow-up and overlapping communications regarding previous meeting inputs and results. 
     Except for meeting minutes, which are typically high level bullet-points or summary notes, attendees have no record of what happened in a meeting, who contributed an idea and when, or a way to visually correlate the meeting inputs to the discussions during the meeting. Some meetings are highly visual in nature, using tools like whiteboards, internet web sites, computer based presentations (e.g. PowerPoint), sticky note processes (e.g. brainstorming, affinity diagramming processes, etc.), and combinations there of. All of the meeting input, especially the visual inputs like sticky note processes are impossible to share effectively without significant effort to reproduce them electronically, and even then they do not retain their visual association as presented at the physical meeting. 
     Since most meetings are physical/visual processes, even with the advent of tools like web-ex, go-to-meeting and other internet based meeting tools, it is nearly impossible to make an effective connection to a meeting while remotely trying to participate and contribute to the visual/physical process. 
     With the technology described in this application, the “physical” process of conducting and participating in meetings can be effectively done in an on-line environment. A “persistent” collaborative meeting space can be created which groups and individuals can use to parallel the “physical” process of meeting but in a visual and real-time environment—with no loss of the process or inputs, no loss of when they occurred and/or no loss of who contributed or modified them. 
     Meetings can be “persistent” in that they never have to end and their content is not actually deleted, rather “snap-shots” can be created throughout the life of the meeting as items change to keep key history of input, process and organization related thereto. Meeting content can be organized and reorganized at any time by any participant with the appropriate permissions, and all content (its creation, reorganization and/or deletion) can be captured and maintained for future use/review 
     A meeting can be setup as a virtual meeting room of various subjects and content references which can enable participants to do various things, such as freehand draw on subject spaces, place external content, relate items to each other visually or using organization tools within the environment. Since meetings are persistent and on-line (using the Internet or any network), participants do not have to attend at a prescribed time to be effective in the meeting. Rather, participants can call/logon into the meeting; communicate via the meetings collaborative tools, voice and/or video conferencing services; and choose to attend at a pre-determined meeting time or catch up with the meeting at a later time. Participants who miss key meeting times in the collaborative space can “replay” the meeting to see what ideas were contributed, when and by whom they were contributed, and view this replay in real, accelerated or decelerated time including audio, video and movements/organizations of information. 
     Meetings can include tools for helping to capture inputs from participants, such as “virtual sticky notes.” Virtual sticky notes can be used as part of the collaborative process to facilitate input of multiple participants at various locations and enable a visual organization of ideas. The sticky notes can be “stuck” to each other, and organized in relation to any other object within the virtual meeting space. 
     Meetings, subjects and items can be “linked” to other meetings, subjects and items and can maintain the “linked” relationships as a snap-shot of the linked item, or as something that dynamically updates based on changes to the linked meeting, subject or item. Linked items can also change and push those changes back to other meetings, subjects or items. Meetings, subjects and items within the system can be given different security levels by a meeting participant or administrator to prevent unauthorized viewing. 
     Additional features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of illustrated embodiments. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
       Aspects of the present invention are more particularly described below with reference to the following figures, which illustrate exemplary embodiments of the present invention 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of an exemplary environment for a persistent interactive meeting space; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates how meeting participants in various dispersed locations can interact through in an embodiment of a persistent interactive meeting space of the present invention; 
         FIG. 3  illustrates the flow of meeting topics into the system, through interactive discussions resulting in outputs for distribution to various interested parties; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates an embodiment of a meeting interface; 
         FIG. 5  illustrates one embodiment of system organization by projects and meetings, and a screen shot of an alternative virtual meeting space for a selected meeting; 
         FIG. 6  illustrates an embodiment of system organization by projects and meetings with each meeting having an agenda with objectives and a hyperlink to the virtual meeting space or recording; 
         FIG. 7  illustrates an embodiment of the on-line meeting interface with an organizer pane, view port and other features; 
         FIGS. 8A and 8B  illustrate an embodiment of a meeting organizer and alternative orientations for the meeting organizer; 
         FIG. 9  illustrates an example of a note object and some of the possible capabilities for a note object; 
         FIGS. 10 and 11  illustrate an embodiment of the parent-child associations and behaviors of note objects; 
         FIG. 12  illustrates an embodiment of the movement of note objects into a group pane; 
         FIG. 13  illustrates an embodiment of the reorganization of note objects within a group pane; 
         FIG. 14  illustrates an embodiment of the reorganization of group panes; 
         FIG. 15  illustrates an embodiment of a stone and its grouping attributes; 
         FIG. 16  illustrates an embodiment of a note with an anchor property and some of the attributes of the anchor property; 
         FIGS. 17A , B and C illustrate some equivalents of the embodiments of different organizational tools; 
         FIG. 18A  illustrates a notes grouping method using a lasso with an anchor note; 
         FIG. 18B  illustrates the notes grouping method of  FIG. 20A  without an anchor note; 
         FIGS. 19A and 19B  illustrate embodiments of relationships between notes and other objects; and 
         FIG. 20  illustrates an embodiment of a virtual scrolling through a stack of note objects. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS 
     With the advent of new internet technologies and processes and the technology described in this application, the “physical” process of conducting and participating in meetings can be effectively done in an on-line environment. A “persistent” collaborative meeting space can be created which companies, groups and individuals can use to parallel the “physical” process of meeting but in a visual and real-time environment. This meeting space can enable no loss of the process or inputs, no loss of when they happened and/or no loss of who contributed to them or changed their content. 
     Meeting coordinators can setup meetings, establish meeting participation requirements and permissions, send meeting invitations and maintain control of the meeting process. 
     Meetings are “persistent” in that they never have to end and their content is not actually deleted, rather “snap-shots” can be created throughout the life of the meeting as items change to keep key history of input, process and organization related thereto. Meeting content can be organized and reorganized at any time by any participant with the appropriate permissions, and all content (its creation, reorganization and/or deletion) is captured and maintained for future use/review. 
     A meeting can be setup as a virtual meeting room of various subjects and content references which can enable participants to do various things, such as freehand draw on subject spaces, place external content (e.g., documents, images, hyperlinks, and other commonly known/anticipated items), and relate items to each other visually or using organization tools within the environment. 
     Since meetings are “persistent” and on-line (using the Internet or any network), participants do not have to be “physically” in attendance at a prescribed time to be effective in the meeting. Participants can call/logon into the meeting; communicate via the meetings collaborative tools, voice and/or video conferencing services; and choose to attend at a pre-determined meeting time or catch up with the meeting at a later time (e.g. due to travel, time zone differences, etc.). Participants who miss key meeting times in the collaborative space can “replay” the meeting to see what ideas were contributed, when and by whom they were contributed, and view this replay in real, accelerated or decelerated time including audio, video and movements/organizations of information. 
       FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of an exemplary environment for a system according to the present invention. The environment  100  includes a communications network  120 , at least one server computing device  140 , and at least one of a plurality of client computing devices  160 . The communications network  120  operably couples the server computing device  140  and the client computing devices  160  such that the server computing device  140  and the client computing devices  160  may share information. The communications network  120  can be the Internet, and/or any other suitable collection of devices that is connected to share information. It should be readily appreciated that the communications network  120  may include multiple public and/or private Local Area Networks (“LANs”) and/or Wide Area Networks (“WANs”) that are operably coupled to one another via routers, switches, hubs, gateways, firewalls, and/or other devices (not shown). Additionally, it is noted that the communications network  120  may include a hardwired telephone network, a wireless telephone network, and/or a satellite network. Of course the system can be operated in other environments known to those of skill in the art, for example peer-to-peer and other network types and topologies. 
     In general, the server computing device  140  can be implemented with a server computer system or web server. The server computing device  140  may also include network server appliances, server farms, server clusters, network accessible storage devices, and/or any other device suitable for executing operations according to the present invention. In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 1 , the server computing device  140  includes a processor  142 , a storage device  144 , memory  146 , a network interface  148 , and a system bus  150 . 
     The processor  142  is generally operable to obtain software and/or firmware instructions from the storage device  144 , load them into memory  146 , and execute the instructions from memory  146 . The storage device  144  is generally operable to store data and/or software instructions for the server computing device  140 . The storage device  144  can include a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD drive, and/or any other suitable computer readable and/or writeable media device. Additionally, the storage device  144  may include multiple media devices and may be distributed among several computing devices such as other servers of a server farm, other database servers, or other network accessible storage (“NAS”) devices. 
     Memory  146  stores data and instructions used by the processor  142 . The memory  146  can include random access memory for storing the data and software instructions needed by the processor  142 . Alternatively, memory  146  may include other locally available or remotely distributed volatile and/or non-volatile storage mediums. The network interface  148  operably couples the server computing device  140  to the communications network  120  such that the server computing device  140  may communicate with the at least one of the plurality of client computing devices that are also operably coupled to the communications network  120 . The system bus  150  is generally operable to interconnect the processor  142 , the storage device  144 , memory  146 , and the network interface  148 , and to enable these components of the server computing device  140  to communicate with one another. 
     The client computing devices  160  can have various different embodiments, for example a desktop or portable computer, a handheld computer, a PDA, an Internet enabled cellular telephone, a set-top box, a network appliance, a gaming console and/or any other suitable network enabled computing device. An exemplary embodiment for the client computing device  160  shown in  FIG. 1  includes a processor  162 , a storage device  164 , memory  166 , a network interface  168 , one or more user I/O devices  170 , and a system bus  172 . 
     The processor  162  is generally operable to obtain software and/or firmware instructions from the storage device  164  or delivered from the server computer device  140  via the network  120  and the network interface  168 , load them into memory  166 , and execute the instructions from memory  166 . The storage device  164  is generally operable to store data and/or software instructions for the client computing device  160 . The storage device  164  may include a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-RAM drive, and/or other suitable computer readable and/or writeable media device. Additionally, the storage device  164  may include multiple media devices and may be distributed among several computing devices or other Network Accessible Storage (NAS) devices. 
     Memory  166  stores data and instructions used by the processor  162 . The memory  166  can include volatile and/or non-volatile memory types. The network interface  168  operably couples the client computing device  160  to the communications network  120  such that the client computing device  160  may communicate with the server computing device  140  and/or other client computing devices  160  via the communications network  120 . The system bus  172  is generally operable to enable the various components of the client computing device  160  to communicate with one another. 
     The client computing device  160  can also include one or more user I/O devices  170 . In general, the user I/O devices  170  provide a user of the client computing device  160 , with mechanisms for entering information into, receiving information from, and/or controlling the operation of the client computing device  160  and/or the server computer device  140 . The user I/O devices  170  can include displays, monitors, printers, and/or other output devices; sound cards, speakers, microphones, video cameras and/or other audio-video devices; a mouse, keyboard, touch pad, scanner, touch screen, disc drive, and/or other input devices. 
     The above described components of the server computing device  140  and the client computing device  160  are merely exemplary and in alternative embodiments those skilled in the art may elect to replace all or portions of these devices with other suitable components. 
     Meetings include tools for helping to capture inputs from participants. A common tool in a physical meeting space are “sticky notes”, which are commonly used to encourage brainstorming and organization of ideas using affinity diagramming techniques (as devised by Jir Kawakita in the 1960s—sometimes referred to as the KJ Method). As shown in  FIG. 2 , the present invention can use virtual sticky notes as one method of the collaborative process to facilitate the immediate input by multiple participants at various locations and enable a visual organization of ideas. When any participant creates and places a sticky-note, it can be displayed for all other participants at their respective locations to view, comment on, position and otherwise interact with. A “tactile” process (similar to the physical world) can be visually presented in that the sticky notes can have an audible and visual component to their manipulation and interaction by the participants. The sticky notes, as in the physical world, may be “stuck” to each other, and organized/presented in relation to any other object within the meeting and subject spaces. This would include the various methods of stacking them, and sticking them together as in the “physical” world. 
     Meetings, subjects and items within the system can be “linked” to other meetings, subjects and items and can maintain the “linked” relationships as a snap-shot of the linked item, or as something that dynamically updates based on changes to the linked meeting, subject or item. Linked items can also change and push those changes back to other meetings, subjects or items. Meetings, subjects and items within the system can be identified as “publicly” distributable or “private/classified” information by a meeting participant or administrator with appropriate permissions. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates a team space meeting interface  30  that can be used to hold the content of various meetings. The team space  30  includes a meeting list  32  and a meeting workspace  36 . When the user selects a meeting in the meeting list  32 , content associated with the selected meeting is displayed in the meeting workspace  36 . In the example of  FIG. 3 , a meeting  34  has been selected in the meeting list  32 , and a subject pane  38  and an issue pane  40  associated with the selected meeting  34  are displayed in the meeting workspace  36 . A meeting can be held to address needs, problems, questions, issues and other topics regarding a particular subject. Content and ideas can be contributed by participants by entries into the appropriate working space during a scheduled meeting time, or at their convenience when they can logon to the system. At any time during this meeting process, outputs can be generated for management, stakeholders, participants or others. The outputs can include next steps reports, presentations, specified deliverables or other outputs. Embodiments of the system can automatically distribute or make available content reports and/or outputs to participants and stakeholders through the software, or through commonly used tools like standard e-mail, XML (Extensible Markup Language), RSS (Really Simple Syndication) protocol, BLOGs (on-line narratives), etc. 
       FIG. 4  provides an enlarged view of the meeting interface  30  shown in  FIG. 3 . This embodiment of a meeting interface  30  includes a title bar  70 , a tool bar  72 , the meeting selection list  32  and the working space  36 . The tool bar  72  can include various tools for the user, including a search tool, a zoom tool, a create snapshot tool, a print/export tool, a note creation tool  73 , an object creation tool, a focus tool and a trashcan. 
     An embodiment of the meeting selection list  32  can be organized into folders and can include other entries, such as presentations. When a meeting or other entry is selected from the meeting list  32 , the workspace  36  is filled with the content for the selected meeting or entry. When a meeting  34  is selected, the workspace  36  includes a meeting window with panes for each subject or issue addressed in that meeting. In the example of  FIG. 4 , the meeting  34  has been selected in the meeting list  32 , and the subject pane  38  and the issue pane  40  associated with the selected meeting  34  are displayed in the meeting workspace  36 . The meeting panes and content can extend beyond the viewable window and scroll controls can be used to view the desired pane. 
     Each pane has an upper organizer section  76  and a lower whiteboard or brainstorming section  78 . The upper organizer section  76  can include items associated by some property, for example by subject matter or by contributor, grouped one or more sub-panes  80 . The content of the organizer sub-panes  80  can be rearranged by dragging the selected item in the sub-pane  80  and dropping it in the desired position in the organizer sub-pane  80 . The arrangement of the organizer sub-panes  80  themselves can be reorganized by dragging the selected sub-pane  80  and dropping it in the desired position in the organizer section  76 . The lower whiteboard section  78  can accommodate new items that have not yet been grouped and organized, or other independent items. When a new note is created using the note creation tool  73 , it can initially be located in the whiteboard space  78  of the active pane in the working space  36 . Items can be moved from the whiteboard space  78  into a sub-pane  80  in the organizer section  76  by dragging the selected item from the whiteboard space  78  and dropping it in the desired position in the organizer sub-pane  80 . Items can be moved and repositioned between different areas of the meeting window by dragging and dropping the desired items. 
       FIGS. 5 and 6  illustrate an alternative organizational structure using a home space  50  and a meeting space  48 . The home space  50  lists projects and meetings that can be selected. When a meeting is selected, the meeting space  48  for the selected meeting is displayed. In this embodiment, the meeting space  48  is similar to the workspace  36  described above for the selected meeting. An exemplary embodiment of this alternative organizational structure using the home space  50  has corporate accounts broken down into projects  44  which are further separated by meetings  46 . As mentioned earlier and throughout this disclosure, meetings do not have to be a time constrained process but rather can be left open until all desired participants have had a chance to contribute ideas and comments, and to review the contributions and comments of others. 
     The home space  50  shown in  FIG. 6  includes a title bar  52 , a tool bar  54 , a project and meeting list  56  and a customizable area  58 . The title bar  52  includes a space for branding and an appropriate title, for example the corporate account and can have additional tools if room is available. The tool bar  54  can include tools to select different information views, a search tool, a refresh tool and a create new project tool. The different information views tool can display the projects/meetings in the meeting list  56  in other arrangements, such as a calendar view. The search tool can enable a user to search all meetings in the project list for particular attributes or content. The refresh tool can refresh the meeting list  56  to capture any changes. The create new project tool can create a new project for the current corporate account. The customizable area  58  can be tailored by the organization to be helpful to the user, including items like a welcome area, a tutorial or help area, and a news/feedback area. 
     The project and meeting list  56  shown in  FIG. 6  includes a project name and an owner for each project as well as a meeting entry icon  60 . Each project  44  and meeting  46  has an expand/collapse icon  55  which can be used to expand a particular entry to provide more information or collapse a particular entry to provide more space. When a project  44  is expanded it shows the meetings  46  associated with that project  44 . Different display techniques can be used to show if a meeting is active or is over, such as graying out meetings that are over. 
     If one meeting is currently active, then the meeting entry icon  60  for the project brings the user into the active meeting. If more than one meeting is currently active for that project, then selecting the meeting entry icon  60  for the project can display a meeting list and prompt the user to select the desired meeting. When bringing the user into the active meeting, the system may display a meeting page like the one shown on the right side of  FIG. 5 . If there are no active meetings for that project, then selecting the meeting entry icon  60  for the project can create a new meeting or present a window to ask the user if they want to create a new meeting. 
     Under each project is a list of meeting entries, each meeting entry including a meeting name, a date, a start time and a meeting entry icon  60 . If the meeting is currently active, then selecting the meeting entry icon  60  of the meeting entry will bring the user into the active meeting. If the meeting is over, then selecting the meeting entry icon  60  of the meeting entry will bring the user into the meeting history. The meeting history has snapshots and other information collected during the meeting enabling the user to review/replay the meeting materials but will not allow edits of the meeting materials. When the meeting entry is expanded, a meeting sub-pane is displayed that contains key information concerning the meeting; for example, an agenda, a list of objectives and subjects and a hyperlink to the meeting. 
     The system can enable voting or other organizational tools or methods for items, groups of items, or entire subjects within a meeting. This can be used by participants or other stakeholders to help prioritize meeting issues and feedback for the current or future meetings, and can be used by those unable to “physically” attend the meeting but who may have interest in the results or real-time progress of the meeting&#39;s content and directions. Organizational tools and methods can be detected by the system and automatically distribute the content reports to participants and stakeholders through the software, or through commonly used tools like standard e-mail, XML (Extensible Markup Language), RSS (Really Simple Syndication) protocol, BLOGs (on-line narratives), etc. 
     The system can also enable users to create their own object types (e.g. similar to meetings, subjects and items like sticky notes) and their own behaviors which they can include in the meeting space. The software environment allows for this and other similar integrations and variations. The meeting space can also be addressed from remote systems using methods familiar to those of ordinary skill in the art (e.g. database access, web service interfaces, etc.) to allow other business and meeting systems to “consume” information from the system and “push” content into it (e.g. creating/modifying meetings/subjects/items from groupware programs like Microsoft Exchange or LotusNotes, or pushing updates to the meeting space from project systems like Microsoft Project). 
       FIG. 7  illustrates an alternative embodiment of a meeting interface  100 . This meeting interface  100  has a title bar  102 , a tool bar  104 , one or more subject tabs  106 , a whiteboard space  108 , an item entry selector  110 , an agenda icon  112 , an agenda window  114  that can be hidden and a trashcan. The title bar  102  can include appropriate branding, a project title, a meeting title and can have additional tools if room is available. The tool bar  104  can include tools to select different information views, a search tool, a refresh tool, a print/export tool and a tutorial/help tool. The different informational views can include a tabs view as shown in  FIG. 7  with Subject Tabs  106  along the top of the whiteboard space  108 . Alternatively, a thumbnail view can be selected in which thumbnails of the whiteboard space  108  for multiple subjects can be shown on the same screen. Other appropriate views known to those of skill in the art can also be used. 
     In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 7 , the agenda window  114  is hidden. An agenda icon  112  is displayed and when the user hovers their mouse pointer over the agenda icon  112 , the agenda window  114  is shown. The agenda window  114  can include a list of subjects to be addressed at the meeting. The subjects listed in the agenda window  114  can be linked to the subject tabs  106  so the user can switch between subjects by selecting a subject from the agenda window  114 . In alternative embodiments of the meeting interface, the agenda window  114  is not hidden. 
     The whiteboard space  108  shown in  FIG. 7  includes a whiteboard area for a particular subject on which items for that subject can be placed. A user can move between subjects by selecting a different subject tab  106  at the top of the whiteboard space  108 . When a different subject tab  106  is selected, the whiteboard space  108  for the selected subject is displayed covering the whiteboard space for the previously displayed subject. An add subject tab  107  can be used to add a subject to the meeting. The added subject can also be added to the agenda when the agenda window  114  is displayed. The items displayed in the whiteboard space  108  can include sticky notes, drawings, images, videos, documents in various formats (e.g., Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc.), hyperlinks, organizational tools, such as stones, and any other embedded or external content. The user can place sticky notes  200  and stones  202  on the whiteboard space  108  using the item entry selector  110  on the right side of the meeting interface  100 . The item entry selector  110  can include a sticky creator  116  and a stone creator  118 . The sticky creator  116  can include a sticky color selector and a new sticky icon that generates a new sticky note of the selected color. The user can enter the desired information on the newly created sticky and place the sticky on the whiteboard space  108 . The stone creator  118  can include a stone color selector and a new stone icon that generates a stone of the selected color. The user can place the new stone on the whiteboard space  108  and connect sticky notes to the stone. 
     The whiteboard space  108  shown in  FIG. 7  also includes an organizer window  120 , also shown in  FIG. 8 , where related items can be grouped. The organizer window  120  includes a title, expandable group panes  124 , a drop zone  126  and a gripper  128 . The organizer window gripper  128  can be used to move the organizer window  120  for display in different sections of the whiteboard window  108 . The organizer window  120  can be oriented horizontally (as shown in  FIG. 8A ) or vertically (as shown in  FIG. 8B ). Each group pane  124  includes a group name, a gripper  130  and scroll controls when necessary. The group pane gripper  130  can be used to drag the group pane  124  to different positions in the organizer window  120  or into the trashcan. The organizer window  120  and/or group panes  124  can be created, modified and deleted by the user. 
     An item can be added to a group pane  124  by dragging the item from the whiteboard space  108  into the desired position in the group pane  124 . The items in a group pane  124  can be repositioned by dragging and dropping items within the group pane  124 . A new group pane  124  can be created by dragging an item from the whiteboard space  108  over the drop zone  126  in the organizer window  120 . When a stone  220  or anchored sticky  230  with attached items are moved into a group pane  124 , then the entire assembly of items is moved together into the group pane  124 . 
     When the necessary whiteboard space  108  exceeds the available window, the whiteboard window  108  also includes navigation bars and an optional draggable viewport  130 . The viewport  130  can be a separate window. The navigation bars and viewport can be used to change the portion of the whiteboard  108  that is displayed in the whiteboard window. Items and groups can be dragged from the whiteboard space  108  and placed in the trashcan. This will remove the item from the whiteboard space  108  but will not actually delete the item from the system. Items can also be retrieved from the trashcan, and will be viewable when viewing a meeting history. 
     Since meeting content is “persistent”, searching for inputs from participants or other stakeholders can be easily done, even if the item has been “deleted” from a meeting/subject. All of the information contributed can be maintained to make it simple to locate information that was previously put into the system. This can be a beneficial feature for legal and tracking purposes. 
     The collaborative meeting space may be connected to other collaborative spaces either interactively or in a modular fashion to facilitate a more complete meeting/business process. For example, the meeting space may be connected to a collaborative presentation space for the development of business presentations or other information gathering and/or reporting processes. 
       FIG. 9  illustrates an example of a note object  180 , which is an item that includes several different but related attributes. The front of the note object  180  includes information describing the subject of the object  180 , for example an issue, feature, problem, capability, etc. The front of the note object  180  can also include voting information  182  and an information icon  184 . The information icon  184  can display additional details, references, or other information associated with the note object  180 . Embodiments of a note object  180  can opened to display a canvas  186 , an example of which is shown on the right side of  FIG. 9 . The canvas  186  can include text, images, videos, hyperlinks, documents or other information. The canvas  186  also includes a close canvas icon  188  to close the canvas  186 . 
     Sticky notes can be considered to be “multi-sided” and may be sized as required by participants. Participants can use the front of the sticky notes for various items (e.g., drawing, writing or typing information as well as voting, and reporting) and the back side of the sticky note can also be used for the same things as the front or as a free form canvas to place or embed other content and information (e.g. hyperlinks, images, documents, drawings, text, etc.). The sticky notes can also have additional attributes, such as colors, indications of who created or owns them, their state (e.g. editable, non-editable), a security level (e.g., making them visible or invisible to a participant based on the participant&#39;s security level), and may also include the ability to be “voted” upon by participants (all voting and tallying could be done by the system). Sticky Notes can also be “extended” to add additional “sides” for specialized functionalities like time and project tracking, additional voting paradigms, or connecting to other business systems to access information which needs to be maintained and reviewed by others in the meeting in real time (e.g. remote database and/or web services, which may require information based on or to support meeting information). 
     A note object can be moved in the various interfaces described by putting the cursor on the note, selecting the note and moving the cursor with the selected note to the desired location. The content of a note can be revised by selecting and editing the editable portion of the note. Notes can have protections requiring certain permissions/authorizations for a participant to change the content of a note. A note can include voting information. The voting information can display both yes and no votes, or only one or the other. A note can also have additional information associated with it that is displayed only when an information icon is selected. Some notes can be reshaped, enlarged and shrunk by selecting a side or corner of the note with the cursor and moving the cursor. The size, color or other attribute of a note can change based on voting or other information. Notes can be stacked or positioned in particular locations relative to other notes or organizational tools, such as stones. 
       FIGS. 10 and 11  illustrate parent-child relationships between notes which can be used in embodiments of the present invention. When a note  190  is stuck at the top or bottom of another note  192  the parent-child relationship is established. The top note  190  becomes the parent and the bottom note  192  becomes the child. These notes can have an attachment area at the top and/or bottom to be used to create this parent-child relationship. When the parent note  190  is moved, the child note  192  automatically moves with the parent note  190 . When the child note  192  is moved independently, the parent-child relationship is broken. 
     As shown in  FIGS. 10 and 11 , a parent note  190  can have multiple child notes  192 ,  194  at different levels. When a parent note  190  has a child note  192 , and the child note  192  has a grandchild note  194 , then (1) moving the parent note  190  automatically moves the child note  192  and grandchild note  194 , (2) moving the child note  192  independent of the parent note  190  breaks the parent child relationship with note  190  but maintains the child-grandchild relationship between the notes  192  and  194  (now parent-child), and (3) moving the grandchild note  194  independent of the child note  192  maintains the parent-child relationship between the notes  190  and  192  and makes the former grandchild note  194  an independent note. When a child note has multiple parents at the same level, then different rules can be used. The child can move with the moving parent, can stay with the non-moving parent, or can be replicated so that one copy stays with the moving parent and the other copy moves with the moving parent. 
       FIGS. 12-14  show various grouping behaviors for group panes  124  in the meeting interface. Items can be added to a group pane  124  by selecting an item with the cursor, dragging the item over the group pane  124 , and dropping the item. The group panes  124  can be auto-sizing to expand as additional items are added to the group pane  124 . The auto-sizing can be in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Items in the group pane  124  can be reordered by dragging and dropping the items in the group pane  124 . The group pane  124  can also have a standard size, possibly set by the size of the organizer window  120 , and when the group pane  124  exceeds that standard size it automatically acquires scroll features to allow viewing of the different items in the group pane  124 . Group panes  124  can also be reordered by selecting the gripper  128  of the group pane  124  and dragging the group pane  124  to the selected position and dropping the group pane  124 . All items in the group pane  124  move with the group pane  124 . 
       FIG. 15  illustrates the concept of a stone  220 . A stone  220  can be thought of as a grouping mechanism or simply a bigger piece of paper. A stone  220  can be a unique item, an image or other item. Related items are attached to the stone  220 . When the stone  220  is moved, all of the related items attached to the stone  220  move with the stone  220 . A group of items attached to the stone  220  can have an organizational structure, such as a parent-child relationship, which is maintained just as it would be if those items were not attached to the stone  220 . 
       FIG. 16  illustrates the concept of an anchored note  230 . Notes can have an anchor property that enables them to be used for additional organizational purposes. When the anchor property is activated, then when other notes are attached to the anchored note  230 , the other notes are attached by a link. This is usually used to show ancillary items related to the anchored note  230 . When the anchored note  230  is moved, all of the items attached to the anchored note  230  move with the anchored note  230 . A group of items attached to the anchored note  230  can have an organizational structure, such as a parent-child relationship, which is maintained just as it would be if those items were not attached to the anchored note  230 . 
       FIG. 17  illustrates equivalences between the organizing concepts of group panes  124 , stones  220  and anchored notes  230 .  FIG. 17A  shows three groups of notes, a, b and c, associated with a stone  220 .  FIG. 17B  shows the same three groups of notes, a, b and c, associated with an anchored note  230 .  FIG. 17C  shows the same three groups of notes, a, b and c, associated in a group pane  124 . Note that the organizational structure of items attached to the stone  220  or anchored note  230  or with the group pane  124 , such as a parent-child relationship, are maintained. The information associated with the anchored note  230  or stone  220  would be associated with the group as a whole in the group pane  124 . 
       FIGS. 18A and 18B  show grouping capabilities using a lasso  240  implemented in some embodiments of the system. In order to ease the organizing of notes, the cursor can be placed at a starting point and the selection button held down while the cursor is moved to surround the desired notes, then when the cursor is released the desired notes are grouped. If the lasso  240  includes an anchored note  230  or stone  220 , then the other notes surrounded by the lasso  240  are attached to the anchored note  230  or stone  220 . If the lasso  240  does not include an anchored note  230  or stone  220 , then the notes are grouped into a stack of notes  250 . Alternative selection devices known to those of skill in the art can be used, such as selecting multiple items while holding down a particular key on the keyboard. 
       FIGS. 19A  and B show other grouping and linking relationships that can be used. These grouping and linking relationships can exist between notes, and any other items, such as videos, documents, hyperlinks, etc. Any object (for example, image, sticky note, file document, external reference, hyperlink, etc.) within a meeting/subject can be used as a central idea or reference for other objects to attach to and be organized/related to.  FIG. 19A  shows an example of a central image  245  associated with a hyperlink and various notes, the notes being further associated with documents, other images and a video.  FIG. 19B  shows an example of a central note  247  associated with a hyperlink, various documents and an image. 
       FIG. 20  shows how a mouse  251  with a cursor wheel  252  can be used to scroll through a stack of notes  258 . The mouse  251  can be used to control a cursor  254 . The user can position the cursor  254  on top of a top note  256  of the stack of notes  258 . Then by rotating the cursor wheel  252  of the mouse  251 , the top note  256  is rolled back exposing the next note of the stack of notes  258 . This procedure can be repeated to view notes further down in the stack of notes  258 . Alternatively, the user can position the cursor  254  to point to a lower note in the stack of notes  258  and the notes will roll back starting with the lower note in the stack of notes  258 . 
     Exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail; however the present invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. It should be understood that there is no intent to limit the system to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to address all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the system as defined herein that would occur to one skilled in the art.