Professor D: That 's a good idea but that doesn't Maybe I 'm missing something , but that doesn't get to the question of how we come up with queries , right ?
Professor A: Well , what it does PhD B: Well , then you can go to the points where the you could actually go to those points in time and find out what they were talking about . And you r
Professor A: Well , what it does is provide a different Professor D: Yeah .
PhD B: And Grad G: Uh , y
Professor A: I I think it 's an interesting thing . I don't think it gets at the the queries per - se , but it does give us an information fusion sort of thing that , you know , you wanna i say " what were the hot - points of the meeting ? "
PhD B: Yeah .
Professor D: That that 's what I mean , is that I think it gets at something interesting but if we were asking the question , which I thought we were , of of of , um , " how do we figure out what 's the nature of the queries that people are gonna want to ask of such a system ? " , knowing what 's important doesn't tell you what people are going to be asking .
PhD B: But I bet it 's a good superset of it .
Professor D: Does it ?
Professor A: Well , yeah .
PhD E: Well , see , there are th
Professor A: I think you could say they 're gonna ask about , uh , when uh , when did so - and - so s talk about blah . And at least that gives you the word that they might run a query on .
PhD B: At least you can find the locations where there are maybe keywords
Professor D: Maybe .
Grad G: I mean , i this would tell you what the hit is ,
PhD B: and Grad G: not what the query is .
Professor A: Right .
PhD B: Right , right .
Grad G: What Professor A: It 'll tell you the hit but not the query .
PhD B: But I think I think thinking about queries is a little bit dangerous right now .
Grad G: And so you could you can generate a query from the hits ,
Professor A: Right .
Grad G: but PhD B: We don't even know what I mean , if you want to find out what any user will use , that might be true for one domain and one user ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: but I mean a different domain and a different user Postdoc H: Mm - hmm .
Professor D: Yeah , but we 're just looking for a place to start with that
PhD B: Um .
Professor D: because , you know , th what what what James is gonna be doing is looking at the user - interface and he 's looking at the query in in i We we have five hours of pilot data of the other stuff but we have zero hours of of of queries . So he 's just sort of going " where where do I where do I start ? "
Professor A: w Well , th you could do I think the summaries actually may help get us there ,
Professor D: OK .
Professor A: for a couple reasons . One , if you have a summary if you have a bunch of summaries , you can do a word frequency count and see what words come up in different types of meetings .
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: So " action item " is gonna come up whether it 's a VLSI meeting , or speech meeting , or whatever . So words that come up in different types of meetings may be something that you would want to query about .
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: Um , the second thing you could possibly do with it is just run a little pilot experiment with somebody saying " here 's a summary of a meeting , what questions might you want to ask about it to go back ? "
Grad G: Yeah , I think that 's difficult because then they 're not gonna ask the questions that are in the summary .
Professor A: Well Grad G: But , I think it would give Professor A: That 's one possi one possible scenario , though , is you have the summary ,
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: and you want to ask questions to get more detail .
Grad G: th Yeah , I think it has to be a participant . Well , it doesn't have to be . OK . So that that is another use of Meeting Recorder that we haven't really talked about , which is for someone else , as opposed to as a remembrance agent , which is what had been my primary thought in the information retrieval part of it would be . But , uh , I guess if you had a meeting participant , they could use the summary to refresh themselves about the meeting and then make up queries . But it 's not Professor D: Mm - hmm .
Grad G: I don't know how to do it if until you have a system .
PhD B: The summary is actually gonna drive the queries then .
Professor A: Mmm .
PhD E: Yeah .
PhD B: I mean , your research is going to be very circular .
Professor A: Yeah .
Grad G: Yeah , that that 's what I was saying .
PhD E: But th there is this , um    There is this class of queries , which are the things that you didn't realize were important at the time but some in retrospect you think " oh , hang on , didn't we talk about that ? " And it 's something that didn't appear in the summary but you Professor A: Mm - hmm .
PhD E: And that 's kind of what this kind of , uh , complete data capture is kind of nicest for .
Professor A: Right . Right .
PhD B: Right .
PhD E: Cuz it 's the things that you wouldn't have bothered to make an effort to record but they get recorded . So , I mean And th there 's no way of generating those , u u until we just until they actually occur .
PhD B: But you could always post - hoc label them .
PhD E: You know , it 's like Right , right . Exactly .
PhD B: Yeah . Yeah .
PhD E: But I mean , it 's difficult to sort of say " and if I was gonna ask four questions about this , what would they be ? " Those aren't the kind of things that come up .
Grad G: But at least it would get us started .
PhD E: Oh , yeah . Yeah , sure .
Postdoc H: I also think that w if if you can use the summaries as an indication of the important points of the of the meeting , then you might get something like y So if th if the obscure item you want to know more about was some form of data collection , you know , maybe the summary would say , you know , " we discussed types of na data collection " . And , you know And and maybe you could get to it by that . If you if you had the the larger structure of the of the discourse , then if you can categorize what it is that you 're looking for with reference to those l those larger headings , then you can find it even if you don't have a direct route to that .
Grad G: Mmm . Although it seems like that 's , um , a high burden on the note - taker .
Postdoc H: I think that Grad G: That 's a pretty fine grain that the note - taker will have to take .
PhD B: Maybe Landay can put a student in to be a note - taker .
Professor A: I th No . I think you got to have somebody who knows the pro knows the topic or you know , whose job it is delegated to be the note - taker .
PhD B: No ?
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: Somebody who 's part of the meeting .
PhD B: No , I mean , but someone who can come sit in on the meetings and then takes the notes with them that the real note - taker Grad G: But they PhD B: And that way that one student has , you know , a rough idea of what was going on , and they can use it for their research . I mean , this isn't really necessarily what you would do in a real system ,
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: because that that 's a lot of trouble
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: and maybe it 's not the best way to do it . But if he has some students that want to study that then they should sort of get to know the people and attend those meetings ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: and get the notes from the note - taker or something .
Grad G: Right .
Professor D: Hmm .
Grad G: Well , I think that 's a little bit of a problem . Their sort of note - taking application stuff they 've been doing for the last couple of years , and I don't think anyone is still working on it .
Professor D: Yeah .
Grad G: I think they 're done . Um , so I 'm not sure that they have anyone currently working on notes . So what we 'd have to interest someone in is the combination of note and speech .
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Grad G: And so the question is " is there such a person ? " And I think right now , the answer is " no " .
Professor A: Well
Professor D: I 've b been thinking Grad G: We 'll just have to see .
Professor D: I 've been thinking about it a little bit here about the uh , th this , e um I think that the now I 'm thinking that the summary a summary , uh , is actually a reasonable , uh , bootstrap into this into what we 'd like to get at . It 's it 's not ideal , but we you know , we we have to get started someplace . So I was I was just thinking about , um , suppose we wanted to get w We have this collection of meeting . We have five hours of stuff . Uh , we get that transcribed . So now we have five hours of meetings and , uh , you ask me , uh , uh , " Morgan , what d you know , what kind of questions do you want to ask ? " Uh , I wouldn't have any idea what kind of questions I want to ask . I 'd have to get started someplace . So in fact if I looked at summary of it , I 'd go " oh , yeah , I was in that meeting , I remember that , um , what was the part that " And and th I think that might then help me to think of things even things that aren't listed in the summary , but just as a as a as a refresh of what the general thing was going on in the meeting .
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: I think it serves two purpo purposes . One , as sort of a refresh to help bootstrap queries ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah .
Professor A: but also , I mean , maybe we do want to generate summaries . And then it 's you know , it 's kind of a key .
Professor D: Well , yeah . That 's true too .
PhD E: Hmm .
Grad G: Yeah , absolutely . Then you want to have it .
Professor A: Uh PhD B: So how does the summary get generated ?
Professor A: Well , i i ?
PhD B: I 'm not against the idea of a summary ,
Grad G: By hand .
PhD B: but I wanted to think carefully about who 's generating it
Professor A: Or , d o
PhD B: and how because the summary will drive the queries .
Professor A: What I I think , you know , in most meetings ,
PhD B: So Professor A: this one being different , but in most meetings that I attend , there 's somebody t explicitly taking notes , frequently on a laptop Um , you can just make it be on a laptop ,
PhD B: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: so then yo you 're dealing with ASCII and not somebody you don't have to go through handwriting recognition . Um , and then they post - edit it into , uh , a summary and they email it out for minutes . I mean , that happens in most meetings .
Postdoc H: I I I think that , um , there 's we 're using " summary " in two different ways . So what you just described I would describe as " minutes " .
Grad G: Minutes .
Professor A: Right .
PhD B: Yeah .
PhD E: Yeah .
Postdoc H: And what I originally thought was , um , if you asked someone " what was the meeting about ? "
PhD B: OK .
Professor A: Hmm .
Postdoc H: And then they would say " well , we talked about this and then we talked about that , and so - and - so talked about " And then you 'd have , like I e My thought was to have multiple people summarize it , on recording rather than writing because writing takes time and you get irrelevant other things that u take time , that Professor A: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc H: Whereas if you just say it immediately after the meeting , you know , a two - minute summary of what the meeting was about , I think you would get , uh , with mult See , I I also worry about having a single note - taker because that 's just one person 's perception . And , um , you know , it it 's releva it 's relative to what you 're focus was on that meeting ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc H: and and people have different {comment} major topics that they 're interested in .
Professor D: A
Postdoc H: So , my proposal would be that it may be worth considering both of those types , you know , the note - taking and a spontaneous oral summary afterwards ,
Professor A: OK .
PhD E: Yeah .
Postdoc H: no longer than two minutes ,
Professor D: Adam , you can Postdoc H: from multiple people .
Professor D: you can correct me on this ,
Postdoc H: Yeah .
Professor D: but but , uh , my impression was that , uh , pretty much , uh , true that the meetings here , nobody sits with a w uh , with a laptop
Grad G: Never .
Professor D: and Grad G: Never . I 've never seen it at ICSI . Does anyone ?
PhD B: Dan ?
Professor D: I
Grad G: I mean , Dan is the one who who most frequently would take notes ,
PhD E: Yeah .
Grad G: and PhD E: I 've d When we when we have other meetings . When I have meetings on the European projects , we have someone taking notes .
Grad G: Oh , really ?
Professor D: Yeah , but those are bigger deal things .
PhD E: In fact , I often do it .
Professor D: Right ? Where you 've got fifteen peo
PhD E: Yeah .
Professor D: I mean , most th this is one of the larger meetings . Most of the meetings we have are four or five people
Grad G: That 's true are four or five people .
Professor A: Yeah .
Professor D: and you 're not you don't have somebody sitting and taking minutes for it .
Professor A: Right .
Professor D: You just get together and talk about where you are .
Professor A: So , I think it depends on whether it 's a business meeting or a technical discussion .
Grad G: Culture .
Professor D: Yeah .
Professor A: And I agree ,
Professor D: Yeah .
Professor A: technical discussions you don't usually have somebody taking notes .
Professor D: Yeah . Yeah .
Grad G: The IRAM meeting , they they take notes every Professor D: Do they ?
Grad G: There 's uh a person with a laptop at each meeting .
PhD E: How many people are those meetings ?
Grad G: There are more . I mean , there are ten - ish .
PhD E: Yeah .
PhD B: Y you should also have a record of what 's on the board .
Professor D: Yeah .
Grad G: They 're very sparse .
PhD B: I mean , I find it very hard to reconstruct what 's going on . I I don't know how Grad G: Yeah . This is something early in the project we talked a lot about .
PhD B: I don't know how , but for instance , I mean , the outline is sort of up here and that 's what people are seeing . And if you have a Or you shou could tell people not to to use the boards . But there 's sort of this missing information otherwise .
PhD E: We sh we should Grad G: I agree , but but you you just you g end up with video ,
Postdoc H: I agree .
PhD E: Well , I don't know .
Grad G: and and instrumented rooms . And that 's a different project , I think .
PhD E: f u I think for this data capture , it would be nice to have a digital camera
Grad G: Yeah , different PhD B: Uh , y
PhD E: just to take pictures of who 's there , where the microphones are , and then we could also put in what 's on the board . You know , like three or four snaps for every PhD B: Right .
Postdoc H: I agree .
PhD B: Yeah . People who were never at the meeting will have a very hard time understanding it otherwise .
PhD E: for every meeting .
Postdoc H: That 's wonderful .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
Grad G: But don't you think that 's Don't you think that But Postdoc H: I agree .
Professor C: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Even people who were at the meeting .
PhD E: Well , no . I mean , I I just think I mean , I think that right now we don't make a record of where people are sitting on the tables .
Professor A: Right .
Grad G: Huh .
PhD E: And that the at some point that might be awfully useful .
Grad G: Right . But I think adding photographs adds a whole nother level of problems .
Postdoc H: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: Mmm .
PhD E: Yeah . We n uh ,
Postdoc H: It 's just a digital record .
PhD E: Not not as part of the not as a part of the data that you have to recover .
PhD B: I don't mean that you model it .
PhD E: Just just in terms of PhD B: We should just Like archiving it or storing it .
PhD E: Yeah .
Postdoc H: Yes , I agree . I agree .
Professor A: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc H: It 's i because discourse is about things ,
PhD B: Because someone Postdoc H: and then you have the things that are about , and it 's recoverable .
PhD B: someone later might be able to take these and say " OK , they , you know at least these are the people who were there
PhD E: So PhD B: and here 's sort of what they started talking about , and " and just Postdoc H: Yes . And it 's so simple .
Professor D: Li
Postdoc H: Like you said , three snapshots
Professor D: uh , L L L
Postdoc H: and Professor D: Liz , you Postdoc H: Just to archive .
Professor D: u uh , Liz , you sa you sat in on the , uh , subcommittee meeting or whatever PhD E: Actually Professor D: uh , on you on the subcommittee meeting for for at the , uh that workshop we were at that , uh , uh , Mark Liberman was was having . So I I wasn't there . They they they they h must have had some discussion about video and the visual aspect , and all that .
PhD B: Big , big interest . Huge .
Professor D: Yeah .
PhD B: I mean , it personally , I don't I would never want to deal with it . But I 'm just saying first of all there 's a whole bunch of fusion issues that DARPA 's interested in .
Professor D: Yeah . Yeah .
PhD B: You know , fusing gesture and face recognition ,
Professor D: Yeah .
PhD B: even lip movement and things like that , for this kind of task . And there 's also I think a personal interest on the part of Mark Liberman in this kind of in storing these images in any data we collect
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: so that later we can do other things with it .
Professor D: Yeah . So so to address what what Adam 's saying ,
Postdoc H: Mmm . Mm - hmm .
PhD B: And Professor D: I mean , I think you uh , that the key thing there is that this is a description of database collection effort that they 're talking about doing .
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Professor D: And if the database exists and includes some visual information that doesn't mean that an individual researcher is going to make any use of it . Right ?
Postdoc H: Mm - hmm .
Professor D: So , uh Grad G: But that it 's gonna be a lot of effort on our part to create it , and store it , and get all the standards , and to do anything with it .
Professor D: Right . So we 're gonna So we 're gonna do what we 're gonna do , whatever 's reasonable for us .
Grad G: Yeah .
PhD B: I think even doing something very crude Professor D: But having PhD B: Like I know with ATIS , we just had a tape recorder running all the time .
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: And later on it turned out it was really good that you had a tape recorder of what was happening , even though you w you just got the speech from the machine . So if you can find some really , you know , low , uh , perplexity ,
Grad G: Low fidelity .
PhD B: yeah , {comment} way of of doing that , I think it would be worthwhile .
Grad G: Yeah .
Postdoc H: I agree . And if it 's simple as I mean , as simple as just the digital PhD B: Otherwise you 'd you lose it .
Professor D: Well , minimally , I mean , what what Dan is referring to at least having some representation of the p the spatial position of the people ,
Postdoc H: Yeah .
Professor D: cuz we are interested in some spatial processing .
Postdoc H: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: Mm - hmm .
Professor D: And so Grad G: Right .
Professor D: so , um Grad G: Well , once the room is a little more fixed that 's a little easier
Professor D: Yeah .
Grad G: cuz you 'll Professor D: Yeah .
Grad G: Well , the wireless .
Professor D: Yeah .
Grad G: But PhD B: Also CMU has been doing this and they were the most vocal at this meeting , Alex Waibel 's group . And they have said , I talked to the student who had done this , {comment} that with two fairly inexpensive cameras they they just recorded all the time
Professor D: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: and were able to get all the information from or maybe it was three from all the parts of the room . So I think we would be we might lose the chance to use this data for somebody later who wants to do some kind of processing on it if we don't collect it {comment} at all .
Grad G: Yeah . I I I don't disagree . I think that if you have that , then people who are interested in vision can use this database . The problem with it is you 'll have more people who don't want to be filmed than who don't want to be recorded .
Professor C: Mmm .
Grad G: So that there 's going to be another group of people who are gonna say " I won't participate " .
Postdoc H: Well , she 's not making Professor C: That 's true .
Professor A: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: Or you could put a paper bag over everybody 's head
Grad G: Um PhD B: and not look at each other and not look at boards , and just all be sitting talking .
Professor D: Uh - huh .
PhD B: That would be an interes Bu
Postdoc H: Well Professor D: Great idea .
Postdoc H: Well , there 's that 'd be the the parallel , yeah . But I think y she 's we 're just proposing a minimal preservation of things on boards ,
PhD B: Yeah . I definitely won't participate if there 's a camera .
Postdoc H: sp spatial organization And you could anonymize the faces for that matter . You know , I mean , this is Grad G: But , you know , that 's a lot of infrastructure and work .
Postdoc H: We can talk about the Grad G: To set it up and then anonymize it ?
Postdoc H: It 's just one snapshot .
PhD B: No , it wa n not , um Professor A: No , no , no , no .
Postdoc H: We 're not talking about a movie .
Professor A: So PhD B: Not for not for CMU .
Postdoc H: We 're talking about a snapshot .
Grad G: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: They have a pretty crude set - up . And they had Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Postdoc H: Yeah .
PhD B: they just turn on these cameras . They were they were not moving or anything .
Grad G: Couldn't find it ?
PhD B: And stored it on analog media .
Grad G: Hmm ?
Postdoc H: Hmm .
PhD B: And they they didn't actually align it or anything . They just they have it , though .
Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , it 's worth considering . Maybe we don't want to spend that much more time discussing it ,
PhD F: Did they store it digitally , or ?
Postdoc H: but PhD B: Hmm - mm . I think they just PhD F: or just put it on videotape ?
PhD B: I think they just had the videotapes with a c you know , a counter or something . Um ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm . Well , I think for I mean , for our purposes we probably will d
PhD B: I 'm not sure .
Professor D: we we might try that some and and we certainly already have some recordings that don't have that , uh , which , you know , we we 'll we 'll get other value out of , I think .
Postdoc H: Yeah .
PhD B: Yeah .
Postdoc H: Th The thing is , if it 's easy to collect it it th then I think it 's a wise thing to do because once it 's gone it 's gone . And PhD B: I 'm just The community If LDC collects this data u I mean , and L - if Mark Liberman is a strong proponent of how they collect it and what they collect , there will probably be some video data in there .
Professor D: There you go .
PhD B: And so that could argue for us not doing it or it could argue for us doing it . The only place where it sort of overlaps is when some of the summarization issues are actually could be , um , easier made easier if you had the video .
Professor D: I think at the moment we should be determining this on the basis of our own , uh , interests and needs rather than hypothetical ones from a community thing .
Postdoc H: Mm - hmm .
Professor D: As you say , if they  if they decide it 's really critical then they will collect a lot more data than we can afford to , uh , and and will include all that .
PhD B: Mmm .
Professor D: Um ,
Professor A: e
Professor D: I I I 'm not worried about the cost of setting it up . I 'm worried about the cost of people looking at it . In other words , it 's it it 'd be kind of silly to collect it all and not look at it at all . And so I I I think that we do have to do some picking and choosing of the stuff that we 're doing . But I I am int I do think that we m minimally want something we might want to look at at some some , uh , subsets of that . Like for a meeting like this , at least , uh , take a Polaroid of the  of the of the boards ,
PhD B: Of the board .
Postdoc H: Yeah .
PhD B: Or at least make sure that the note - taker takes a sh you know , a snapshot of the board .
Professor D: and Postdoc H: Exactly .
Professor D: a and know the position of the people PhD B: That 'll make it a lot easier for meetings that are structured .
Postdoc H: Exactly .
Professor A: Mm - hmm .
PhD B: I mean , otherwise later on if nobody wrote this stuff on the board down we 'd have a harder time summarizing it or agreeing on a summary .
Postdoc H: We And it Especially since this is common knowledge . I mean , this is shared knowledge among all the participants , and it 's a shame to keep it off the recording .
Grad G: Uh , except in Postdoc H: s
Grad G: er , if we weren't recording this , this this would get lost . Right ?
Professor D: Yeah .
Postdoc H: Well , I don't understand that point . I mean , I just think that the Grad G: The point is that we 're not saving it anyway . Right ? In in our real - life setting .
Postdoc H: Well Professor A: What do you mean we 're not saving it anyway ? I 've written all of this down and it 's getting emailed to you .
Professor C: And you 're gonna send it out by email , too .
Grad G: Well , uh , in that case we don't need to take pictures of it .
PhD B: Right . That would be the other alternative , to make sure that anything that was on the board , um , is in the record .
Professor A: Yeah .
Professor C: Yeah .
Postdoc H: Well Professor A: Well , that 's why that 's why I 'm saying that I think the note - taking would be I think in many for many meetings there will be some sort of note - taking , in which case , that 's a useful thing to have Uh , I mean , we uh , we don't need to require it . Just like the Grad G: Mm - hmm .
Professor A: I mean , I think it would be great if we try to get a picture with every meeting . Um ,
Postdoc H: I agree .
Professor A: so so we won't worry about requiring these things , but the more things that we can get it for , the more useful it will be for various applications . So .
Professor D: So So , I mean , departing for the moment from the data collection question but actually talking about , you know , this group and what we actually want to do , uh , so I guess that 's th the way what you were figuring on doing was was was , uh , putting together some notes and sending them to to everybody from from today ? OK . So . Um Postdoc H: That 's great .