Patent ID: 8036920

Claim:
A system comprising: a processor; a memory; the processor configured to carry out instructions comprising: receiving a place of a conference and a feature of a participant who is to participate in the conference; extracting persons corresponding to the feature of the participant received by the receiving unit; calculating a cost necessary for the persons extracted by the person extracting unit to participate in the conference on the basis of the received place of the conference; selecting the participants who are to participate in the conference among the persons extracted by the person extracting unit on the basis of a choice reference in accordance with the cost calculated; and storing in a storage device a using history of a device in coordination with users of the device, wherein extracting persons includes extracting users corresponding to the feature of the participant from the step of receiving, among the users stored in the storage device, in a case where the person extracting unit cannot extract the users, carrying out the user extracting process after a prescribed time, in a case where the conference can be held through a communication in the place of the conference received in the receiving step, comparing a first time required for each extracted person to travel to another place where the conference can be held by the communication with a second time required for said each extracted person to travel to the place of the conference received in the receiving step to calculate the cost on the basis of either the first time required or the second time required, and the extracted persons are sorted on the basis of the costs, and the costs of said each extracted person are added in order from a lowest cost to decide whether or not the added costs are within a prescribed budget for said each extracted person added, and the extracted persons are selected as the participants until the added costs exceed the prescribed budget.