How to Properly Run a Business Meeting

How to Properly Run a Business Meeting Running a business meeting is something of an art. Covering every topic thoroughly and concluding on time are but a few of the challenges. Here is my advice on running a great business meeting1. Make the Purpose ClearKeep clarity in mind when preparing for a meeting. The discussion should always center on the objective. The team shouldnt be allowed to deviate from the topic unnecessarily. With clarity, the meeting will be more focused and productive. Clarity minimizes confusion among attendees.There are goals that youd like to accomplish after the meeting, and you need to outline those goals at the very beginning. You can departure with an outline and dedicate the first section of the outline directly to highlighting those specific goals.You want to summarize the discussion for each bullet point included in your outline. You basically want to make sure that you are summarizing the discussion for each topicaddress ed during the meeting. Youll want to gather agreement once each topic has been covered.2. Set ExpectationsYou want everyone to agree to some act at the end of each discussion. This shifts the responsibility to each participant. You want everyone to be accountable for advancing a goal or an initiative. Additionally, everyone should agree to take ownership of specific duties.3. Come PreparedPreparation is key. Ideally, there should be an agenda. You may want to have printed copies of agendas available to all team members that clearly define the meetings objectives. There may be some research presented. You may have to create a list of attendees or a presentation to cover all the topics. Attendees may need access to background information to clue them in on a particular topic being covered in the meeting.4. Discuss the Plan of ActionOnce the meeting is wrapped up, you need to walk away with an action plan of some sort. You want to indicate your commitments as you conclude the meeting. Additionally, make sure to communicate who will be responsible for which actions following the meeting. The next steps should be outlined at the end.5. Stay FocusedTry not to deviate from the schedule. This is to make sure that your meeting concludes on time. The longer the meeting goes, the more likely you are to get off-topic or off-course. You need to create a meeting agenda and assign a timeline to each item, if at all possible. It would be good for everyone to have a copy of the schedule with them.Its best to follow up with each person via emaille following the meeting. Send an email to outline all of the topics discussed, as well as any accomplishments that occurred during the meeting. This also reminds everyone of their responsibilities and restates the action plan. Any deadlines discussed during the meeting should bereiterated in the email.6. Take NotesA lot can go on in a meeting. Concerns and ideas may arise that will need to be related at another time. Youmust take ample notes throughout to ensure that you have captured all of the pertinent information. This is especially important if you are running the meeting.7. Only Invite the Necessary PeopleDoes everyone really need to attend the meeting? Having as few people as possible present makes it easier to stay focused and end the meeting on time. Most people dread these things, anyway, so it makes sense to have only the critical people present.8. No CellphonesRequest that everyone shuts off their personal devices. This significantly minimizes the number of interruptions. It also reduces the likelihood that someone will get distracted and have to be brought up to speed when they return. Its hard enough to get back on track following a digression, to say nothing of having to reopen a closed conversation because one team member had to step out to take a call.Running a corporate meeting well requires careful planning. Guiding the discussions and keeping the whole endeavor on schedule are challenging for m ost people, but mastering these things are important when running a proper business meeting. Following these tips will ensure your meetings are always clear and to the point.Ronn Torossianis the founder, president, and CEO of5WPR.

Meet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artist

Meet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artistMeet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artistWhen artificial intelligence has been used to create works of art, a menschengerecht artist has always exerted a significant element of control over the creative process.But what if a machine were programmed to create art on its own, with little to no human involvement? What if it were the primary creative force in the process? And if it were to create something novel, engaging and moving, who should get credit for this work?At Rutgers species AI Lab, we created AICAN, a program that could be thought of as a nearly autonomous artist that has learned existing styles and aesthetics and can generate innovate images of its own.People genuinely like AICANs work, and cant distinguish it from that of human artists. Its pieces have been exhibited worldwide, and one even recently traktement for $16,000 at an auction.Psychedelic, an image created by the algorithm AICAN. Ahmed Elgammal, Author providedAn emphasis on noveltyWhen designing the algorithm, we adhered to a theory proposed by psychologist Colin Martindale.He hypothesized that many artists will seek to make their works appealing by rejecting existing forms, subjects and styles that the public has become accustomed to. Artists seem to intuitively understand that theyre more likely to arouse viewers and capture their attention by doing something new.In other words, novelty reigns.So when programming AICAN, we used an algorithm called the creative adversarial network, which compels AICAN to contend with two opposing forces. On one end, it tries to learn the aesthetics of existing works of art. On the other, it will be penalized if, when creating a work of its own, it too closely emulates an established style.At the same time, AICAN adheres to what Martindale calls the least effort principle, in which he argues that too much novelty will turn off viewers.This ensures that the art generated will be n ovel but wont depart too much from whats considered acceptable. Ideally, it will create something new that builds off what already exists.Letting AICAN looseAs for ur role, we dont select specific images to teach AICAN a certain aesthetic or style, as many artists who create AI art will do.Instead, weve fed the algorithm 80,000 images that represent the Western art canon over the previous five centuries. Its somewhat like an artist taking an art history survey course, with no particular focus on a style or genre.At the click of a button, the machine can create an image that can then be printed. The works will often surprise us in their range, sophistication and variation.The Birth of Venus by AICAN. Ahmed Elgammal, Author providedUsing our prior work on quantifying creativity, AICAN can judge how creative its individual pieces are. Since it has also learned the titles used by artists and art historians in the past, the algorithm can even give names to the works it generates. It name d one Orgy it called another The Beach at Pourville.The Beach at Pourville by AICAN. Ahmed Elgammal, Author providedThe algorithm favors generating more abstract works than figurative ones. ur research on how the machine is able to understand the evolution of art history could offer an explanation. Because its tasked with creating something new, AICAN is likely building off more recent trends in art history, like abstract art, which came into vogue in the 20th century.Can humans tell the difference?There welches still the question of how people would respond to AICANs work.To test this, we showed subjects AICAN images and works created by human artists that were showcased at Art Basel, an annual fair that features cutting-edge contemporary art. We asked the participants whether each was made by a machine or an artist.We found that humans couldnt tell the difference Seventy-five percent of the time, they thought the AICAN-generated images had been produced by a human artist.They didn t simply have a tough time distinguishing between the two. They genuinely enjoyed the computer-generated art, using words like having visual structure, inspiring and communicative when describing AICANs work.Beginning in October 2017, we started exhibiting AICANs work at venues in Frankfurt, Los Angles, New York City and San Francisco, with a different set of images for each show.At the exhibitions, we heard one question, time and again Whos the artist?As a scientist, I created the algorithm, but I have no control over what the machine will generate.The machine chooses the style, the subject, the composition, the colors and the texture. Yes, I set the framework, but the algorithm is fully at the helm when it comes to the elements and the principles of the art it generates.For this reason, in the all exhibitions where the art was shown, I gave credit solely to the algorithm AICAN for each artwork. At Miamis Art Basel this December, eight pieces, also credited to AICAN, will be show n.Samples of artworks generated by AICAN that will be shown in the SCOPE Art Fair in conjunction with Art Basel Miami in December 2018. Ahmed ElgammalThe first artwork that was offered for sale from the AICAN collection, which AICAN titled St. George Killing the Dragon, was sold for $16,000 at an auction in New York in November 2017. (Most of the proceeds went to fund research at Rutgers and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in France.)St. George Killing the Dragon was sold for $16,000. Ahmed ElgammalWhat the computer cant doStill, theres something missing in AICANs artistic process.The algorithm might create appealing images. But it lives in an isolated creative space that lacks social context.Human artists, on the other hand, are inspired by people, places and politics. They make art to tell stories and make sense of the world.AICAN lacks any of that. It can, however, generate artwork that human curators can then ground in our society and connect to whats happening arou nd us. Thats just what we did with Alternative Facts The Multi Faces of Untruth, a title we gave to a series of portraits generated by AICAN that struck us with its timely serendipity.Alternative Facts The Multi Faces of Untruth by AICAN was exhibited at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair. Ahmed ElgammalOf course, just because machines can almost autonomously produce art, it doesnt mean they will replace artists. It simply means that artists will have an additional creative tool at their disposal, one they could even collaborate with.I often compare AI art to photography. When photography was first invented in the early 19th century, it wasnt considered art after all, a machine was doing much of the work.The tastemakers resisted, but eventually relented A century later, photography became an established fine art genre. Today, photographs are exhibited in museums and auctioned off at astronomical prices.I have no doubt that art produced by artificial intelligence will go down the same pat h.To read When the Line Between Machine and Artist Becomes Blurred, the first part of this two-part series on AI art, click here.Ahmed Elgammal, Professor of Computer Vision, Rutgers UniversityThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.