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Purpose This paper aims to present a preliminary experimental result on a large-scale experiment on a cyber-physical hybrid discussion support environment in a panel discussion session in an international conference. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors propose a hybrid (cyber-physical) environment in which people can discuss online and also offline simultaneously. The authors conducted a large-scale experiment in a panel discussion session in an international conference where participants can discuss by using their online discussion support system and by physical communications as usual. Findings The authors analyzed the obtained date from the following three viewpoints: participants’ cyber-physical attention, keywords cyber-physical linkage and cyber-physical discussion flow. These three viewpoints indicate that the methodology of the authors can be effective to support hybrid large-scale discussions. Originality/value Online large-scale discussion has been focused as a new methodology that enable people to discuss, argue and make consensus in terms of political issues, social complex problems (like climate change), city planning and so on. In several cases, the authors found that online discussions are very effective to gather people opinions and discussions so far. Moreover, this paper proposes a hybrid (cyber-physical) environment in which people can discuss online and also offline simultaneously.

Much attention has been focused on the internet-based discussions of crowd. In our previous work, we developed an open web-based forum system called COLLAGREE that has facilitator support functions and deployed. We clarified the importance of a COLLAGREE-type internet based town meeting and the facilitator role, which is one mechanism that can manage inflammatory language and encourage positive discussions. However, we found a problem that the number of posts and views decreased with a time lapse. In our work, we propose the core time mechanism to solve the problem. The core time mechanism provides setting of time for facilitator and participant to gather and discuss. By presenting the core time to the participants, there is expectation to encourage participation of discussion at that timing. We conducted a large-scale experiment for Aichi prefecture in 2016. We found that core time mechanism effects that discussion was continuously activated until the end.

A lot of data are collected through various kind of sensors and devices and can be used to make business strategy. These are sometimes used in business and marketing. In existing convention management research and its business research, most of contributions provide the result of analyses of surveys using answer of questionnaire or interviews from convention attendees, event planners and several other stakeholders. If we can know attendees' behavior, perception, and thinking by collecting data from sensors, digital voice recorders and cameras, the management and business design can be designed based on the analysis in order to improve the quality of service and attendee's satisfaction. In this paper, we explain what convention attendees expect to attend the conventions. We show our preliminary experiments to collect attendees' behavior data in a convention. Then, we propose an improved design on experiment environment to acquire attendees' data in convention. We propose a refined model of convention management research and business process in the end of this paper. In our proposed research and business process on convention management, a lot of types acquired data from sensors set in convention facility and can promise to design an improved service to enhance attendees' satisfaction in convention.

This paper presents a preliminary experimental result on a large-scale experiment on a cyber-physical hybrid discussion support environment in a panel discussion session in an international conference. Our research group has been studying supporting technologies for online large-scale discussions. Online large-scale discussion has been focused as a new methodology that enable people to discuss, argue, and make consensus in terms of political issues, social complex problems (like Climate Change), city planning, and so on. In several cases, we found that online discussions are very effective to gather people opinions and discussions so far. Moreover, in this paper, we propose a hybrid (cyber-physical) environment in which people can discuss online and also offline simultaneously. We conducted a large-scale experiment in a panel discussion session in an international conference where participants can discuss by using our online discussion support system and by physical communications as usual. We analyzed the obtained date from the following three viewpoints: Participants' cyber-physical attention, Keywords cyber-physical linkage, and Cyber-physical discussion flow. These three viewpoints indicate our methodology can be effective to support hybrid large-scale discussions.