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by Rutger Rienks, Anton Nijholt, Paulo Barthelmess Introduction Meetings are often inefficient. Starting with probably the first meeting ever held by humans, people have looked at techniques and protocols to enhance them. The development of technology to support meetings has therefore long been a subject of research. Meetings can nowadays be assisted by a wide variety of tools and technologies, facilitating interaction, saving money and time, and creating opportunities that would not be possible without technology. The foremost benefit of technology so far is its support for meetings in which participants are distributed. Being able to attend meetings remotely results in substantial savings of time and money that might have been otherwise spent on travel. Tele-conferencing systems augmented with additional advanced services such as instant messaging, file transfer and application sharing are becoming more and more prevalent. In the near future meetings will be possible in virtual worlds where participants will be represented by virtual humans. There is also evidence that technology-enabled processes can positively impact meeting performance. Studies reported by De Vreede et al. and Nunamaker Jr. et al.show a significant reduction in labor cost and overall project duration when Group Support Systems (GSS), or Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) are used. These systems support alternative, technology-enabled meeting processes that can help participants with the formulation of and search for solutions to ‘problems’ listed on the agenda. A participant generally has a computer terminal connected to a central server at his or her disposal through which several problem resolution tools are available. Typical tools are an electronic brainstorming tool, an idea organizer, a topic commenter and a voting support tool. Despite the huge savings and proven increased efficiency brought about by GSS and similar technology, its adoption has proven sometimes problematic. There are instances in which the use of these systems has been discontinued due to stakeholders’ objections to the (radical) changes in work practices that are introduced by them. This leads us to investigate alternative means for positively influencing meeting outcomes in ways that would encounter less resistance. In particular, we want to investigate how pro-active meeting assistants can be exploited to reap the benefits of technology-enabled meetings instead of being exposed to its drawbacks. Successful automated meeting assistants can potentially integrate themselves into their surrounding social environment, offering support that blends more seamlessly into users’ work practices. Technology in the field of meeting support ranges from completely passive objects like microphones to pro-active autonomous actors such as virtual meeting participants. In earlier work we defined several dimensions that can be distinguished in this spectrum, with the major ones being the reasoning ability, the acting ability and the sensing ability. In this paper we will focus on pro-active meeting assistants that are able to act autonomously. Pro-active meeting assistants are those that (preferably in real-time) support the participants and act autonomously in the process either before, during, or after a meeting. For this type of assistants, its operating dimensions are highly dependent on their functionality. This functionality or sophistication directly depends on the state of the art of automatic collection of appropriate meeting information (the sensing) as well as on the required intelligence to use it (its reasoning ability) and the means through which the assistant can influence a meeting (its acting ability). To aid in this process, so-called ‘smart’ meeting rooms appeared. These smart rooms embed all sorts of sensors, providing data about the meeting and hence create the opportunity to collect and learn from this data in order to build models. These models may in turn provide insights into interactions and their contents. The first project presenting ideas to augment meetings with various ‘smart’ technologies was probably Project Nick. This project discussed the incorporation of screens displaying both the agenda and live meeting statistics to aid the meeting process. From that point onward smart meeting rooms appeared at several institutionswhere large meeting corpora were recorded. In the last four to five years there has been a surge in interest in meeting support. Many large projects were established, including consortia with partners from all over the globe, working on meeting collection, and research on meeting models and support technology [IM2 Website, CALO Website, Nectar Website]. The remainder of this paper will elaborate on the concept of pro-active meeting assistants, in particular software agents that aim to assist the meeting process and thereby facilitate more effective and efficient meetings. As there are a lot of ideas but hardly any implemented systems yet, we will, apart from looking at the existing ideas, show how to get from ideas to a full requirements specification. We also present a Wizard of Oz experiment where we simulate several forms of pro-active meeting assistants designed to streamline the meeting process. Meeting Assistants Meeting assistants have been the topic of research in various projects, e.g., the Neem Project. In Neem, a basic premise is that assistance has to be provided along multiple dimensions, including the organizational, but also the social and informational. A good meeting is one in which organizational goals are achieved, but not at the expense of the social well-being of a group. Support in Neem revolves around tools and virtual participants, both of which are designed to explore aspects along the organizational, social and informational dimensions. Tools are artifacts that crystallize certain aspects of an interaction, allowing for participants to become aware of and be able to influence these aspects. (e.g. by being able to manipulate items of discussion within an agenda tool.) Virtual participants are anthropomorphic assistants. They are designed to have consistent personalities and well-determined roles. Kwaku is a virtual participant that takes care of the organizational aspects of a meeting. Kwaku for instance reacts to discussions that extend over the pre-allocated period of time by reminding participants that they might want to move on to the next agenda item. Kwaku “listens” to the reaction of the group (by examining transcribed speech and text message channels) and will either update the agenda tool, moving it to the next agenda item in case of agreement, or leaving it in the current item if its perception is that the suggestion was overruled by the group. Kwabena on the other hand is a social facilitator. Kwabena looks after the participants’ social well-being, monitoring the actions a group would want to undertake at each point in time, such as take a break, switch topics, change the level of detail, or pace of the interaction. These wishes are expressed via a ‘Moodbar’ tool that displays a set of possible actions that participants can select by clicking on corresponding buttons. A mechanism is provided to poll the input from the different participants. Kwabena takes the initiative to suggest the course of action (e.g. taking a break) expressed by the group. (e.g. by voicing the suggestion via all participants’ audio systems.) Conversely, if a particular participant is expressing wishes that disagree with the rest of the group, Kwabena communicates in private with this participant, letting him or her know that the rest of the group seems to think differently. Finally, Kweisi is responsible for providing the group with additional information. This can happen upon request of one or more participants, but also autonomously, as Kweisi perceives (again by analyzing the content of the speech and typed messages) that a certain topic is under discussion for which additional documents are available. All these assistants can be realized as embodied pervasive software systems that operate alone or in groups, interact with the users and with other participants, and learn user preferences. Neem illustrates an approach to assistance during the meeting. We will now frame ongoing research in the domain of meeting assistants by making a division into assistants that support activities that take place before, during as well as after the meeting. […] Some findings and results To verify whether meeting assisting agents can benefit the meeting process we compared the predefined given agendas with the actual agendas of the meetings of the various systems. The results averaged for the two groups are shown in figure b. It appears that when no system is used at all, the meetings lasted on average 57% longer than what had actually been planned. With System 3 we reached an optimum, shortening the meeting by 27%. Although chairmen might have improved their planning capabilities in the meantime, they were not informed about any of the results. When we look at the participants’ ratings of degree of intrusiveness versus efficiency, figure (d)) shows that the added intrusiveness of System 3 pays off in terms of meeting efficiency. Notable is the fact that the perceived efficiency appears to be in-line with the actual efficiency. System 3 also resulted in a slight disturbance increase, whereas its ”enjoyability” is rated much lower than Systems 1 and 2 (See c).After every session the chairmen were asked again to give their opinion about the disturbance and efficiency for both the voice as well as the screen feedback strategies. It appeared that in contrast to the pre-meeting questionnaire results, they now rated them equally for efficiency. Voice messages were still found more intrusive than the text messages, though. An interesting side result was that when the system uses voiced feedback, the participants of the meeting appeared to be much more aware of their own behavior. When they tended to go off topic for example they corrected themselves very quickly, sometimes saying: “off-topic” before continuing with the current item on the agenda. This is probably due to the fact that the system can speak directly to specific participants; participants would therefore try to prevent being corrected by the system.After getting used to a system with voice output, participants did notice and use the information, but did not interrupt their talking. It should be noted that although the above findings speak in favor of a system that assists the meeting process, a lot of additional research is required, for instance by examining a larger number of groups over a longer period of time. Some results of the Wizard of Oz experiment Conclusion We have shown that there is potential for ambient intelligent systems that aid the meeting process. We have discussed a wide variety of possible applications and application areas. A concrete example of how requirements for a conflict management meeting assistant can be developed has been given. We have shown that the results of an experiment utilizing multiple system paradigms of varying degree of intrusiveness; the experiments employed a Wizard of Oz technique. The results show that meeting efficiency can be improved with respect to a baseline in which no meeting assistants are employed. You can download the full document click here

by Christine Perey People, processes and technologies we use in business meetings are continuously changing in order to increase efficiency in the workplace, or enhance meeting productivity. How can the addition of more technology help more than it hurts? The goal of this article is to take what is currently known about meetings and to overlay a vision of the future, to see how the addition of new technologies based on advanced signal processing and information analysis can have a positive impact on meetings. The reader will also learn about the AMI Project and explore how moving beyond the analysis of simple verbal communications – adding non-verbal communications – can reveal deeper trends and patterns. Applications using AMI technology could give people the ability: to prepare better for upcoming meetings, to review parts of meetings in progress or past meetings missed, to analyze behaviors and positions taken by individuals or groups, and to attend multiple meetings without missing critical elements in either. At a management level, having technologies, which analyze verbal and non-verbal content and communications, could be integrated with other enterprise managements systems to: be the basis of meeting behavior/methods training programs, even permitting self-analysis by participants, improve team construction based on team members’ past meeting behaviors, reduce risk of disclosures and delays caused by underlying conflicts, and recommend strategies for human resource utilization across multiple projects and teams. The Augmented Multimodal Interaction ProjectThe AMI Project, an EU-funded research project involving dozens of scientists across a fifteen-member consortium, focuses meetings in order to develop intelligent software algorithms and systems. The algorithms and related technologies under development can become core building blocks on which products and services may emerge for use by people in and between meetings. Scientists in the AMI Project bring expertise from many disciplines. They include world-renowned experts in the fields of speech processing, video/vision processing and human-computer interfaces, as well as sociology, psychology and linguistics. The focus of their research is on the human-human communication, which occurs between people during product design meetings. The design of the research should permit expansion of the scope to include many more types of meetings and team processes. Statistical machine learning is used by the AMI Project in the context of improving our understanding of business meetings. Machine learning will produce software building blocks. The process of developing these core technologies begins by extracting information from large numbers of multimedia meeting recordings. All the information of interest is labeled. Based on the labels, models are developed (“trained”) to recognize events, words and other patterns of interest. Then, once the models are able to reliably recognize information from sources on which they were trained, a system deployed in a meeting environment can automatically recognize patterns based on new multimedia meeting data it receives. Applications for AMI technologies in meetingsAMI technologies can add value to participants between and during meetings.Between meetingsIn the future, the knowledge worker will have the need-and using AMI research-based technologies will possess the tools-to access multimedia assets from the corporate knowledge base for work between meetings with fewer of the issues we encounter today. Anyone can imagine situations in which the archives of past meetings (in which the searcher herself participated or meetings conducted by others) in a corporation would be useful to search for particular key attributes or content. The problem is that the key attributes are “lost” among the un-interesting meeting segments. Meetings could be more effective if, prior to entering, each participant were better prepared. More preparation takes time; more time than rewards, if the proper tools are not available. The AMI technology can be integrated into tools that help people prepare for their meetings. Between meetings a user of the multimedia meeting archive can: Review a summary of one or any number of past meetings, Search one or more past meetings to answer specific questions, Browse one or more past meetings to answer specific or general questions, View the entire meeting (or multiple meetings) in faster-than-real time, and Detect patterns exhibited by groups or individuals during past meetings, which may provide insights into the upcoming meeting. Imagine what it would be like if knowledge workers who are unable to attend a meeting to which they would have added value or from which they could benefit had access to recordings and the functionalities above. Wouldn’t the process and reliability of “catching up” be different? Better Summaries are CrucialToday if a person misses a meeting, they must go to others who attended and ask for a summary. Meeting summaries used in business today are verbal, contain the biases of a participant’s point of view and are not searchable. Sometimes summaries can be in the form of notes or minutes but most meeting participants do not have the time to formalize their conclusions in a form that is useful to others in a project team. A summary should capture the essence of the content of a meeting. There are as many summary formats as types of meetings. One can imagine options such as: Bullet summary, Paragraph summary, Summary in audio, and Summary in audio, video and with supporting media introduced during the meeting. Regardless of their presentation media or their depth, those who rely on them need the content of summaries to be linked to the detailed contents (the multimedia record) of the meeting. In much the way one navigates a web site or any interactive application, a summary statement should be a “window” into the meeting at the particular time when an issue is discussed or a decision made. The idea of an intelligent meeting database architecture, which would be able to produce summaries of multiple meetings is also part of the AMI vision. From the summary, the user of meeting archives must also be able to search, browse and have flexible ways of accessing the contents of the meeting or multiple meetings in a database. Searching, Browsing and Skimming ArchivesWhen unstructured media files from a meeting archive are indexed and stored in an appropriate repository, their contents are temporally associated with structured data, consisting of other relevant information in the database (time stamps, text transcripts of speech and all written additions or information projected on the screen, names of people in a meeting, the subject of the meeting, the agenda of the meeting, and any files introduced during the meeting). A user interface for a multimedia meeting repository provides a search function. One can imagine a dialog box in which an inquiry is entered by the user (it might be typed in using a keyboard but in the future, the user might speak or point to designate what aspects are sought). A pop-up menu might have the most frequently asked search threads. Questions, which the AMI Project is using machine learning to answer on its database of meetings include: Who is in the meeting? What are the participants saying? When and how do they communicate? What are they doing? What are their emotional states? What are they looking at (focus of attention)? Based on the details, higher order questions are asked, such as: What topics are discussed and when? What decisions are made and by whom? What roles do the participants play? What positions do they take on issues? What activities are completed? What tasks are assigned or reported done? In some cases, the person using a meeting archive may not know exactly what they are looking for. This requires a different type of interaction with the archive or the repository permits “skimming” in a linear fashion as well as non-linear browsing (through text). Accelerating Meeting PlaybackThe user may also seek tools to experience the meeting in less time than it took to conduct the meeting. As illustrated in Figure 2, the user can accelerate the playback of a telephone conference by only asking to hear or “see” those sections attributable to a particular meeting participant. Or can adjust the speed of the playback of all the meeting media. This is a use of AMI technologies between meetings. Imagine being in a meeting and suddenly needing to step out to attend to an emergency or arriving after a meeting has already begun. Prior to entering or returning to the meeting, the essence of the segment missed could be obtained and permit continuing the meeting without interruption or loss of context. Figure 2 illustrates how the user would control the playback of a meeting in progress. Detecting PatternsSummaries are, in some ways, the detection and compression of patterns into smaller, more accessible chunks. Patterns can come in any shape and size. They may consist of the utilization of a word or expression, a gesture or non-verbal type of communication such as nodding to indicate agreement or nodding when a person is drowsy. These are subtle differences, which the human brain can distinguish and, in time, the algorithms on which AMI is working will also be able to detect and flag or enter in the database for use by meeting applications. In some scenarios for AMI technology use, a meeting participant’s gestures or position relative to others can be the cue, which causes a response in a virtual representation of a remote participant. For example, as illustrated in figure 3, when all the participants are in the meeting are turned towards a white board, the virtual participant is expected to turn similarly. Detecting patterns could also help decisions in rendering agent actions (body language). If during a meeting everyone has their arms folded, would the remote participant also seek to assume this posture as well? These are other examples of how using AMI technology to detect patterns will be potentially valuable during meetings. Support during meetingsIn much the same manner as archives can be resources to people between meetings, or that AMI can help the late meeting participant get “caught up,” the recordings of past meetings should also serve as resources to participants during a meeting. Suppose participants in a meeting wish to answer a question about a previous meeting. Features similar to those accessible between meetings should be available but would also take into account the participants of the live meeting and the sensitivity of the sources or contents of past meetings. Improving Meeting Management and ProgressThere are many scenarios for improving the flow and dynamics of communication during a meeting. Since the AMI project technologies are able to measure the interactions and participation of people in a meeting, analyses could be summarized and presented to a chairperson during a meeting. Imagine a system, which compares a proposed (ideal?) agenda with the progress of an actual meeting and alerts the participants about deviations from their goals. In some more futuristic AMI application scenarios, the directives or opinions of leaders or behaviors of participants in past meetings could be privately or publicly compared with the real time progress. The comparison could be used by the meeting chair to re-orient discussions to key issues, which are known to cause delays in a project, for example. A meeting and the life cycle of a project can be shortened if known obstacles are anticipated and addressed. Imagine a meeting in which an action item is being taken to prepare an analysis of a risk. If, by accessing past meeting repositories, or having an agent which automatically compares new action items with the past, a knowledge worker can be notified that such an analysis already exists, the meeting chairperson can introduce the relevant conclusions and accelerate the project. An AMI-based technology could help the moderator of the meeting follow how long the monologue has been in progress and intervene to involve more participants in a discussion. Metrics such as time spoken, the number of times a participant has successfully “grabbed” the floor, the number of people who are paying attention to a participant (regardless of their having the floor or not) all help to manage the process of a meeting or a project’s outcome more effectively. People who repeatedly grab the floor could receive automatically generated notifications that others are finding their input valuable or irritating and permit the participant to adapt behaviors in real time given the conditions. Meeting AgentsFrequently it is necessary for the success of multiple projects for a person to be assigned responsibilities with overlapping time requirements. Another scenario for AMI technologies includes a system which helps knowledge workers “attend” two or more meetings simultaneously. The individual may participate in one meeting in person or by telephone and request to have an agent monitor one or more meetings. Provided participants in another meeting agree, the monitoring agent can be configured to detect real time events such as changes in the agenda, discussion of a particular item on the agenda which concerns the employee directly, a new person entering the meeting or someone who is known to be important leaving a meeting. This could optimize the use of limited human resources. In the AMI demonstration of this scenario, the Remote Meeting Assistant (RMA) will detect events (e.g., keywords, entry or exit, change in dialog, debates) which it has been configured to monitor and alert the user. These could be real time alerts (via a pop up or toaster like an Instant Message) and they could be compiled for later review. Taking action based on information provided by a RMA would require first gaining the context for the alert, perhaps by way of an accelerated playback of recent remarks or discussion. Bringing Science in contact with Business, Aligning Vision with Real World LimitsIn the business of meetings, it is crucial for those in the trenches, those who are managing the technologies for enterprise meetings to expand their frameworks, vocabularies and working models about business process in order to envision more efficient workforces and accelerated, highly-informed decision making. At the same time, the research community will be working on machine learning and the development of algorithms which process multi-modal signals with ever increasing accuracy, regardless of the use for these systems in enterprise. Where possible the research and business communities can nourish one another and better the world. It is important, regardless of the scope of ones vision or on which side of the science-business divide one stands, to understand the practical limits of technology as well as the ability for business and humans to change. Some of the applications are challenging to implement in real time products and will not be realized for decades due to the processing complexity. Only time will tell how large an impact the AMI Project will have on people, processes and technology of the future. Without very strong incentives, humans resist changing their behaviors. Cost of technology requiring investments greater than the foreseen return may also be an obstacle. Other scenarios explored in this article are difficult to implement for reasons other than known technology limitations. The only thing we can be certain of is that in the future there will continue to be business meetings, and they can be dramatically improved using new technologies. Transfer of AMI technology into mainstream products and services is a crucial aspect of the project. Vendors developing meeting technologies must experience the research underway in the AMI Project to assess opportunities for future features and functionality. For information on the AMI Project approach and to see demonstrations and screen movies of the technology prototypes in action, visit www.amiproject.org About Christine PereyChristine Perey is the principal of PEREY Research & Consulting, based in Montreux, Switzerland. Perey focuses on multimedia communications and offers technology or market-specific services such as opportunity and risk analyses, business development and strategic planning services to video and visual communications technology vendors and service providers. She is responsible for technology transfer and manages the Community of Interest for the AMI Project. She can be reached at cperey@amiproject.org You can find the event ‘the future of Business Meetings’

by Markus Miessen The United States became engaged in two distinct conflicts, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in Iraq. As a result of a Presidential determination, the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al Quaeda and Taliban combatants.” (1) – Schlesinger Report The present re-read Analysing the relationship between space and power, many questions arise about how far spatial conditions have influenced and continue to affect conscious violations of Human Rights. A few years into the 21st century, decreasing public confidence in political decision-making and its transfer has made way for an overbearing universal ethics of mediated truisms. Post 9/11 in particular, one can trace an increasing habit of politicians to convert the mis-en-scene and tools of spatial planning in order to create microclimates, which do not obey any legal framework. There is evidence that spatial planning has been used as a mechanism to convert spaces into strategic weapons of physical punishment. Simultaneously, one is witnessing the re-appropriation of issues such as representation, psychological framework and an increasingly monotheistic politics. In 2004, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben re-interpreted the United States’ “war against all evil” as a symbolic gesture that envisions an alteration of the political landscape. Two months after the September attacks in 2001, the Bush administration – in the midst of what it perceived as a state of emergency – authorised the indefinite imprisonment of non-citizens suspected of terrorist activities. This policy, according to Agamben, should be understood as “The State of Exception” (2), a powerful strategy that enables the transformation of a contemporary democracy into a civil dictatorship. Agamben argues that the state of exception, which was meant to be a provisional measure, has become part of the everyday fabric. When the American president George W. Bush sent a TV-message to Vladimir Putin (3), claiming that even in times of war one has to obey the guiding principles of democracy, Bush appeared concerned about the fact that Putin, after the massacre of Beslan (4), had announced to strengthen and fortify the “verticality of power” (5). Ever since, the American president has ensured to clarify that in “times of war” – which in his present-day sense is an ongoing endeavour – the “old” rules and international rights are no longer applicable and can therefore be “temporarily” suspended. This development essentially prepares the ground for a “war” that neither requires justification nor is the policy undertaken on terrorism rationally related to its prevention. Instead, it strengthens a policy that was already under way before the Twin Towers fell: “the war on terrorism needs to be read always as in quotes, because it is not in any conventional sense a war – no national enemy, no troops, no territorial goals as such.” (6) Rather than fighting the symptoms, the U.S. administration had blocked multi-lateral politics for too long. This policy finally turned into a boomerang effect and – propelled by irrational motives due to being caught by “surprise” – conclusions were drawn rapidly. In such reinterpreted register of geopolitics, “rights” are being exposed to the higher principle of potential war and the response towards international terror. In this sense, military order, which turns supreme, can temporarily defer international law. Accordingly, military judges replace civil courts and, in the name of National Security, the president – as the civil leader of the military – embodying unrestricted powers. It is no news that – today – the underlying principle of justification is whether or not a particular action is taking place in the name of national interest while this very interest is being defined by the power that pursues it. In this context, the term “terror” is being pollinated with “war”. Consequently, “war” allows for all civil rights to be suspended. Taking such developments into consideration, it is not surprising that the countless individuals imprisoned in Camp X-Ray & Delta (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba), the detention centre at Bagram airport (Afghanistan), Abu Ghuraib prison (Iraq) and numerous third-country penitentiaries, have been deferred into territories that are lacking of Human Rights monitoring, influenced by a White House directive that “terrorist” suspects do not deserve the rights given to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. But in the General Provisions of the Geneva Conventions relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (7), a different code is outlined, which claims that one has to “ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances”(8) and renders a clear definition about prisoners of war. According to the Conventions, prisoners of war “are persons, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of rganized resistance movements operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied.” (9) In order to prevent submission to the Geneva Conventions, the captured individuals and groups could therefore be moved into territories, which disobey the Conventions, or territories that do not fall under its jurisdiction. The U.S. government therefore started to set up spatial constructs, which – in their belief – are not accountable to any higher authority. This method of creating extra-legal territory also includes a technique known as “extraordinary renditions”. (10) In April 2005, Human Rights Watch released a summary of evidence of U.S. abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and other programmes of secret CIA detention. (11) The U.S. government openly admits that they seek diplomatic assurances from states where torture is a common phenomenon, one in which one state requesting that another make an exception to its general policy of employing torture with respect to just one individual. Such technique has deeply disturbing implications. Pro- actively proposing the creation of such territorial and legal islands of protection illustrates the imperative function of space within the equation and comes close to accepting the ocean of abuse that surrounds it. (12) In case foreign authorities or the United Nations have condemned such practices of torture, the U.S. has proven to spatially transfer prisoners while simultaneously releasing a flood of new legal documents, which allow for particular codes of conduct within the military and the CIA. This technique, however, is neither new nor being practiced by the United States alone. The government of the United Kingdom is reportedly in negotiations with the Algerian and Moroccan governments, countries in which abusive treatment and torture is common, to allow the transfer of terrorism suspects. (13) In the eyes of the architects of such legal documents, a war against Iraq – for example – is legal, because it presents a case in self-defence and, further, an action in the interest of humanity. Crime and its becoming“How can our government speak with authority about the evil of torture in countries like Egypt and Syria and Uzbekistan when it is knowingly making deals with the worst elements of those regimes to send people to the very dungeons where they torture prisoners?” (14) – Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch When Giorgio Agamben, both prior and post-9/11 (15), discussed the principles of western society, he rendered a threatening image that is gaining its momentum from legal documents all the way back to the Roman Empire. Influenced by Hannah Arendt’s work on totalitarianism and the institutional form of rights (16) Agamben attempts to trace a historic process, one that is not a singular phenomenon, but a progression towards his primary thesis: there is an unforeseen solidarity between democracy and totalitarianism. According to the Roman legal system, the one who threatened the republic was treated as a public enemy: as “Homo Sacer” – the one without rights – one was reduced to nothing but a living being and could be executed. (17) The Patriot Act – enacted in October 2001 – allows the United States government to take any individual into custody, who is suspected to threaten National Security. But George W. Bush’s new military order turns those who are incarcerated in Guantanamo’s Camp X-Ray & Delta into lawless individuals, exteriorised from any juridical support-structure because of their territorial, that is spatial, status. Like so many other political prisoners in the course of history, these individuals have lost their juridical identity by having been put through a selection of political and spatial filters. Although Agamben’s critique is radical in the sense that it is introducing an oversimplified and accelerated concept of comparison, what he is essentially doing is to lay bare the danger of nationalistic structures. The videos and photographic footage that came out of Iraq’s Abu Ghuraib prison illustrate the drastic relevance of Agamben’s theory of the Homo Sacer. The naked bodies piled on top of each other and its sadistic choreography blend into a scene that recalls the fatal imagery of the 20th century. Throughout history, cultures have projected that what they considered as “evil” beyond their own territorial borders. Historic evidence illustrates that as soon as one realises that the reasons for so-called “evil acts” can be located inside one’s own territory, one refers to an existing “cruel” imagery on the outside in order to claim justification. In the case of Abu Ghuraib, we can trace the imagery of the colonial victor, but the space itself becomes exchangeable. And so does its historic reference. One reason for the public reception being so overwhelming could be described simply by tracing an existing imagery. Rather than evoking a shock due to its specific message, the images coming out of Abu Ghuraib overlap with an existing 20th century imagery, a blend of the death camps of Auschwitz, the pictures of deformed bodies in Vietnam, the death squad killings in El Salvador, the killing of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the genocides in Turkey, Sudan and Cambodia and the war crimes of collective punishment in Fallujah. Such excesses would always have two things in common: they were tied to a particular, delineated territory and an imagery of the subordinate subject. In this pornography of violence, the stage would change, but the choreography stays the same. Trying to bridge the gap between associated territories and the mainland, the U.S. is trying by all means to refer back to the outside, avoiding legal focus on their exterritorial enclaves while simultaneously talking about a “clean war”. (18) Spatial enclaves and the return of radical punishment“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light (…).” (19) – Major General Antonio M. Taguba Within this imagery, there seems to be a strong link to what Michel Foucault described as the “ceremonial of punishment” (20): “some prisoners may be condemned to be hanged, (…) others, for more serious crimes, to be broken alive and to die on the wheel, after having their limbs broken; others to be broken until they die a natural death, others to be strangled and then broken, others to be burnt alive, (…) and others to have their heads broken.” (21) In Discipline & Punish, The Birth of the Prison, Foucault illustrates in how far physical punishment has become the most hidden part of the penal process and “as a result, justice no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is bound up with its practice.” (22) As opposed to historic reference, in the 20th century – he argues – the spectacle of punishment has shifted to the trial. But if there is no trial, there is no scene. The disappearance of public punishment goes hand in hand with the decline of spectacle. Commenting on space and power, Paul Hirst subsequently defined such politics as “a much contested concept: it has many different meanings and possible spatial locations.” (23) Foucault’s treatment of the relation between a new form of power and a new class of specialist structures regarded this both as the consequence and the condition of the rise of forms of “disciplinary power” from the 18th century onwards: “power is thus conceived of a fundamentally negative, as a punitive relation between the dominant and the subordinate subject.” (24) This form of power based on surveillance, which individuates and transforms, is defined by the penitentiary prison with its cells spatially isolating its inmates, with a central structure of inspection. What Hirst describes as the essential characteristics of Bentham’s Panopticon – “an idea in architecture” (25) – that is to say the principle that the many can be governed by the few, can be traced through the history of penitentiary construction. This is probably best exemplified by Abu Ghuraib’s “Liberty Tower”, a central inspection structure overlooking the territory: a space that enables both a certain correlative perspective and power relations. Although Foucault’s writings on the Panopticon originate from the 1970’s, his work seems more relevant than ever. He dissects the relationship between space and power. In order to illustrate the effect of institutional space and its power-relations, Philip Zimbardo – professor emeritus at Stanford University – carried out an experiment in 1971 to test a simple question: what happens if you put “good” people in an “evil space”? To run the experiment, student volunteers were randomly assigned to plan the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison. Although all participants had been examined and were confirmed to be mentally healthy, guards soon became sadistic and prisoners showed severe signs of depression. After six days, the study had to be stopped in order to prevent further abuse. The experiment clarified how the power of social and spatial constructs distorts personal identities and values as students had internalised situated identities in their roles as prisoners and guards. When Zimbardo gave an interview to the Edge Foundation in 2005, he argued that “understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that little shop of horrors.” (26) According to Zimbardo, his experiment illustrated the competition between institutional powers versus the individual’s will to resist. Control through humiliation provided regular occasions for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners, illustrating that the relationship between pleasure and pain, in a territory that is spatially independent and functioning under its own set of rules, is no longer based on a framework of human reasoning. Spatial autonomy as the blueprint of evil“Camp X-Ray is an island, on an island, on an island. It is a sealed off zone (…), which is itself sealed off from the rest of the island of Cuba. That is one of the reasons the US chose to bring suspects here: it is impossible to get to, unless the US military flies you in.” (27)– BBC report, 2004 The Naval Base Guantanamo Bay on Cuba is essentially a territory in which prisoners can be held indefinitely beyond scrutiny of US courts. Some of the prisoners have been held there since 2001. Since it is not considered U.S. territory, those imprisoned there have none of the rights of someone brought to American soil. Unlike military bases on U.S. territories, Guantanamo is central to the strategy of preventing judicial review of the legal status of prisoners. Located on Cuban territory, it is the “legal equivalent of outer space”; mainland locations were ruled out as prison sites because they fall under the jurisdiction of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (28) Amnesty International has compared the territory with Soviet concentration camps known as Gulags, where resistance was legal proof of the need for “treatment”. The U.S. government does not accept the inmates’ status as Prisoners of War, because, according to U.S. authorities, they have not been fighting in uniform, representing a delineated, governed territory. (29) The spatial construction of Camp Delta consists of a maze of fences, razor wire and guard towers. Walls are made from chain-link and cells are protected from the elements by corrugated metal sheets. Prisoners spend most of their time in their cells, sitting on the floor or lying on foam sleeping mats. At night the entire territory is lit up so the guards can see their prisoner’s every move. The construction of additional detention units was completed by mid-April 2002, and done by Brown & Root Services (BRS) – a subsidiary company of oil-venture Halliburton – approximately five miles from Camp X-Ray. Each detention units is 8 feet long, 6 feet 8 inches wide and 8 feet tall and constructed with metal mesh on a solid steel frame. Each detainee is provided with a foam sleeping mattress, a blanket, and a 1/2 inch thick prayer mat. (30) It is precisely these conditions that have been meticulously designed in order to alter the behaviour of inmates and cause symptoms such as chronic depression, suicide, interpersonal rejection, psychiatric disorder and trauma. It comprises a physical design with the intention to enforce confession. What is of imperative nature to the conditions in Guantanamo is that spatial components are being used as a tool to both punish and coerce. As soon as the aim is achieved – that is the detainee confessing – the spatial conditions are altered. Detainees who are willing to comply and confess have the opportunity to become a “level one” detainee and live in Camp Four, where prisoners are housed in communal settings. The implications of this type of outsourcing of torture and extra-territorial incarceration at Guantanamo are enormous. There is a reality to space that introduces both physical conditions and a framework that facilitates its existence: part of the suffering of those men is because they are in a specific space that might be too hot, too small, or enforces severe depression, anxiety, hallucinations and loss of motor skills. After heavy criticism regarding the camp’s spatial conditions, in March 2005, the Pentagon announced the shipment of inmates at Guantanamo to prisons in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen, despite fears they could face even worse human rights abuses. These transfers were similar to the much-criticised practice of renditions, under which the CIA had moved prisoners to Syria and Egypt. (31) Since inmates face transfer to countries known to practise torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had told the Pentagon as early as 2002 that detainees would suffer from similar conditions; conditions that are shockingly similar to earlier references, starting with the politics of disappearances in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s as well as the Chinese prison camps that still exist in a political framework in which one party rules by definition. Returning to Agamben, totalitarianism strikes one as extremely modern, because it preposes the omnipotence of a single person. Under these conditions, the individual bureaucrat only has to follow orders, which often results in the plea that the individual did only follow orders and is therefore not accountable. This implies the giving up of one’s own capacity to act and finally turns any act of cruelty into a banality, pretending that “there is no alternative (TINA).” (32) At Abu Ghuraib, the spatial conditions were disturbing. Imprisoned in 12 by 12 foot cells that were “little more than human holding pits” (33), the detainees were waiting for their call. What Foucault had once, through Bentham’s Panopticon, explained as the subtle form of political control in the microclimate of a prison has turned into a scenario in which there is neither political control on the micro-scale he describes, nor a fully operative legal framework, which seems to be able to deal with this parasitic relationship between politics and space. Although one can trace these territories on a map geographically, they have been hoisted to a juridical meta-level on which humiliation through spatial and physical practice becomes part of the everyday fabric. Although the “camp” should by no means be understood as a possible answer to some of the political questions that are continuously being raised by the “architects of power”, at least the camp offers a spatially defined framework, which can be judged and held responsible as a physical condition. Instead of further renditions that isolate human targets by withdrawing them from any evident physical environment while dehumanising the individual, tomorrow’s politics of de-escalation should reach for an architecture of Human Rights. In an ideal world, such application of spatial standards would prevent future scenarios in which architects’ commit crimes against Humanity. Those crimes regarding the organisation of the built environment through the deliberate misuse of spatial components are in desperate need of further analysis, not by politicians or Human Rights groups, but architects and planners trying to dismantle and understand the physical relationship between space and power. Both Guantanamo and Abu Ghuraib are a showcase in the failure of ethical planning and a manifesto of the powerful, creating a blend of physical and non-physical components that create an overall fabric of control-space. The question therefore needs to be: do we need a Geneva Convention for the built environment, a court of justice to persecute spatial war crimes? Somewhere between the flood of Human Rights documents, the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zacarias De La Rocha’s “is all the world jails and churches?” (34) and Salman Rushdie’s claim that “we need more teachers and fewer priests in our lives” (35), one starts to trace the failure and bitterness of geopolitics. But zooming out of the spatial enclaves, there is hope: breaking the stoic narrative that suggests the return to preenlightened vision, resisting the re-introduction of moral truisms, turning inside-out the model of the world in which religion is part of the public realm, the answer – on a larger scale – can only be the return to secular politics. 1 Schlesinger, J. R., “Final Report of the Independent Panel to review DoD Detention Operations”, Arlington (VA), August 2004,p.792 Agamben, G., The State of Exception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 20043 Lersch, P., “Demokratie im Ausnahmezustand – Die Verhüllte Freiheitsstatue“, in: Spiegel Online, 27. Oktober 20044 On September 1, 2004 terrorists captured more than 1300 hostages at a School in Beslan, South Russia. This act of terror was directed specifically at children. Hundreds of children spent 53 hours without water and food in an overcrowded hot gymnasium, wired with explosives. They witnessed the beatings and murders of family members, friends and teachers.5 Strong presidency and presidential administration; president’s appointees in the Federal Districts; appointed governors, party formation from above, selective justice; state-controlled TV6 Marcuse, P., “The ‘War on Terrorism’ and Life in Cities after September 11, 2001”, in: Graham, Stephen (ed.), Cities, War and Terrorism – Towards an Urban Geopolitics, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, p.2637 The Geneva Conventions consist of four documents passed in Switzerland in the aftermath of World War II. They present the international treaties setting rules about the conduct of war. They form the centrepiece of humanitarian law and seek to protect people from the sorts of assaults endured in the fight against Nazism. Almost every country has ratified all four of the conventions, including the United States8 http://www.genevaconventions.org/ “Geneva Conventions relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War”, General Provisions,Article 19 ibid., Article 4 (A.2)10 “Renditions and Diplomatic Assurances – Outsourcing Torture“ [see: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture/renditions.htm]11 “Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees”, Vol. 17, No. 1(G), April 2005 [see: http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us0405/]12 Yuval Ginbar, legal advisor to Amnesty International, cited in “The Tacit Acceptance of Torture”, [see: http://hrw.org/reports/2005/eca0405/4.htm#_Toc100558824]13 “Diplomatic Assurances allowing torture – Growing Trend defies international law“, April 15, 2005 [see: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/15/eu10479.htm]14 Malinowski, T., in: “U.S. State Department 2004 Human Rights Reports – Testimony to U.S. House of Representatives”, Human Rights Watch document, March 18, 2005 [see: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/18/usint10347.htm]15 In “Homo Sacer” (1995, Italian original version) and “The State of Exception” (2004)16 Arendt, H., The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 195817 See Agamben, G., Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics, Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press, 199818 See also: Zweifel, S., and Pfister, M., “Die 120 Tage von Abu Ghraib”, in: Cicero, June 200419 Hersh, S. M., “Torture at Abu Ghraib”, New Yorker, 3 May, 2004, [see also: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact]20 Foucault, M., Discipline & Punish – The Birth of the Prison (first translated by Alan Sheridan in 1977), New York City: Vintage Books (Random House), 1995, p.821 Soulatges, J. A., Traite des crimes, I (1762), cited in: Foucault, M., Discipline & Punish – The Birth of the Prison (first translated by Alan Sheridan in 1977), New York City: Vintage Books (Random House), 1995, p.3222 Foucault, M., Discipline & Punish – The Birth of the Prison (first translated by Alan Sheridan in 1977), New York City: Vintage Books (Random House), 1995, p.9 23 Hirst, P., Space and Power – Politics, War and Architecture, Cambridge: Polity, 2005, p.2624 ibid., p.16725 ibid., p.16926 Zimbardo, P., “You can’t be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel – a talk with Philip Zimbardo”, in: Edge, January 19, 200527 Lister, R., “Grim life at Guantanamo”, in: BBC, Feb 7, 200228 see “Guantanamo Bay – Camp Delta”, in: www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_delta.htm29 “Bush lässt Alternativen zu Guantanamo prüfen”, in: Spiegel Online, June 9, 200530 see “Guantanamo Bay – Camp Delta”, in: www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_delta.htm 31 seeGoldenberg, S., “US faces Cuban prison crisis”, in: The Age, March 13, 200532 Term coined by Pierre Wack, a French oil executive arguing that strategy as it had been practiced (straight-line extrapolations from the past) did little to frame the choices that would define the future. The true role of strategy in his sense of the world was to describe a future worth creating, and then to reap the competitive advantages of preparing for it and making it happen. Strategy, in other words, was about telling stories33 Hersh, Seymour M., “ Torture at Abu Ghraib,” New Yorker, 3 May, 2004, [see also: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact]34 De la Rocha, Z. M., “Vietnow”, in: Evil Empire (recorded by Rage Against The Machine), 1996 (Sony Music)35 Rushdie, S., “In Bad Faith“, in: The Guardian, Monday March 14, 2005 This text is a short extract from an essay to be published in the forthcoming book “5 Codes – Architecture in the Age of Fear and Terror” (Birkhäuser – Basel/ Boston/ Berlin). Markus Miessen is an architect, researcher and writer teaching at the Architectural Association. He is the co-author of “Spaces of Uncertainty” (Mueller & Busmann, 2002) and currently acts as a spatial consultant to the European Kunsthalle Cologne. His forthcoming publication “Did someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice” (MIT Press/ Revolver, co-edited by Shumon Basar) will be published in June.

by S. Chakraborty, P. Batheja, H. Pahlson-Moller Evalueserve is Knowledge Partner of the Summit for the FutureSummary In the wake of large-scale financial failures such as those of Enron and WorldCom, the world of business has woken up to the need for internal controls. Such internal controls are necessary to ensure equitable distribution of rights among various stakeholders and make every corporate participant accountable for their practices. In other words, the concept of corporate governance has started gaining acceptance and popularity. Corporate governance is a system which provides sufficient controls to the way an organization is managed and hence ensures transparency. Sound corporate governance demands focus on long-term financial returns to all shareowners, full and accurate information disclosure, accountability of board of directors and constructive dialogue with the government and legislators. It also demands adherence to all applicable legislation prevalent in the country of operation. Therefore, the model of corporate governance followed by an organization depends on its geographic location and thus, varies between organizations. Though adherence to corporate governance directives is the onus of all stakeholders, it is the probably the highest for top-level managerial staff. While the practice of sound corporate governance undoubtedly enhances the goodwill of an organization and ensures financial stability, a careful balance needs to be maintained to ensure that excessive focus on controls do not straitjacket innovation and hence affect customer satisfaction.Corporate Governance – the controlled way to success ‘I am not saying there won’t be an Accident now, mind you. They’re funny things – Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.’ – Winnie-the-Pooh Unpleasant occurrences, like their pleasant counterparts, always happen unexpectedly. Over the years, the world of business has witnessed many such unexpected successes and failures. Enron, Worldcom and Parmalat are some of the examples of the latter in the US and Europe. These corporate failures, and many more, have each caused insurmountable losses – loss of wealth, loss of livelihood, and most importantly, irreparable loss of goodwill. Why did these organizations falter? What went wrong? Could the disasters have been prevented? Could the process of atrophy be arrested at the very onset? This brings us to the discussion of a very important concept – Corporate Governance. Corporate governance refers to the set of rules or regulations that govern the functioning of an organization. According to OECD, “Corporate governance is the system by which business corporations are directed and controlled. The corporate governance structure specifies the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, such as, the board, managers, shareholders and other stakeholders, and spells out the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. By doing this, it also provides the structure through which the company objectives are set and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance”. The history of corporate governance dates back to the Watergate Scandal, which effectively involved a series of political scandals over 1972-74 and the abuse of power by the Nixon administration in attempts to undermine political opposition. During this period, many companies in the US had engaged in secret political contributions and corrupt payments, thus diluting shareholder value in the long-term. Later, in the nineteen eighties, a number of business failures took place, which made it apparent that the organizations severely lacked proper internal controls and independent audits. In other words, companies were not following the requisite corporate governance directives and instances of corporate failures due to management negligence, non-transparency, unequal distribution of power, etc, were rampant. In last few years, this trend has changed. Companies have started adopting systematic approaches to manoeuvre and manage their business operations. In other words, corporate governance has gradually become popular in the corporate world. Due to its apparent importance in shaping the economic health of corporations, and therefore society in general, corporate governance has also succeeded in attracting a good deal of public interest. Corporate governance ensures accountability, transparency, fairness and responsibility of companies on legal, social and economic affairs. In today’s world, characterised by intense competition, these elements are all crucial for success. According to a survey conducted by McKinsey, shareholders in Latin America and Asia are willing to pay around 20-28% premium for shares of well-governed companies. Similarly, in Europe and the US, shareholders are willing to pay 17-23% and 16-19% premium respectively. Hence the importance of corporate governance can hardly be overemphasised. Sound corporate governance demands the following; Focus on long-term financial returns to all shareowners Full and accurate information disclosure Ultimate ownership structure disclosure Accountable and qualified Board of Directors Consistent corporate remuneration policy Adherence to all applicable laws of the jurisdictions Constructive dialogue with the government and legislators In order to ensure compliance to corporate governance, several ratings scales have evolved in the recent past. These scales have set parameters to monitor and judge the ratings of individual organizations on compliance parameters. Companies, which are rated low due to non-adherence, are therefore losing goodwill among stakeholders. Adherence to sound corporate governance is not only the onus of the owners of the company, or those who hold top managerial positions. It is the responsibility of all stakeholders. In general, the most important factor in any organization’s success is its employees, and the responsibility falls heavily on their shoulders. The model of corporate governance followed by an organization depends, to a large extent, on its geographical location. Some of the reasons for this are as follows: Difference in structure of board – The structure of the board differs per country. Boards of organizations in certain countries, such as Germany, Netherlands and France, follow a two-tier structure; whereas those of organizations in the UK and Spain follow a unitary structure. The two tier structure allows the upper-tier to oversee the work of lower-tier, and hence leads to better adherence to corporate governance. Difference in creditor profile – Since creditors are key stakeholders, difference in creditor profiles lead to different corporate governance models being followed in different countries. For instance, in the US and the UK, equity is the dominant form of long-term finance. Banks are thus relatively less important and do not enjoy much control in the operations of organizations. On the other hand, the higher component of debt in organizations in Japan gives banks significant ownership and control in organizational matters. · Difference in power of customers – The legal framework of certain countries, such as the US and the UK, vests significant rights to customers. For instance, the Citizen’s Charter in the UK states that public services have to develop and publish a charter, which clearly lays down the rights of the customers and performance standards expected from the company over a period of time. Good corporate governance practices include the following: Flexibility of special meetings on needs basis, in addition to regular meetings Maintaining clarity in the positions and titles of directors Regular management executive meetings Creation of a system to clarify responsibilities of directors Creation of a corporate advisory committee for better transparency and objectivity Improvement in the auditing system Fair, appropriate, and timely disclosure of information regarding corporate activities (such as management policies, management objectives, and financial position) to all stakeholders Educating employees about business conduct guidelines Amidst all the emphasis on corporate governance, organizations should remember that better governance is not an end in itself, but rather, the means to a different end – that is customer satisfaction. While tight governance can protect organizations from frauds, errors and undue risk, it can also threaten agility and innovation. Organizations should ensure that regulations and controls do not get in the way of nimble delivery of customer expectations. Customer expectations should not be compromised against adherence and the two should be carefully integrated to create a transparent organization delivering customer value at all times. A recent example of good corporate governance is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in the United States in 2002. In the wake of the large-scale financial meltdowns of powerful corporations such as Enron and WorldCom, which shook the very foundation of the financial world, this act was designed to review the out-dated legislative audit requirements. Considered to be one of the most significant amendments in the United States’ securities laws, the act specifies the establishment of public company accounting oversight board, auditor independence, corporate responsibility, and enhanced financial disclosure. Some organizations which have successfully used corporate governance to their benefit include Swiss RE, GE, Shell and IDC. About a decade ago, the board of Swiss Re, a large re-insurer, carried the image of “advance guard of the enemy”. There was little transparency in the system and important issues were hidden from the board. All this underwent a sea change and now the company boasts of sound strategy and proper information flow, resulting in better transparency within the company. The performance of non-executive directors has also come under scrutiny and external coaching is made available to enhance their performance. Corporate governance at IDC is based on two principles: 1. Management must have the executive freedom to drive the enterprise forward without undue restraints2. This freedom should be exercised within a framework of effective accountability What are the emerging trends in corporate governance? Companies have already started being more transparent and accountable, demarcating the role and responsibilities of the board and conducting performance appraisals of the board members. There is also a trend towards more external representation in boards and shorter tenure for such externally appointed board members.