Conference Formats…

Thanks to Dan and the gang at the Lounge for inviting me stay on permanently – I feel like Heather Locklear on Melrose Place, the guest who just won't go away!  [Probably dating myself there with that reference as usual.]  And I'll probably need to drink the burnt coffee at the end of the night, rather than pouring it out.

I thought that my first post as a permanent blogger should continue the theme I opened up with a few weeks ago on the summer conference season.  I've been at several more conferences since then, and I must note that I even found a hotel that allowed guests to choose the amount of Internet access they wanted and to pay accordingly (see Adam's previous post on this one.)

One thing I have noticed this year is a number of interesting conference formats being offered, at least in the areas I work in (IP, privacy, commercial/business law).  I attended several conferences where lengthy and serious workshopping of papers was the norm.  Each accepted paper was read in advance by participants and each paper received at least an hour of detailed workshopping.  This was done on an impressively large and effective scale at the Second Annual Privacy Law Scholars' conference, organized by Dan Solove (George Washington) and Chris Hoofnagle (UC Berkeley).

I also noticed more of an emphasis on pedagogy at some conferences and have to admit that this is a good thing, particularly at a time of year when many new(ish) professors will be attending their first conferences, and when some of us oldies may be getting jaded about teaching and may be looking for new inspirations and ideas.  At the AALS Mid-Year Meeting on Business Associations, there were even daily small group meetings to talk about approaches to teaching B.A.  So thanks to everyone who is putting so much thought into creating meaningful and different conference formats outside the traditional "talking heads" model.  I've certainly learned a lot this summer so far.