[Air-L] Let's Talk About AoIR

[Kendall, Lori]

Hey folks,

I've reviewed submissions for most of the IR conferences, and have been on the Conference Committee for three years now, as program chair and as VP. In October, I'll be AoIR's incoming president, and will continue on the committee in that capacity. As such, I've been following this discussion with a great deal of interest and thought. I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful comments and ideas. 

I also want to say, first and foremost, that you all rock, and our conference rocks. Rest assured that the decisions on what to accept were very difficult; if we have not managed to take your submission for this conference it's not a reflection on the quality of your work. We simply had too much good work. I hope I'll see you all in Denver, because I can promise you it will be a great conference. 

What I mostly hear when I talk to people who attend the IR conferences is that they are better in many ways than other conferences they attend. I have also heard people say that this perception doesn't always extend to people in their departments, disciplines, etc. That's sad, and I hope we can do a better job of showing people outside of AoIR who we are and what we do. I know that desire has driven many of the things Alex and the other members of the executive committee have been trying to do over the past several years. SPIR, and the (slightly) longer submissions, is part of those efforts. 

I see much of the struggle here as part of the hard work of being interdisciplinary. That struggle will continue in the process of planning the conference, including the work of reviewing. There have been a lot of good suggestions that have come up in this discussion, and I'm assembling these for later reflection and discussion amongst the conference committee and the executive committee. About the only thing I'll say upfront is that we have a tradition of avoiding tracks at AoIR, and I'm not convinced we should abandon that tradition. That seems to me to be a way to move away from interdisciplinarity, back to our separate silos, rather than mixing it up, and exposing ourselves to the wide variety of types of work that appear at the IR conferences. If anything, I'll be pushing this year and the next few years to mix things up more. 

Thanks again for all your hard work, and I look forward to seeing you in Denver!

Lori