I’d also like to heartily agree with your comment on how Twitter connections have facilitated the conference experience and networking in particular — as a formerly very shy kid, I still find hobknobbing difficult, but with all my Twitterverse connections, it’s been a true pleasure putting names with faces and continuing conversations begun online.

In terms of getting involved, I have found SCMS to be quite receptive to participation and innovation. Back in London, I went to the business meeting asking why SCMS had not taken more of a stand on fair use and copyright issues. The board responded by constituted a Public Policy Committee (and appointing me to it!), and we spent a few years focused on creating two extensive policy statements on this issue, which hopefully serve our members and the field widely. So often it’s just about stepping forward and volunteering time and energy.

As for the cross-fertilization, I do think having more extensive metadata about presentations will help – I’d love to see presentations outside my immediate areas of interest, but judging solely on an oblique paper title is too much of a lottery with my scarce time. If the new website delivers by including abstracts and tags, that will make a huge difference for allowing participants to customize their experiences.