Has the board considered a rotational schedule where the conference would be held in the U.S. every other year? This is a practice that other associations use and one that benefits conference planners and members alike. I'm one of those people who is already looking at the 2007 and 2008 conference schedules to see what is being offered in anticipation of writing papers and making presentations. I imagine there are others reading this posting who are doing the same
Yes, we currently have a rotation schedule alternating North America with not-North America. The hope last time rotation was discussed in the previous executive (under my presidency) was that if Brisbane goes well, we might eventually be on a rotation schedule that would include the Pacific Rim/Asia, as there is a good deal of internet research going on not just in Australia, but in Korea, China, Japan and other Asian countries as well. The idea of Mexico and Latin America as meeting places has also been discussed and the concerns Suely raises are pretty much those that we considered -- that we don't have a Latin American or Mexican base yet (if you're there, please tell the internet scholars you know!) and that a conference there might well turn into a tourist get-away rather than a paper-attending event that brings in regional scholars. I think everyone on the executive committee hopes that we will expand conferences to other parts of the world eventually. All those of us involved in founding and running AoIR have hoped from the start to be a true international association (though some of us may have underestimated some of the difficult balancing acts this would entail and some of the perceptual issues we would have to manage -- plus of course we didn't foresee 9/11 turning the US into a problematic place to have a conference). One thing to keep in mind is that these conferences cost a lot of money to put on and as a young association with minimal membership fees and comparatively low conference fees (though of course, some think they're too high anyway) we are really not in a position to take financial risks on our conferences lest we bankrupt the association in one event (we are not talking about profits here!). I am really delighted to see so many people engaged in this discussion, though, and to hear some of you stepping up offering to help plan. That's what makes this association possible, Nancy