I'm just back from the Communities & Technologies conference (in beautiful East Lansing MI), and I want to congratulate Chip Steinfield and his posse for running what I think is the best Internet-Society conference I've ever attended. Almost all of the papers were good. Well-prepared, and had systematic evidence, qual, quant, or (even better, often) both. Mediating on why it was good: 1. Somewhat of a focused theme, altho "community" has at least 57 meanings (and many of them were used). 2. Papers prepared ahead of time. 3. Pretty tight refereeing. My only complaint: Michigan State Uni's catering couldn't get the concept of providing alternatives to ultra hi carb breakfasts. And others may rightly point out the inadequacies of American airline service, 24-36 hours after a storm. (The Toronto/London Ont folks drove, and just had a chance to compare/contrast US immigration -- [hyper macho] and Cdn immigration [sweet]. I'm looking forward to the next one, 6/09, in beautiful Penn State Uni Happy Canada Day! Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman For fun -- updating songs, movies and history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender these days _______________________________________________________________________