Are we Concentrating on the Right Issues? A Response to the AIS Taskforce's Plan for the Future of IS Conferences

Abstract

This short article aims to challenge some fundamental assumptions we hold about conferences and how we organize ourselves as an academic community. It puts forward the environmental impact of extensive traveling and the strain and squandering on the volunteer-based academic system, exacerbated by the growing number of paper reviews to be handled every year and the growing tendency that attending conferences becomes a secondary matter for scholarly exchange and learning. Since there are no alternatives to scientific conferencing in the foreseeable future, the article's attention shifts towards the question of who has access to this scientific exchange. This discourse responds to the AIS taskforce's future plan for IS conferences, discussing some limitations of hybrid models in tackling inequality and diversity issues. The article concludes with the presentation of some obvious, and in some cases radical propositions, for changing the way scientific conferences encompassing a "hybrid" experience could be organized differently.