'tis the season ~ of annual meetings

How to "attend" them (sort of) on the cheap? One answer is social media, especially Twitter. Although both get blogged and covered by "academic media," e.g. Chronicle and Inside HigherEd, Twitter does it better.  Plus you can follow simultaneous sessions as well as both Seattle and Chicago, impossible IRL ~ even if we could afford it.

Strategies:

• Search hashtags: #mla12 and #aha2012
• Narrow focus by adding session hashtags
• Use a social media search tool such as Topsy 
• Set a Google alert
• Identify a blogger or active tweeter who is covering the meeting, especially sessions you are most interested in. Brian Croxall is always a good bet. "Active" would be an understatement.

Storified by Lee Skallerup:

• The Fight for Public Higher Education #s167 #mla12 
• Jobs for Historians: Approaching the Crisis #aha2012

Of course, CHE and IHE accounts and post mortems will still be pored over and commented, but they are no longer the whole story for those not in attendance. Add the reflections of academic bloggers. Real time coverage fleshes it out.

Forget about the "cachet" of "being there ... only matters if you let it. Not being left out of the conversation, invisible and silenced when so many communication tools are at hand counts for more.

Consider too the cachet of being greener...