By all standard measures the Boston conference was a resounding success. Following a record-breaking number of submissions - which led (happily or sadly, depending on your perspective) to a record rejection rate - we broke previous records for registrations, with an ultimate total of 2,507 folks. Of course, in addition to those physically present in Boston, this year's conference saw the first full-fledged addition of the Virtual Conference component, that registered 119 folks (outside of Boston attendees, who had full access as part of their on-site registration).

The Virtual Conference was among several innovations at this year's meetings that hold promise for the future. At the suggestion of student members we initiated a series of Master Classes, affording members an opportunity to meet with and learn from senior scholars in a less formal setting. This year's events, featuring John Hartley, Youichi Ito, Annie Lang, Max McCombs, and Patti Valkenburg, were a notable success, drawing substantial numbers for early evening sessions.

In an effort to stimulate regional interaction and move towards greater engagement by scholars from all parts of the globe, we set up a series of receptions for the different regions, and these, too, seemed to be quite successful. In fact, the European region reception became one of the first to provoke the hotel to enforce the fire code - another ICA first! - when more folks showed up than were permitted in the room. I know that Cynthia Stohl is already thinking about ways to build on these new program elements next year.

The Virtual Conference, however, is the most significant of this year's innovations, as it offers enormous promise for the future. This initiative was made possible by the enthusiastic engagement and efforts of our publishing partners, Wiley-Blackwell, who are committed to exploring this exciting new avenue for communication and interaction. Many people, spread across two continents, contributed to the success of this effort - we had conference calls that included participants in Los Angeles, Washington, Boston, Oxford, and Croatia, creating quite a timing challenge! I want to mention and thank Kivmars Bowling, Emily Karsnak, Vanessa Lafaye, Igor Novakovic, Eric Piper, and Margaret Zusky for their tireless dedication.

Of course, as a first-time experiment, the Virtual Conference was definitely a work-in-progress, and not everything worked as planned. Most of the live sessions were not well thought-through in advance - we didn't really know what to expect - and we learned a lot about what not to do, as well as what to do next year. We were pleased by the amount of discussion that the online papers stimulated. In some instances there were multiple comments and responses, and it was clear that there can be more engaged discussion of papers in the virtual venue than often happens in either traditional paper sessions - how often have we heard: "sorry, we're out of time, and there's no time for discussion" - or in the interactive display sessions. I am confident that in future years we will find more ways to make creative use of this valuable new capability.

One popular component of the virtual conference was the two pre-recorded keynote lectures, by Henry Jenkins and Barbie Zelizer, that received numerous visits during the conference and beyond. The keynotes and the conference papers on the virtual site remained up beyond the conclusion of the Boston event.

One dimension of the virtual conference that is certainly more important than we expected is that of the twitter feed. After some confusion over the hashtag for the conference - we eventually settled on #ICA11, and we'll be ready to pounce on #ICA12 for Phoenix! - it became obvious that this was going to be an active part of the conference. In all, 347 people contributed to the #ICA11 hashtag, with a total of 2377 individual tweets. With 287, 356 twitter followers, the "exposure" of these messages was 1,179,203! (See the "wordle cloud" at the bottom of this page for an array of the most popular terms.)

One of the questions for next year will be whether to set up a conference backchannel on Twitter. In general, it seems appropriate for ICA to more fully engage with Twitter, as another means for us to be in communication. We will also look into setting up a Facebook page for the conference.

Among the more traditional highlights of the Boston conference were two overflow plenary sessions that required us to open walls to more than double the size of the rooms! The plenaries were also live streamed through the virtual conference site, thus reaching more folks beyond Boston.

The conference opened with a plenary session on "Communication as the Discipline of the 21st Century," with Craig Calhoun, president of the Social Science Research Council, and respondents Joe Cappella, Sonia Livingstone, John Durham Peters, and Georgette Wang. It was gratifying to see the crowd remain present and engaged even as the session ran overtime and the reception was already underway. On Monday we needed even more space to accommodate the numbers who turned out to hear Noam Chomsky speak on "Democracy, the Media, and the Responsibility of Scholars."

On Saturday ICA president Francois Cooren gave the presidential address, on "Communication Theory @ the Center: The Communicative Constitution of Reality," at a session which featured the annual awards ceremony. Receiving awards in recognition of their accomplishments and service to the field and to the organization were:

• New ICA Fellows: Patrice Buzzanell (Purdue U, USA); James P. Dillard (Pennsylvania State U, USA); Janet Fulk (U of Southern California, USA); Ronald E. Rice (U of California - Santa Barbara, USA); Cynthia Stohl (U of California - Santa Barbara, USA); Vish Viswanath (Harvard U, USA)
• Fellows' Book Award: Carolyn Marvin (U of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award: Sandra Ball-Rokeach (U of Southern California, USA)
• Steven Chaffee Career Productivity Award: Jennings Bryant (U of Alabama, USA)
• Outstanding Book Award: Kate Kenski (U of Arizona, USA); Bruce Hardy (U of Pennsylvania, USA); Kathleen Hall Jamieson (U of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Outstanding Article Award: Robert LaRose (Michigan State U, USA)
• Applied/Public Policy Award: Michael Stohl (U of California - Santa Barbara, USA)
• Young Scholar Award: Dmitri Williams (U of Southern California, USA)
• James Carey Urban Communication Award: erin mcclellan (Boise State U, USA)
• Communication Research as an Agent of Change Award: Robert McChesney (U of Illinois, USA)
• Communication Research as Collaborative Practice Award: Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics, United Kingdom)
• Communication Research as an Open Field Award: Janice Radway (Northwestern U, USA)

While it was gratifying to have folks congratulate me on how well the conference went, it seemed a bit like a concert, where the one person who isn't playing an instrument is given credit for the musical performance. Many people contributed to the success of the conference, of course, and I'd like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation to some of these, although I am sure that I will miss some who deserve thanks.

The Local Arrangements Committee - Julie Dobrow, Tom Nakayama, Jim Shanahan, Elizabeth Swayze, and Vish Viswanath - helped members take advantage of Boston's many attractions.

The members of the conference planning committee - Division and Interest Group officers - had to wrestle with our record number of submissions in the usual tight timetable, and also figure out how to work in the new virtual conference sessions - and most came through on time and with great skill.

I have enjoyed working with, and learning from, my colleagues on the Executive Committee: Patrice Buzzanell, Francois Cooren, Sonia Livingstone, Cynthia Stohl, and Barbie Zelizer. Sonia has earned her parole after 5 years, and she will be missed. We will certainly assure that her commitment to the project of internationalization will not falter.

Anyone who has been involved in organizations such as ICA knows that our revolving-door leadership structure means that we are dependent on the dedication and skill of the staff. Here ICA is extraordinarily blessed, and I am especially appreciative of the skillful management and navigation provided by Emily Karsnak, Sam Luna, Amanda Pike, Mike West, and someone named Michael Haley.