Earlier last week Denise mentioned the lack of academics at D: All Things Digital. While the Wall Street Journal specifically calls it an executive (i.e., industry) conference, the general lack of scholarships to conferences is a serious problem for academics, especially younger ones.

Take for example ILAW, which the Berkman Center bills as "designed for lawyers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, educators, new media professionals, online publishers, and journalists who write about technology." Click on register, and you'll discover that the standard price is a whopping $2,500, although I am obliged to note that CLE credits are available. Staff attorneys for public interest groups, government lawyers, and "full-time" professors (which must mean adjuncts are ineligible, who may or may not be wealthy attorneys at big firms) are eligible for the discounted price of $1,500. While many professors (and perhaps even some high-level government workers) have lots of funds for professional development, many others do not, and wouldn't be able to afford such a fee.

Lowly law students can attend for $1,000. That's awful pricey for something that doesn't give me any credits. Of course, there are scholarships available at ILAW, too -- if you're from a developing country. I could possibly scrape up the cash to travel to something like this (especially since I have friends at Stanford that would let me crash), but my very meager salary wouldn't even start to cover such a fee.

The prices for other conferences are similar. D was $2,995 ($2,495 for early registration). Pop!Tech is $1,995 (again, $500 off for early registration). Neither of them boast any sort of scholarship program, and it's a shame. Admirably, the Copyright Society's annual meeting (which I hear is great fun) costs a mere $400 ($500 for non-members, a paltry $250 for professors and government employees).

I wonder how aspiring academics and industry leaders are ever supposed to get involved -- in person -- in things they're passionate about. Must we wait until we've made it to think about the bigger picture or expand our horizons or do whatever we're supposed to do at these things? Surely students (and academics in general) can benefit from attendance. While academics like to think of themselves as seeing the bigger picture, we often don't see it, much less understand it. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, for the most part, academics stay well cocooned in our ivory towers, blissfully unaware of the bigger world outside. Similarly, industry can benefit from academia's involvement. Often business gets so caught up in business that workers can't get past the next earnings cycle.

Fortunately for the less wealthy among us, much of this interaction now occurs online, but we're still missing out. There are two primary benefits to gatherings like these: the first is to think and learn, the second is to get to know people. Conferences are so valuable because they facilitate making new contacts that will be useful in the future. Making professional contacts is just as important as any other work activity, perhaps even more so.

Anyways, I'll be off to a couple conferences this summer with my job -- free ones. Surely they'll be interesting and fun, but it would be nice to at least have the chance to attend a conference not focused solely on academic interests.