For many of you, the Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting and the Top Management Round Table are events with which you’re familiar.

But this year, there’s going to be a change.

The SSP Annual Meeting is going on as scheduled, May 27-29th at the Marriott Baltimore Waterfront Hotel, but the Top Management Round Table has been replaced with a new event, the IN Conference.

Interact, Inspire, Innovate: The first IN Conference will be held at the Hotel Providence in Providence, RI, on September 23-25, 2009.  The conference is designed to engage all attendees in small group discussions focused on some of the key challenges and opportunities in scholarly publishing.  Participants will have a unique opportunity to interact with colleagues, think critically about approaches to problems, and will leave the conference with ideas and strategies that can be applied in the context of their organizations.

The event planning committee is working on small group discussion topics this week.  Richard Newman (VP, Business Development at the American Medical Association) and I are co-chairs for the event.

During the months to come, I will occasionally ask you for your feedback on the topic descriptions, conference layout and approach, and speakers.  I hope you’ll be willing to share your opinions either here, in the comment box, or through email.

In the mean time, please look for any member of the IN planning committee at the SSP Annual Meeting in a few weeks.  We’d love to tell you more about IN and hear what you have to say!

Planning Committee:

• Kathey Alexander, Consultant in Scholarly & Professional Publishing
• Michael Clarke, Clarke Publishing Group
• Lettie Conrad, Sage Publications
• Ray Fastiggi, Incoming SSP President
• Rebecca Jensen, JAACAP
• Ann Michael, Really Strategies
• Joy Moore, Seed Media
• Richard Newman, AMA
• Zsolt Silberer, WK Health