Thanks for doing this, Christine. I know it was a lot of effort on your part, but I think it was terrific.

Thanks, Christine, for running the show!

Thanks from a very happy author/presenter. I only received one comment, but because you were very thoughtful in who you selected to comment on my paper, it was wonderfully helpful.

Maybe next time you should just post the submitted paper titles, and we'll vote. The top three get published online. "American Idol" meets "SSRN rankings." Less work for you; of course, my paper would probably not have made the cut ;-(

Christine (and the rest of the Conglomerate crowd),

Many thanks for a terrific forum (from an author's perspective). I got very valuable feedback -- thanks to my commenters and a few who corresponded with me privately.

I regret that I fell behind on my work after the first week and could not participate as much as I wanted. I agree with Mike that you could probably make the process more competitive to limit the reading volume. Increasing quality, decreasing supply would probably make this the go-to online workshop forum in the business law area. And I think the online system has huge advantages.

Alternatively (or in addition to), you might want to have large session say in May, when many of us have more time. Say one large forum a year, and two or three competitve one in the meantime. Just don't fall into the credentials trap of favoring authors from elite schools--blind review if necessary.

Again, many thanks. bh.

I'll echo the other authors in thanking Christine and the rest of the Conglomerate folks. I found this conference to be extremely valuable. I'm writing this during a short procrastination break while revising my paper to incorporate the comments I recieved here.

To the other authors, my sincerest apologies for not commenting on your works. I fully intended to, and I actually read a couple of your papers. But I've found myself with little free time over the last few weeks. The combination of teaching for the first time while trying to finish this paper has been draining.

I agree with William that having the conference at sometime other than the beginning of the academic year might increase participation. You might even consider accepting papers throughout the year, rather than just in clumps. You could run one paper a week throughout the year, and thereby accomodate as many as fifty-some papers (depending on which weeks you excluded for the holidays). Or if you wanted only half that many papers, you could post one every two weeks. I would personally be more likely to comment were the papers more spread out rather than coming in clumps.

Thanks again everyone!

I too am much obliged for the terrific response and feedback I received as part of this groundbreaking workshop series. It was a terrific opportunity for a new scholar, and I really appreciate the amount of work that went into planning, organizing, publicizing, and executing the series. I have to think that this model will be picked up by others and will eventually become quite common. But the Conglomerate folks had the foresight to do it first, and you all did a great job with it.

Next -- maybe a Conglomerate peer-reviewed online journal? Expand the brand!