This year, more than 19,000 people attended Fall Meeting through numerous presentations, poster sessions, lectures, and town halls. But behind the scenes there is a business side to the conference, where the editorial boards of AGU’s journals meet to discuss future plans with each other and AGU staff.

Through the various luncheons, editors and associate editors brainstormed how best to promote high-quality science through their respective journals. The luncheons also worked as great advertising for the Editor Resource Center (ERC), a space at Fall Meeting where the editors and associate editors can come to plan their talks, eat, meet with other editors, or otherwise escape the conference’s hustle and bustle. The ERC is located in Moscone West 2014 Alcove. Newly appointed members of AGU’s editorial team are encouraged to visit the ERC–not just for free food and other treats, but for introductions to AGU’s user-friendly peer review software, GEMS.

A few topics came up again and again, such as the soon-to-be released publication fee pricing schedule and the implementation of CrossCheck on all journals. Editors were confident that the new 2011 pricing, especially free color in all formats, elimination of perpetual care fees, and simplified page charges, would encourage authors to publish with AGU. CrossCheck will also help them from having any plagiarized material reviewed or published.

From the staff perspective, the meetings allowed us to finally associate names with faces for all the people we e-mail several times a day. It’s really hard to believe that these quick lunches can accomplish so much!

–Graciano Petersen, Paige Wooden, and Pam Calliham are team leaders of AGU’s Editor Support department