[mattdeboard]

Use a bouncer like znc (or this) and you don't have to get emails, it'll just be there when you get back

[wickedchicken]

I'm thinking more of a notification. Imagine monitoring a product support channel: if someone mentions you you want to know about it so you can pop into the channel if needed. I don't want to stare at a chat screen all the time.

[Zev]

If you have an iPhone, you can use ZNC and Mobile Colloquy to get push notifications on highlights.

[nuclear_eclipse]

Alternately, if you don't like Colloquy or don't have an iPhone, I wrote a module called ZNC Push that works with multiple push notification providers, including Boxcar, Prowl, and Notify My Android. I'm also happy to integrate more providers if someone has any requests.

http://noswap.com/projects/znc-push/ or https://github.com/jreese/znc-push

[mattdeboard]

This is already a solved problem. Even emacs has notifications for IRC.