If you don't own a car, and you don't have anywhere to go in particular, and you have plenty of books to read, a snow emergency isis a very pleasant thing indeed.  The news is alarming; correspondents standing in the dark with earflaps covered in snow, talking loudly and earnestly into their microphones.  They have new graphics:  BLIZZARD 2005.

I remember the blizzards of 1996 and 2003.  In January 1996, people were skiing down Connecticut Avenue.  I remember seeing Marion Wright Edelman trying to figure out how to go to work.  The snow piled up outside my office window, looping around the beige metal railings that passed for architectural detail in that building.  The firm effectively closed for an entire week -- the managing partner, perplexed, said, "Where did those hours go?"  No one fired us, no lawyers did anything, and it didn't matter at all.  (I think things would be different today.)  STORM COVERAGE.

In February 2003, I walked across town to visit a friend.  The snow was piled high in the streets -- plowing was apparently impossible.  When I got there, finally, we sat and talked for a long time.  

(Picture of Washington Square North from www.nyclondon.com, by R. Gardiner)

There are great technical entrepreneurs out there, and there are great policy people who really care about the net, but the two groups don't communicate as well as they should.  Yesterday I was at a policy group meeting that was dedicated (in part) to discussing how to communicate with the "online community."  And one person there said, "What's Slashdot?"

It's not a big deal, not knowing what Slashdot is.  But this moment shows we've got a gap of sorts.  We're at a turning point in the history of the internet, and the techies and the policy people need to meet up.

Today at the vloggercon lunchbreak, I witnessed another sort of gap.  Someone's mother called.  The person who answered the phone took the phone from his ear and handed it to a friend across the table.  "Here," he said, "explain to my mother what this conference is about."  The person across the table gamely took the challenge, introducing herself to the mom on the phone and doing her best to explain the video blogging phenomenon.  But I wasn't listening closely, because I was laughing too hard.  

Mind the gap.  We've all got a lot of learning to do.

(thanks to Mary Hodder for this post title)