Meeting The Digital Divide

I finally got to meet Andy Carvin, Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Cedar Pruitt and Andrea from EDC. Doc Searls was there, and Don Marti showed up.

Drinks were had. Andy recorded a a podcast, but it doesn't seem to be on the site. It's a shame that Doc, Don and I got caught up in shop talk. I wish that hadn't happened.

We (Doc, Andy and myself) ended up crashing the Berkman Thursday Meeting last night.

I don't know. I wasn't too impressed with the Thursday meeting, but I understand it was different because of the cameras. That sucked, actually. I tried making a few points, but was told in very certain terms that I was causing a stray from the core of the meeting - so I hopped out. The perspective, unsurprisingly, was very American-centric and didn't really discuss what I think the real issues with weblogs are. Again, I was unsurprised. I suppose it's easy for people to forget that just because they are bloggers that they cannot speak for all bloggers.

Blogging and it's impact is a little bit more important than what a crowded room on Thursday nights can talk about. Tough crowd.

Looking back on the whole thing, I'm slightly amused. Maybe I could have been more understanding, and maybe the Martinis impaired my judgement. But I don't know that others there had the same problem. Of course, David Weinberger had some interesting insight on the meeting as well. In the end, I suppose the meeting itself was an anomaly, and I hopped in the middle of an anomaly. So it's not fair to judge that, and it's important to understand that the mirror goes both ways.

Is the meeting a good thing? I think so. But I think it's not as important as participants may think. That's just the subversive outsider's perspective, though.

It was a good evening. We had dinner afterwards, and I got to listen to quite a few interesting details about the Carolinas that I did not know. That's the cool stuff. When I learn stuff, I'm happy.

Calling Deborah shortly so that we can have lunch.