Photo by Sheila Lennon

Linux Journal editor and California proto-blogger Doc Searls and I met in comments on a blog almost six years ago, and since then we've emailed and blogged each other's posts but had never met. Until yesterday, when Doc came by for a casual meal and a few hours of conversation on our Providence porch.

The co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto is spending a few years as a Berkman Fellow at Harvard Law, and was passing through on his way back to Cambridge after a day in Newport.

We just skimmed the surface of all the things we wanted to talk about -- from online news to his Vendor Relationship Management project to "the bubble" to what will happen when TV goes digital, as well as who we are and where we've been -- but the groundwork has been laid for an unending conversation, now that we've finally sat down together in person and opened the spigot.