Could technology spell the end of snow days?

Nashville meteorologists have a tough job.

For whatever reason, our weather patterns seem to be notoriously hard to predict. Facing the latest prediction of snowfall, Nashvillians learn to take the forecast with a grain of (rock) salt.

We know "wintry mix" usually just means rain.  We know that "one inch of snow" usually translates to mean no snow.  And we know that snowstorms like to travel on I-40 East — if it snows in Memphis, it will for sure snow in Nashville.

When we got the big snow a couple of weeks ago it was a bit of a shock to everyone. With such a mild winter so far, I figured the forecast would once again be off.  Instead, Nashville woke up Friday morning to a New England-style scene: more than half a foot of snow.

What a pleasant surprise — no school for the kids and no work for me!  A snow day off! Then, as I prepped for a day filled with sledding and snowball fights, I received a text message. A client's server was down.

This is where the good and bad of being perpetually connected comes in. I can do the same work from my house that I can do from my office.  As much as I wanted to use the "snowed in" excuse, there was nothing stopping me from fixing my client's server issue.

I reluctantly removed my hat, jacket, gloves and shovel and went to work from the coziness of our living room couch fixing the client's issue.

The mobility of Internet, smartphone and laptop allows most of us to work from anywhere at any time.  For a company owner, this is a great thing, since the financial impact of a snow day lost is significant for us.  The ability to address customers' needs no matter what the weather helps both our customer service and our profits.

Economic research has estimated that the average cost of a snow day for cities our size is nearly $90 million a day.  Between lost wages for hourly workers, lower sales tax collections and loss of retail sales, each inch of snow that falls is expensive.

I tried to explain this to my children as they begged me to come outside and sled.

They had no interest in my economic analysis of snow.  They were focused on a different idea: Snow is a lot of fun.

After an hour of sledding, the kids returned home to warm up.  To their surprise and mine, I received another text message.

This one was from their school: "Please remind your child to log in to the school website to download their homework assignments."

Uh oh. Sometimes technology works too well.  Not only can I work from home, but so can my kids.

In the snowy northeast, schools are beginning to implement systems that allow learning to continue via online classes when students are stuck at home.  My kids would really love that ...

So for better or worse, the concept of the snow day for kids and adults may be melting away before our eyes.  Businesses and schools will be at a competitive disadvantage if they do not invest in a technical infrastructure that allows them to operate regardless of the forecast.

Is this a good thing?

The kid in me says it's not, but my inner realist says technology will always win out, come rain or shine or snow.

JJ Rosen is the founder of Atiba, a Nashville mobile app development, IT, consulting, programming, networking and web design firm. Visit Atiba online at www.Atiba.com or www.atibasoftware.com.