Tell good stories. You’re welcome. *** Jim Mitchem
As you may or may not know, I was unexpectedly hospitalized in March. I spent about 36 hours in Carolinas Medical Center, which is part of the Carolinas Healthcare System. It’s a good hospital. Both our daughters were born there. It’s part of the neighborhood. My bill for the 36 hours of intravenous antibiotics, a CAT scan, some lab work, and a few shots of morphine was $18,000. Or about $500 per hour. I saw a doctor for all of…
This is going to be a long post, but hopefully a good one. I’m just not getting Google+. At first, I blamed Google for another over-hyped, under-delievered digital toy. I got burned by Wave. And by burned I mean I invested time in that device that I’ll never get back. Admittedly, I haven’t invested too heavily in Google+ like I did with Twitter, Facebook and even Linkedin. But because Google owns search, I went ahead and set up a business…
Not too long ago, everyone had three television channels. Our news was delivered to our front porch each morning rolled up and snapped tight with a rubber band. And radio disc jockeys were like Gods of the airwaves. It was easy to find consumers back then. Everything was predictable and stacked neatly in its places. Big media companies knew who we were, what we watched, what we read, and how we responded to specific kinds of messaging. Basically, they knew…
When I was a child, I remember driving through parts of Jacksonville where black people lived in wooden shacks on cinderblocks. It made me sad for them. Little did I know that they weren’t necessarily sad themselves. Yet, it didn’t feel right that people in general had to live like that. We weren’t rich. In fact, we lived in a black neighborhood for a while when my mother was single with two children. But later, after she remarried and we…
Yes kids, believe it or not there was once a time when every important sporting event was available for free on regular television. Even Muhammad Ali heavyweight boxing matches. Free. On television. Of course we only had three channels back then (four, including PBS) and changing the channels meant getting up, walking over to the television and grabbing this big silver knob that you cranked around. Thump. Thump. Thump. I own the airwaves. You do too. We the people own…
