Category Archives: Friends

The Long View

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Doc Searls

This blog has been looking like my personal obituary section, and I suppose it is. While I promise to change that, for this post I’ll stick with the theme, and surface some correspondence with an old friend who recommended that … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Books, Friends, Future, Obituary, Quote | Leave a comment

Remembering David Hodskins

Posted on March 30, 2022 by Doc Searls

A hazard of aging well is outliving friends and other people you love. For example, two of the three in the photo above. It dates from early 1978, when Hodskins Simone & Searls, a new ad agency, was born in … Continue reading →

Posted in Friends, Obituary, Personal | Tagged | 8 Comments

Clearing things up

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Doc Searls

Back in 2009 I shot the picture above from a plane flight on approach to SFO. On Flickr (at that link) the photo has had 16,524 views and has been faved 420 times as of now. Here’s the caption: These … Continue reading →

Posted in Friends, infrastructure, Photography, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Speaking of character

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Doc Searls

It seems fitting that among old medical records I found this portrait of Doctor Dave, my comic persona on radio and in print back in North Carolina, forty-five years ago. The artist is Alex Funk, whose nickname at the time … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Friends, North Carolina, Personal | Leave a comment

A simple suggestion for Guilford College

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Doc Searls

Guilford College made me a pacifist. This wasn’t hard, under the circumstances. My four years there were the last of the 1960s, a stretch when the Vietnam War was already bad and getting much worse. Nonviolence was also a guiding principle … Continue reading →

Posted in education, Friends | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Home is where one’s butt is

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Doc Searls

I don’t want to explain why we’re bivouac’d at a friend’s house in San Marino. What matters, for the purpose of this post, is that we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the Covid-19 pandemic. But hey, it’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in california, conferencing, Digital Life, Family, Friends, Social, Travel | Leave a comment

The new together

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Doc Searls

I want to point to three great posts. First is Larry Lessig‘s Podcasting and the Slow Democracy Movement. A pull quote: The architecture of the podcast is the precise antidote for the flaws of the present. It is deep where now is … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Friends, infrastructure, Internet | Leave a comment

Where the nickname came from

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Doc Searls

My given name is David. Family members still call me that. Everybody else calls me Doc. Since people often ask me where that nickname came from, and since apparently I haven’t answered it anywhere I can now find online, here’s the story. … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, Art, Blogging, Broadcasting, Business, Friends, Fun, Geography, history, North Carolina, Past, Personal, radio | 5 Comments

Consumers can’t help health care. Customers can.

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Doc Searls

Economically speaking, the American healthcare system is not built for patients, because patients aren’t the ones paying for it directly. Insurance companies are. See, health care in the U.S. is mostly a B2B insurance business. It is only B2C when … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadcasting, Business, Family, Friends, Health | 5 Comments

BYSMD

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Doc Searls

Once, in the early ’80s, on a trip from Durham to some beach in North Carolina, we stopped to use the toilets at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. In the stall where I sat was a long conversation, … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Family, Friends, Fun, Geography, North Carolina, Personal, Places, Strange stuff, Travel | Leave a comment