April 26, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of Black Thought: The Spark, Pastor Gohlstin and DJ Black Unicorn sit down with Joshua Edmonds, CEO of DigitalC, to talk about why internet access is about much more than convenience — it’s about power, freedom, and survival. Edmonds shares his mission to close the digital divide in Cleveland, connecting thousands of families who have been left behind by traditional internet providers. Together, they break down how access to technology impacts education, opportunity, and justice — and why bridging this gap is critical for the future of urban communities.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is WOVU Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good afternoon people. You're now listening to Black Thought Everything
Must Change on WOVU ninety five point nine FM. This
is your host Ben Goldsten along with the Black Unicorn,
bringing you today's conversation. We are looking forward to talking
(00:30):
about some things with using the background of Budding Heads,
and also we will be talking with our special guests
here with us today, a young man who is in
our community, who is really doing a fantastic job. And
(00:53):
although he's about fifty years younger than myself, we're twins
because our birthday is on the same day, January twenty sixth,
and his name is Josh Edmonds, who will be with
us shortly. But how Uni, how in the world are you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Bless by Bess?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I cannot complain. I got some great news. I had
a great weekend. I had a four to twenty Olympic event.
Well I threw it with my partner and it was amazing.
I'm just not getting over it, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To explain that to us that who not as up
to dated well verse.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In four twenty things.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So yes, with the legalization here in Cleveland, we put
together a four twenty Olympics basically five different Olympian smoke games.
If you have the lung capacity to make it, you
made it. And those that did not make it left early,
and that's okay. They came, they got their goods and
they got the great vibes. It's also, obviously, was Easter
(01:58):
this past weekend, so I have Easter eggs filled with
some flour all around the place as well, hand out
lots of joint It was a great event.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Everyone I showed up definitely enjoyed themselves and I'm still
like high off the spirit.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
All right, Well, listen, that's great and that's wonderful. I'm
glad you enjoyed yourself. I had. I enjoyed a leg
of lamb, all right, bolus leg of lamb and some
turnip greens and color greens and macaroni salad and all
that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I'm fasting, so I didn't get a chance to
take part in the dinner portion of it, and honestly,
I've never did for twenty during a fast, so that
was interesting as well.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But I thought I was gonna starve at some point.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But I was able to get some fruit in me
and sustained my body, but.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I wasn't able to eat good like you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
All right, Well, you know it happen, and you know,
God blesses us in special kinds of ways. But we're
glad you were fasting to bring about some spiritual depth
and some discipline and self control. Yes, well, listen, we
we have with us a young man, I mean I
met him a couple of years ago who is doing
(03:20):
a wonderful job. I like to see people who are
under forty making major contributions to our community and putting
in place some things that will be in place long
after I'm gone, and this young man is doing that.
(03:40):
His name is Josh Josh Edmunds. Josh is the CEO
of Digital C, which is a internet company digital company
that's been contracted and tasked with the project of digitizing
the city of Cleveland. Josh, good afternoon.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
How are you man, Good afternoon. I'm well, I'm well.
I'm glad to be here after Easter as well. I
didn't quite have the Olympic experience, but absolutely had a
wonderful Easter and just grateful to be experiencing a resurrection
up close with respect to even Digital C being able
to do the work that we're doing in Cleveland.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's wonderful. Josh, won't you tell our listening? No, there
is something about yourself. We don't know nothing about you
other than you're about twin.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Write something about me. I love nature. That is a
big thing for people who know me know that. Even
yesterday I got to recharge off the towpath trail near
Rockside Road. I just enjoy being in nature. That is
a big thing for me. So as the weather warms up,
I just get excited being able to explore kyle Hoga Valley.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Okay, hiker camp yeah, absolutely, or camping.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Camping like I'll be that one that if we can't
like we can wash up in the stream. Like I
really enjoy just being in nature.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Okay, all right, where are you from, Josh?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So? I grew up in Painesville, Okay, Ohio? Yep, right
about thirty minutes from here.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
College educated, Oh that's right. So college went to the
now closed unfortunately Notre Dame College, and then grat's going
to Howard University.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
All right, Oh, we have the same undergrad school as closed.
Also went to Bishop College in Dallas there it is right, Okay, Josh, Josh, listen,
you're in the digital world. How did you become interested
in the digital world?
Speaker 4 (05:39):
You know, it was always a thing. Now, I would
say the pathway started with video games, and you know,
I was just having a conversation before I got here.
For people who grew up in the nineties and everyone
who grew through the nineties, you remember how the public
library system that's either a where you were going to
get your computer access you might not have computer at home,
or B we treated it like Blockbuster at the time.
(06:02):
Now it's funny, anyone who's born in the two thousands,
doesn't you know what I'm talking about. But it's like,
you know, that experience of being able to just get
lost in our computer. Had a childhood Windows ninety five
computer and I would get lost on that and after
a while it just made sense to me. Technology made sense,
And so there was a seed that was planted for
(06:23):
my childhood of just understanding and having an appreciation for
technology that I would say fuels the work of the
work that we do in Cleveland, Like I want others
to be able to experience play, just being able to
play around with the computer, playing around with the Internet
and not being afraid to do so, not looking at
this that I'm going to drown in all this information.
It's like, no, let's teach people how to swim and
(06:44):
let them swim to their destinations of learning, whatever that
might be. And you know, I was just very fortunate
and blessed to grow up in a household where technology
was prioritized to some degree and I was able to
take that degree in essentially go significantly further than what
we even thought was possible.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, you have a question for Josh Okay, Yes,
all right, well this is I'll tell you. This is
what I would like to do. Uh, there are a
couple of things I want to kind of set the
scene for our our dialogue my classmates. She moved back
to Nigeria last month. Yes, doctor Beisha Day And she
(07:28):
says in her book Butting Heads, she has the uh
Aryan model, which is four uh components five really with
with with security, but I want to deal with two.
That's imperialism and hegemony. H Imperialism is the belief that
Caucasians have the right to control and rule non Caucasians
(07:53):
politically and economically. Then she goes on, hegemony is a
belief that Caucasian and have the God given right to
impose their religion, culture, values and standards of beauty upon
Caucasian none Caucasians and non Christians. UH. And then I
want to move to Wooly Lynch here of the breaking
(08:14):
the curse of Woolli Lynch and the the black slave
after receiving the Wooly Lynch in doctrination, shall carry on
and will become self refueling UH and self generating for
hundreds of years, maybe thousands. And I see Josh here
breaking that mold all right and setting and trail blazing
(08:37):
and setting the model for for Black America UH in
the future. And so with that being said, Josh, you
have been given the task of digitizing the city of Cleveland,
and you received X millions of dollars to do that,
(09:00):
and you're in process of doing that. And I want
to thank you for joining us. And let's look back
on in terms of what have been the biggest challenges
digital ce phase for the past. The last time you
had to appear before the city City of Cleveland, the
City Council of the City of Cleveland, YEP.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
So to give to give contexts again, we're the only
internet provider headquartered in Cleveland. That matters. That means a
lot because now we're in the information age. Everyone knows this,
like if we're in the digital age, it's the information age.
You're talking about Internet. Internet is information, and so by
us being headquartered here and having ownership of our information,
(09:42):
I don't think it quite literally puts the phrase powers
the people in practice, Yes, because information is power and
knowledge is power. We know that. So by us breaking
down barriers and connecting people the Internet, in many cases
some people who've never had the Internet in their home,
we are transforming these homes and ways that I can't
(10:02):
fully even quantify the impact that we're having on Cleveland,
but I'm thankful when I'm blessed. And so January, at
the beginning of this year, we didn't have the greatest start,
but it's not how you starts, how you finish, and
so it was pretty contentious. We had lost a million
dollars from our contract. So million dollars in twenty twenty
five is it is significant. It's always gonna be significant.
(10:25):
I don't care when anyone says a million is always
a million. And so that was very significant, and you know,
the subsequent press about us they're saying that we didn't
hit our goals. It was not a bright time for us.
But to be able to be motivated by this cause,
even looking at the quote that you had just mentioned
about being self generating, that we don't need to look
(10:47):
outside of ourselves for what's already within us. Being able
to rely on that, that's what brought us through. And
you know, my candor is much more happy now because
we just had a council hearing and it's quite literally
day and night. And I said that in that order
on purpose, because the first one was dark and the
one we just had was much lighter, and being able
to change the minds not by what we said, but
(11:12):
what we did. We now have over four thousand, two
hundred households on our network who are customers subscribing customers
of our Internet thank you. And this goes from January
one of twenty twenty four to now, so four thousand,
(11:32):
two hundred households are already taking the service. And within
our first quarter this year, we had eleven hundred, oh
actually close to twelve hundred households sign up for our service.
The reason why that's important the weather is a factor. Yes,
we're going out in these elements and we're still connecting people.
In addition to that, last quarter our last year. So
(11:54):
in twenty twenty four, within the first quarter from January
one to March thirty first, we had three hundred and
eight households. What we just did this quarter January one,
in March thirty first, we had almost twelve hundred. The
growth that you're seeing Digital ced Do is the reason
why now city Council and other folks like they are
(12:15):
now believing they're dialing into digital se much more.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Okay, tell us about your service, Josh, What does it
include when we say digitized in Cleveland Wi Fi? You know? Okay?
So yeah, So as a recipient of the service, what
can I expect?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So you can expect reliable, high speed internet, a nominal costs,
and we do not change the price. We can't change
it legally for the next five years. Oh okay, And
so now you don't have to worry about well, you know,
they're trying to get me on this promotion. They're trying
to change this and I signed up for one price
point and then six months I'm paying something completely different.
(12:57):
Like that has been a big frustration Cleveland when the
other companies do that to residence where it's like, WHOA,
I'm want to fixed income, I can only pay X
amount of dollars a month. Why now am I paying
almost triple than what I signed up for? And so
we we fix that. In addition to that, we're responsive.
I mean, I'm the CEO of the company and I'm accessible.
(13:20):
And I say that to say, it's more of our headquarters.
So the Midtown tech hive that is our headquarters. That's
sixty ninth in EUCLID. People just pull up. Residents pup
all the time and they just say like, hey, I
have a question about this, Hey, I want to talk
to you. Us being accessible, that's what you can expect
as part of this customer experience. In addition to that,
if anyone would like to talk to one of our representatives,
(13:42):
I'm not going to give you a one eight hundred
number to call because we don't have one. We have
a two one six number two one six seven, seven, seven,
three eight five nine three again two one six seven,
seven seven three eight five nine. The reason why that's
significant is because we're we're building trust. We don't look
to behind some type of corporate structure as if we're
afraid of Cleveland. It's like, no, we're here. You want
(14:05):
to talk to us. I gave you the two and
six number. You want to see us, I gave you
our address. We're accessible, we have nothing to hide. We
hire from the neighborhoods. And you're anyone who is essentially
going with Digital C. You are choosing to support community.
We talk about the dollars circulating in the community. We're
an internet provider headquartered here. You get your internet with us,
(14:26):
it circulates if you go with the other ones, they're
not headquartered here. So as soon as you pay your bill,
that money leaves. When you pay your bill, it stays.
We're hiring from here. When percent of our team lives
in Northeast Ohio, over half of us living in the
city of Cleveland. Myself included what makes you different than
the other Look, I don't know who they are.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
What is the value of the quality that Digital C presents?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Well, you know, I think again, one of the big
challenges that we see in our market economics is a
challenge here. We all know it. We're still figuring that out.
And for us to have a set price point for
five years, meaning we can't change that price, I think
there's value in that. That's something where lets people know like, Okay,
now I can do my financial planning knowing that this
(15:16):
is going to be a constant. I don't have to
worry about a variable charge over here. That's set and
again that's a nominal rate. In addition to that, if
you have a kid in the public schools, it's free.
No one else has that set up here. And so
being able to take care of the community the way
that we do, the community partners that we work with,
and the emphasis on local. When your local, you tend
(15:39):
to care more when it's your neighbor, when it's your
family member, when it's your relative. If we treated everyone
like strangers because we didn't really get to know the
people that we're serving, well, then you know we'd be
able to disrespect you. But the beauty about this, if
you go on anyone can google this. You can google
digital see right now, put them into Google bar and
look at our reviews. The fact that we have four
(15:59):
points eight stars, four point eighth when everyone right now
is like, man, if you just get a cold burger
from McDonald's, you know you're saying whatever. Four point eight
stars overwhelmingly positive reviews. Everyone is rating this thing excellent
because that's what we're showing up as. When I say
the price is nominal, that doesn't mean the quality is.
(16:22):
And so what we want to do is we want
to usher in a new chapter of Cleveland where yet, Clevelanders,
we're not asking you to pay an armor leg for this,
but we're gonna over deliver on quality. We want something
that's gonna be sol quality that you're gonna look at
this and say, you know what. I can tell that
y'all care. I can tell that y'allre willing to go
the extra mile for little O me, and like that
(16:44):
attitude is something that Cleveland is personal for us. And
to be able to have a personal charge, a missing
driven one and delivering service for Clevelanders and delivering value
to them. I don't think that any other Internet provider
could communicate the passion that we have for Cleveland because
they're not from here and they're not recorded here, but
for us who are who live here, like, we see
what this is. I remember when we didn't have this infrastructure,
(17:07):
and when you had neighborhoods that didn't have choice, and
now they're having choice now they're choosing us. I mean,
this is probably one of the greatest stories that we'll
be able to tell in recent history about Cleveland outside
of like sports and politics.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well, people, now you're listening to Josh Edmunds, the CEO
of Digital c with the Rabbi and the black you
have called along with the CEO of Digital ce Josh Edmunds.
Josh you. I mean, I just you know, since I've
met you, I appreciate the energy. I appreciate the vision
(17:40):
that you bring to the table and bring to our community.
And I want you to know how much I value
you and appreciate you. Now. You I know, I see
you sitting over there about the bus. Questions questions, question,
all right, you know, come on talk with Josh.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I want to know what happened with the artists.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Oh yeah, man, we had so this this is the thing.
All right, you are gonna understand this. Let's say I
went down to the Jacks casino right now and I
won I don't know, fifty three million dollars, but I
won that type of money, and I stayed in the casino.
Everyone's gonna be watching my hands. It doesn't matter what
(18:21):
table I go to. There's just me watching like there's
no way he's either cheating or he's going to cheat,
or he's doing something wrong. And so that's essentially what
happened with DIGITALC. We raised all this capital, we're doing
the work, but there are people like, there's no way
not in Cleveland. And obviously we have a history of
(18:42):
greatness as black people in the city accomplishing things, but
there's also a history of us black people sometimes not
doing the right thing, and so they don't know what
to make of me in this regard, and so what
they do is like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna do an audit. We were audited from I
would say the day before, so Christmas Eve we got
(19:03):
a notification that we'd be audited, and it ended, I
wouldn't say, like the last week of March. So we
went essentially the entire quarter of them just asking us questions.
Auditors from the city, the entire team coming down and
talking to us for like three days, just them in
our in our space, asking us questions, writing down things,
pulling random members of my team. I'm not in these meetings,
(19:25):
my team is. But that's the value when you don't
have to hide anything. There's beauty and honesty, there's ease
and honesty.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Peace.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
It is because I'm like stsful, like come on, I
hide anything, Come on, whatever y'all want to do, ask away,
And actually, I'm not gonna be here. I'm gonna walk
away and let my team handle that. And the fact
that they didn't find anything negative in our audit and
that we passed that audit with the thousands of records.
This is what we turned in last year. We said
that we connected two thousand, over twenty eight hundred households.
(19:57):
They verified those households. We indeed did that. We said
that we trained over seveny five hundred residents in the
city of Cleveland with digital skills training. They then went
through the audit and they said there was no foul
play there. They did that. So we're standing on the
word that we said that we would. We're doing the
work that we said we would. And that has now
brought people who might have been on the fence with
(20:17):
respect to trusting Digital Seed and now saying no, they're legit.
They're doing what they need to do. And that's the
part where I would just tell anyone, any black person,
if you're doing anything of significance and there is capital involved,
everyone's going to be watching you. There is nowhere to hide,
there is no let me try and move some money
over here to stop. This is my PSA to all
black people. If you are in any position of power
(20:40):
or authority and you were touching money in any way,
I promise you people are watching, and you're not smarter
than those that are watching, so just stop. Just just
be honest in your dealings, get the work done, do
it with pride, and you'll be all right. And that's
exactly what happened with us. So the audit be passed
with flying colors, and thank for I'm thankful for the
(21:02):
folks at the city. You know, I didn't want it
to be a thing that someone said, Well, you asked
them all the easy questions, so of course like no, fine, fine,
We'll accept it at whatever level. And that's exactly what happened.
And thankfully, like I said, we passed that audit. We're
moving on, and it got us a two point seven
million dollar payment from the city with respect to the
passing that audit, So it all worked out well.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
You should beak to a question. You said that there
was the two meetings there was much different to.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The same way.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
What was different in the two meetings the first meeting
and then over and against.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
The second And do you feel like the audit constituted
that temperature change.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Partially? Partially? So I think that the first meeting, because
we had a goal to hit. We said we were
going to connect thirty five hundred in the first year.
We connected twenty eight hundred in the first year, and
they took a million dollars from us as a punishment
for that. I'm like, oh, okay, that's pretty excessive, especially
considering there were permits that the city had to issue
(22:09):
for us to be able to get the numbers we needed,
and it took them over a year to issue that permit.
And so it's like, how are you all going to
penalize us for something that you're in charge of that's
like a ref giving me a technical foul or playing
basketball and it's like, ref, you're the one holding the ball,
but you got to release that. And so like, again,
(22:29):
that felt a little bit odd to us. It felt
incredibly excessive, But at the same time, you know, we
can't ruminate on on those things. It's like, look at
that happened stick and move, keep moving. And I would
also say during that time, our network didn't reach every ward,
and so there are certain council persons who are assessing
(22:50):
a value that they haven't got to see up close.
So if everyone's raving about this thing on this side
of town and your side of town hasn't seen it,
well you might feel some type of way. Yeah, and
it's easy for me to punch you now because it's like, man,
you ain't doing nothing for me anyway. But now that
we have a customer in every single in every single ward,
there's digital c it changes it now because now it's tangible.
(23:14):
Now it's residents saying to their councerorces, well, hold on,
hold on, this works for me. My family needs this.
You know, my husband was laid off and we need this,
this affordable internet. It changes the narrative. And what we
did was we made it about the residence. That's so
often there's an ego play that happens that if you're
leading an organization, you you're you're you're getting the vision
(23:38):
and this is purpose driven work, so you're you're obedience
to the vision, you're working on it. But what comes
first in this city is the residence. The residents come first.
It's not the mayor, it's not council, it's not digital,
you know, it's the residence first. And so we began
putting residents first in our storytelling, highlighting our four thousands
customer you know, we went it was in Slavic village.
(23:59):
We went over there and we celebrated this gentleman early
in the morning with a cake with balloons, all this stuff,
and he was touched by that, and we caught that
on camera. You know, we released that and there were
other people were touched by that because they're seeing It's like, man,
these people are literally just making a difference in lives.
And I think that's the biggest difference that we went
in there with a resident facing strategy versus a company
(24:20):
first strategy. At the beginning of the year. Beginning the year,
we're talking about what Digital c has done. Now we're
talking about what residents are feeling, what residents are seeing,
what residents are taking advantage of. It's a completely different style.
And as long as we put residence first, I'm seeing
how people respond to us in this city beautiful.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh yes, please.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So with all of that love and energy from the
community and all of these people that you all have
been training in which I do want to hear a
little bit more about the Click program so people understand
what digital C is offering on what they can take
advantage of.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Can you talk on that first? Actually?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Yeah, yeah, So, and I got to give a big
shout out to Leadna Norris and her team Digital C
who lead our Click and digital skilling efforts. So for
residents in Cleveland, not only can you come to Midtown
Tech Hive, we also do have a satellite site at
the Cleveland Food Bank as well, but we offer trainings
to residents who either a on demand like you just
(25:18):
need it, Like, Hey, I got this new computer. I
don't know what's going on. My grand babies are being disrespectful,
they're not trying to listen, and they're not trying to
help me help, So we help out with that. In
addition to that, let's say you got a computer maybe
two or three years ago and it's starting to run
a little bit slower. Well, we do what's called a
PC refresh, So we'll help you refresh your computer, will
help you delete some of the clogged stuff that you
(25:41):
don't really need. We're not going to delete your pictures
and stuff that's important to you, but your cookies, your
cat like. You might not understand what that is, but
that's what we're gonna be deleting. In addition to that,
we also teach people how to protect themselves online. You know,
no different than a self defense academy here that hey, man,
i might need to learn some self to fundamentals when
I'm out here in these streets by myself. Whatever same
(26:03):
thing exists in the digital world. The digital world is
becoming much realer and the implications of what happens digitally,
we feel that in real time. And if you don't
believe me, if you get scammed digitally, you're gonna feel
that real time. And so we don't have a nine
to one one in this city that, hey, someone digitally,
someone just stole my identity, or someone just did this
(26:24):
to me online. We don't have that. So what we're
doing proactively, if we're going to give you the license
to drive online in the form of an Internet connection,
we're also going to arm you with the necessary training
to protect yourself so that way you can have the
experience that you deserve. We don't want to just connect
people leave them to their own devices and then they
have a bad experience online. That's not what we want.
(26:45):
We want people to thrive online. We want to build
a community online and that starts with togetherness and so
being able to move as a speed of our community.
And by doing these trainings, I mean we have trainings
on AI too, So someone's trying to figure out what
they mean by AI and how do I take advantage
this at GPT or whatever it's called. How do I
We have training for that and so it's free. Again.
(27:06):
We do met the tech Hive. We have a partner
sites all throughout. You can find more on our website
at www dot digitalc dot org. Look for the click
program just like a click of a button, it's called
click or. In addition to that, if you want to
learn more, you can always come to the Midtown Tech Hive.
We will always have people who are standing by who
are there to help you. There was actually a class
(27:26):
there were just this morning, another one of the cybersecurity classes.
They do teach it with a motown style, so it's
not a boring class. It's meant to be engaging. We
really are rooted in community and everything that we do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I love that you ass sauce to the education and
make it fun.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You have to, you really do. Gotta put the sugar
in it just a little bit. What are you most
proud of?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And when you look back in the past twelve months,
just the past twelve months, when it comes to the
work that you all have put in a Digital Seed,
what are you.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Most proud of?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Wow? If I had to say one, I'm the most
proud of. You know this, man, I'm proud of my team.
I'm proud of the people at Digital c They tirely
show up. They care. I can see it in their
eyes when I'm talking to them. I remember how frustrated
we were. This was not easy. It sounds easy on
the other side of it because like we figured out
a lot. But you know, my team is incredibly resilient.
(28:21):
They are smart, They are committed to Cleveland in ways
that inspires me because I get tired, Like I'm yeah,
I'm young and I got the energy, but yeah, I
get tired too, and they they motivate me. So as
much as it's about the residents, you know, and in
my order, it's residence first, but it's this team second.
And the way that this team shows I'm proud of them.
(28:41):
I'm so proud of the way that they've grown. I'm
proud of the way that they've been able to take
on challenges. And this latest chapter for us, they know
where it's coming from. But I tell them, we will
now run into storms if there is a storm that
is coming our way. No more of us avoiding it,
no more of us looking outside and saying, gee, that
sure looks like a bad storm. At this point, it's like, well,
(29:02):
we're better than that storm, and whatever storm comes our way,
we're gonna run into them. And seeing the team adapt
that and use that in their lives, I mean, it's
it's been one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
That. All right, people, we're gonna take another break here.
You've been listening to Josh Edmonds, the CEO of Digital C,
the Black Unicorn, and the Rabbi on Black Thought. Everything
must change, to inform, to inspire, to impact. On w
o VU ninety five point nine F you with Black Thought,
(29:32):
everything was changed to inform, to inspire, and to impact
on w o v U ninety five point nine FM.
We're with Josh Edmunds, the CEO of Digital C, Black
Unicorn and of course the Rabbi Josh. Listen. We've we've
(29:53):
heard some impressive lumbers from your team. Can you talk
a little bit about a digital seas performance. I know
you said what you've done in the first quarter, but
how did that first quarter really shape up and shape out?
I think it's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yeah, so our first quarter was our most successful quarter
ever in the company ever, you know. And it's funny
because last year's first quarter, I think i'd shared, you know,
we had three hundred and eight households that we connected,
and then this year we had close to twelve hundred households.
And to see the difference in nine hundred households is
(30:32):
purely you know, it's effort. But we've gotten better, we've
gotten smarter what we do. Cleveland is supporting us the
way the residents are just recommending us. We could spend
money on billboards, we could spend money on ads, and
in some cases we will do that. However, the single
greatest way that we've been able to get exposure and
(30:53):
attention has came from Clevelanders, other Clevelanders recommending the service.
Other Clevelanders. We can't compete with that it's just right up.
We'll connect the household and then we go back and
it's like we go back like four or five times
because so and so is telling so and so, who's
telling so and so and so and so. We know
word travels fast in the city. But it's beautiful to
see the word traveling fast. And it per good thing
(31:15):
that if this is going to be a rumor, this
is the rumor now of man. I heard they got
some low cost internet that's real high speed and reliable.
And if you got a kid in CMSD is free.
That's what I heard. I heard if you call two
and six seven seven, seven, three eight five nine, they'll
get you right. See that, right there is something that
we don't really get the chance to talk about. We'll
(31:36):
talk about how the rumors that happen in this city
sometimes aren't the greatest and how it could paint a
negative picture. But this is the beauty of community that
It's like, man, when you show up and you have
something of value, man, they'll do it for you. Like
these people are literally just saying, y'all got to get
digital c y'all need to sign up with that. Y'all,
I got it. You need to get like that. It's
(31:57):
so authentic, it's so beautiful, And I think that's been
the biggest difference between Q one of last year and
Q one now. Q one last year, people didn't really
know who we were. We didn't have the service in
the neighborhoods the way we do now, and so now
that we have that, it's been a quite Literally again,
it's a difference between night and day, the success we've seen,
(32:18):
the speed of which we've been able to resolve issues.
There was one of our reviews, and this one's still public.
This woman gave us a one star review, said the
service was terrible and it wasn't working for her. Our
team went out there again, fixed it, quadrupled her speeds,
and then she said, you know what, five stars and
she left her original review up there, but then she
added the comments about what happened. And that's the biggest
(32:40):
point of pride for me, from Q one of last
year to now that we're responsive. Yes, we're going to
run into issues and challenges. Absolutely, there is no perfect
business out there, and if they are perfect, then they're
just perfect at lying. So now that we know that
we can be a responsive entity, we can take care
of Clevelanders and Clevelands be fair with us. That allows
(33:01):
me to walk in with all the faith that I
need because I've seen Cleveland and one of the one
of the best ways that I would say as a privilege.
I don't believe many community leaders have had the privilege
of seeing Cleveland through the through the lens of which
I have. And the appreciation is just as bottomless at
this point.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And you're you're accessible at sixty eight fifteen euclids, going
to sixty ninth and euclid. It's a tech hive.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Well, Josh, what what's what's what's what's what's the future
look like? Are you going to expand? Are you going
to other cities, new technologies, new neighborhoods, what what's what's
what's on the horizon?
Speaker 4 (33:40):
This is you know, we we say this, but I
think I'll officially say, I mean, this is the Cleveland model.
Like I if think about Cleveland, we had our own pizza.
Now someone says we do, I'm like, okay, no, we don't.
But if we had our own pizza, we want to
take that on the road. We want other people to
(34:01):
experience how pizza should be made. This is how we're
doing Internet now. We believe that we have a superior
disruptive model. We're still figuring out some things, but whatever
we're figuring out, that's just an opportunity. That's not a
limiting thing. That's not going to stop us. That's just
gonna challenge us to be better. And so as we
are getting better and as we are scaling, absolutely the
(34:24):
goal is to export and expand this Cleveland model that
no matter where everyone goes, whether we're in the hills
of Appalachia or we are in the mountains of Colorado,
doesn't really matter where we end up, everyone's going to
look back at this and say that's the Cleveland model.
And I want every everyone to look at Cleveland with
(34:44):
pride and say that we exported something that transformed the
entire telecommunications industry in America, and they'll be referencing Cleveland
for that.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, Josh, it's been my understanding that Cleveland was way
behind in the digital world. We all has digital see
and what's going on brought us in compliance or online
with the rest of the world.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Oh yeah, I mean so to your point, Cleveland was
ranked as the least connected city in America for several years,
and then we would always go back and forth between
Cleveland and Detroit. And the fact that it doesn't matter
what big city you look at. You can look at Baltimore, Memphis, Miami,
doesn't really matter. Look at every single one of those cities.
(35:29):
You're going to see a pronounced digital divide. And in
every one of those cities, you were going to see
an absence of digital See, there is not another digital
sea that exists where you have four thousand households connected
in less than two years time, and what have eight
thousand in our two year stint. That doesn't exist. And
so the fact that we are building something here that
(35:49):
is so disruptive it will challenge these other cities to
get on par with us. So we went from the
least connected city to now having an engine so to speak,
that has now been that can drive results that will
ensure that we will no longer be the least connected
city in America and arguably one of the most connected cities.
You're not going to see this type of gains even
in the suburbs like this is. What we're doing is
(36:14):
a statistical anomaly that no one would have predicted to
be this successful.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
That's why it was so hard for the council to believe.
That don't even make sense.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
But it's revolutionary, that's real. It is very revolutionary, and
I'm just excited to see.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Where you take it, where you go.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You've mentioned during the break your team members of oh man,
they got some personality. They do as big as mine.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Are like.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
One, you know, I got, I got one and a
possible accident.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Okay, I'm excited to eat them.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
You mentioned bringing them out with uh of the I
guess the offices with cube cools.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Do you guys have cubicles?
Speaker 4 (37:02):
I who's got tables? It's like a community set up
where it's like a lot of us And I think
that's the cool part about how we do it. Like
we go in the office, so we're not all just
you know, working from home. Whatever. Know, we'll go in,
but a lot of times people just there's like a
big table and everyone just works on a table.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I love that. That's very communal.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
It is like we have a communal off it's a
communal culture. So that allows us to like look at
community and be like Sae, I.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
See cubicles and I think slow death.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah I do.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So I'm happy they they sit at tables together, and
you guys probably just turned the computers off and eat
lunched at the same tables together.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Is that like the thing?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
No, that is like that. Seriously. I know we eat
like there's a table upstairs. People eat lunch together. You know,
we were doing our happy birthday celebrations today. I missed
it for this, but it's all right.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You know, happy who birthday was.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
It's like eight people's.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Birthday, Happy birthday, all eighty y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Happy birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy birthday, Happy Birthday, Heavy Birthday,
Happy Birthday, Heavy Birthday. I love it, though, and I
just I'm just excited to see where it goes. Like
I've said, I told you this story before when I
first said, hey, we're switching, I'm getting rid of that
other guy. I'm not even gonna miss them because they
don't even matter no more. They're not in the house.
(38:17):
We don't even think about them.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And my partner said why, I'm like, why would we
do that?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
And I'm like, look, this is gonna be a new,
huge thing here in Cleveland, and I want not only
do I want to be a part of it, not
only do I want to support, but I want to
actually be involved as a customer to see for myself
when I tell you, the hookup smooth easy. All I
(38:45):
had to do is say where, and it was done.
My partner came home, he saw the box on the house.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
He was like, what is this freaky dick?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Then it didn't work, But because I still had Spectrum,
I didn't realize the connectivity.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
How all of that? You know, you know what you know,
and I don't know what you know, so all of
that it didn't work at first.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So I called when I tell you, the sweetest lady
answered and she said, oh, honey, do you still have
any other services?
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I said, well, yes I do. She said, oh, you
gotta take them off, honey. I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I felt like I was talking to my auntie or
grandma or something, but that was it was just so
like so warm.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
It was just warm, such a warm interaction.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And so I disconnected Spectrum completely, zero problems, none at all,
like PS, all the computers, all the phones connected, nothing
slow like I have zero complaints with digital CE. And
I'm an actual real life customer. This is UNI, y'all,
and y'all know I don't cosign nothing that I don't
believe in I believe in digital See that's why I
(39:49):
became a customer, and I appreciate everything that you have
brought to Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Josh you and the team at Digital c thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well, I'm jealous because I live in the suburbs and
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Have it.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
That that Actually, that's that's a good point to highlight too,
because typically we would be in the suburbs first. Whenever
technology companies roll out any type of offering for residents, Oh,
we're bringing fiber, we're doing they don't pritise Cleveland. First,
they go suburbs and then they go into this if
they go into the city. The flip side now is
(40:27):
we're doing this first. Now the suburbs are hitting us
up saying hey can we can we get them like,
oh now, this is interesting. This will be one of
the first times that we've produced so much value in
Cleveland that now our surrounding suburbs are almost feeling like, well,
where's the love?
Speaker 2 (40:42):
What about us?
Speaker 4 (40:44):
And it's like, we'll get to you when we get
to you.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, I'm feeling that right now. You know what, what
what can we do in the community to help Digital
CEE is there opportunities for volunteers or you know what,
what is it the community they can do to be supportive.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
So I mean this right here, I mean this is
really a big part of this because and I've said
this before, but opportunities to tell our story matter so
much to us, more than I can even convey in
my words, because if someone doesn't give us this opportunity
to tell a story, someone else has an opportunity to
tell our story, and they're gonna leave out the details
that matter for a reason. And so this is beautiful
(41:27):
being able to If we have our customers, we love
to feature them more, featuring these Cleveland residents. So any
opportunity we get to feature residents getting their voice out there,
letting them share their experiences just who they are, I
think that we love that. So opportunities for exposure always,
and even the opportunities to knock on doors. I think
like being able to do the door knocking allows us
(41:51):
to It allows us to be in a position where
we're building these relationships. And so this summer it's gonna
get hotter obviously, and us being able to have volunteers
who are willing to knock on doors, you know, I
get it. It's an election season, so there's already gonna
be some door knocking that's happening. We're staying out of that,
(42:14):
but being able to knock on doors and just build relationships,
letting people know, hey, this is the thing that's out there.
You know, we can't have enough volunteers, So if anyone
who just loves the work that we do wants to
spend more time with us, you know, as the summer
rolls around and we get some more stable warm weather,
we would love to have a volunteer core who are
knocking these doors and let people know about the incredible
(42:36):
offer that Digital Seed is providing.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
If they are businesses, charter schools, any anyone who wants
to partner and connect with Digital.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
C and just bring it to their community of people.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
How will they connect with you so they can go
on one our online So our website www dot digitalc
dot org, we do have our contact information there. In
addition to that, I would say our social media we're
much more responsive. I'll send on our social media at
times because there's just amount of the amount of people
are just hitting us up. So if you're on Instagram,
(43:10):
if you're on Facebook, you can just search digital C.
And when we say digital C, it's not like sea
like water, it's see like connection. And so if they
find digital C that way. Again, we're always looking forward opportunities.
Very rarely are you going to hear me say no
to something. What I might say is not right now.
That's not a no, that's just not right now. But
(43:31):
we're always looking to expand and a partner with people.
We like to partner what we call sometimes off the
wall partnerships, partnerships that you wouldn't expect us to have,
Like we like that, like you know Evan Reid with
Evan Towing, he's a toe goat, you know, man, he's
(43:52):
he's he's a big support of ours, support of his
and you wouldn't think that we would be partners. We
absolutely are partners. And he just does an incredible work.
You know, he's local, he's here, you see him, he's
out here. And when we find essentially people who are
like part of our tribe, you know, we do our
best to just lift them up. And you know, the
(44:13):
more and more people who are doing work in this city,
who are just providing value or even in this region,
we want to work with them and we'll figure it
out from there. There is not a clearing house to
be a partner of ours. You don't have to come
perfect and so articulate that we're like, oh, yes, that's
the standard. Like no, like come as you are, and
I'm sure that we have something we could partner on.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
One of the things I'd like to offer to you
that I think UNI was headed towards something, all right,
and I want to kind of like preemptor is I
would like for you to come back once a quarter,
all right and talk with us, let us know where
you are, what we can continue to do to support
(45:00):
be supportive of you. Again. I believe like Uni, I
believe in what you're doing, and I'm seeing at work
for us by us and kind of of us, okay,
and we want to make sure that it gets to
the suburbs.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
You know. And on that note too, this is a
beautiful thing that I'm going to be able to say
here that is a significant second quarter when that now
that we're in the second quarter of the year, being
able to come back to this table, it would mean
a lot because we are going to have this entire
(45:41):
city covered with our internet this quarter. And the reason
why that's important is we started January twenty twenty four
zero coverage, and then by summer twenty twenty five, the
entire city's covered. When I tell you that does not happen,
that timing doesn't happen. There are cities who have been
trying to plan how to bridge or digital divide for
a decade. Now what they've done with all their planning
(46:04):
and money allocated. Had they just invested in digital c
they would already have their digital divide bridge. So the
fact that we can say within less than two years
time eighteen months, we build an entire network that covered
one of the least connected cities in America, I think
that that's the type of stuff where I would love,
not be honored to share those type of updates at
this table.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Do you have anything to say to the haters, the
ones that try to discourage you from doing this, to
say they couldn't be done.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
I would tell them, thank you. They are necessary in
the story. You know. If you don't have any haters,
I would say, maybe you're not you're not really doing
it to the level that you could be. The minute
they're muttering or that can't be done, or they'll never
(46:58):
you know, I heard people say they're not gonna get
over one hundred customers. Then it was they're not gonna
get a thousand. Well they're not gonna get two thousand.
Now it's they're not gonna get five. I'm like, enough enough,
we're getting it. We are. Our contract is to get
twenty three five hundred households in this city. That's what
we're aimed at. So the four thousand and five thousand six,
(47:20):
they're going to keep moving the goal posts, and they're
gonna keep doing that because the more they move these
goal posts back, it just means that we're getting better
at kicking these field goals. And I'm okay with that.
So the haters, I'm thankful for them. The skeptics, I'm
absolutely thankful for them, because those are ones that are
on the fence that the minute they give us a chance,
(47:40):
now they'll say, hey, I was the biggest skeptic. I
didn't think I don't think it was gonna come out
and say I was the biggest hater. They tend not
to do that, but I will say, you know, I'm
appreciative for everybody in this city, whatever role that they
decide to play. Obviously, I wish that they would play
the role that as an outright supporter. But we don't
just need cheerleaders, we need opposition. And so to our ops,
(48:03):
we're thankful and we pray that they keep doing what
they're doing and maybe one day they will publicly act
like they dislike us, but privately they'll have our service.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Thank you, Thank you, Josh Well, thank you for coming
and sharing with us. It's been wonderful having you here.
A couple of things I want to share with our
listening audience. On April twenty ninth, we will have the
doctor rich Roland Crowder annual Foreign Missions Drive. As many
(48:34):
of you know, the foreign aid has been dismantled by
the federal government and it's going to impact Africa especially,
and so each year we have a foreign missions drive
here and this year doctor Kimber Boise Kimber, who is
(48:57):
the president of the National Baptist Convention and USA, will
be the guest preacher. It will be held on April
to twenty ninth. The meet and greet will be from
six to seven and then the program will start at
seven o'clock on the twenty ninth of April at the
second Ebeneza Baptist Church at eighteen eighty one East seventy
(49:20):
first Street. Please come out in support and then, last
but not least, yours truly, Ben Goldston aka the Rabbi,
will be retiring as pastor of the Heritage Community Baptist
Church on May third at six o'clock at the Mediterranean Room.
(49:41):
We do have tickets available. If you want a ticket,
you can call Elaine Goldston, my wife, area code two
one six seven eight nine seven five eight four again.
That's two one six seven eight nine seven five eight
four again, Mad josh I, thank you for coming with us.
(50:03):
It's been a joy having you here, and we want
to make it lonely. Let's put it in our calendar
that he will come back once a quarter and share
with us the progress that this fine organization is making
and the impact that it is having on our city.
(50:24):
Until then, you have been listening to black thought. Everything
must change on w O VU ninety five point nine FM,
and I will drink from my part of the river
and no one shall keep me from it until next time. Shilomhabah.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
This is WOVU Studios
This is WOVU Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good afternoon people. You're now listening to Black Thought Everything
Must Change on WOVU ninety five point nine FM. This
is your host Ben Goldsten along with the Black Unicorn,
bringing you today's conversation. We are looking forward to talking
(00:30):
about some things with using the background of Budding Heads,
and also we will be talking with our special guests
here with us today, a young man who is in
our community, who is really doing a fantastic job. And
(00:53):
although he's about fifty years younger than myself, we're twins
because our birthday is on the same day, January twenty sixth,
and his name is Josh Edmonds, who will be with
us shortly. But how Uni, how in the world are you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Bless by Bess?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I cannot complain. I got some great news. I had
a great weekend. I had a four to twenty Olympic event.
Well I threw it with my partner and it was amazing.
I'm just not getting over it, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To explain that to us that who not as up
to dated well verse.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In four twenty things.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So yes, with the legalization here in Cleveland, we put
together a four twenty Olympics basically five different Olympian smoke games.
If you have the lung capacity to make it, you
made it. And those that did not make it left early,
and that's okay. They came, they got their goods and
they got the great vibes. It's also, obviously, was Easter
(01:58):
this past weekend, so I have Easter eggs filled with
some flour all around the place as well, hand out
lots of joint It was a great event.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It was a great time.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Everyone I showed up definitely enjoyed themselves and I'm still
like high off the spirit.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
All right, Well, listen, that's great and that's wonderful. I'm
glad you enjoyed yourself. I had. I enjoyed a leg
of lamb, all right, bolus leg of lamb and some
turnip greens and color greens and macaroni salad and all
that kind of good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I'm fasting, so I didn't get a chance to
take part in the dinner portion of it, and honestly,
I've never did for twenty during a fast, so that
was interesting as well.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But I thought I was gonna starve at some point.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But I was able to get some fruit in me
and sustained my body, but.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I wasn't able to eat good like you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
All right, Well, you know it happen, and you know,
God blesses us in special kinds of ways. But we're
glad you were fasting to bring about some spiritual depth
and some discipline and self control. Yes, well, listen, we
we have with us a young man, I mean I
met him a couple of years ago who is doing
(03:20):
a wonderful job. I like to see people who are
under forty making major contributions to our community and putting
in place some things that will be in place long
after I'm gone, and this young man is doing that.
(03:40):
His name is Josh Josh Edmunds. Josh is the CEO
of Digital C, which is a internet company digital company
that's been contracted and tasked with the project of digitizing
the city of Cleveland. Josh, good afternoon.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
How are you man, Good afternoon. I'm well, I'm well.
I'm glad to be here after Easter as well. I
didn't quite have the Olympic experience, but absolutely had a
wonderful Easter and just grateful to be experiencing a resurrection
up close with respect to even Digital C being able
to do the work that we're doing in Cleveland.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
That's wonderful. Josh, won't you tell our listening? No, there
is something about yourself. We don't know nothing about you
other than you're about twin.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Write something about me. I love nature. That is a
big thing for people who know me know that. Even
yesterday I got to recharge off the towpath trail near
Rockside Road. I just enjoy being in nature. That is
a big thing for me. So as the weather warms up,
I just get excited being able to explore kyle Hoga Valley.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Okay, hiker camp yeah, absolutely, or camping.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Camping like I'll be that one that if we can't
like we can wash up in the stream. Like I
really enjoy just being in nature.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Okay, all right, where are you from, Josh?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So? I grew up in Painesville, Okay, Ohio? Yep, right
about thirty minutes from here.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
College educated, Oh that's right. So college went to the
now closed unfortunately Notre Dame College, and then grat's going
to Howard University.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
All right, Oh, we have the same undergrad school as closed.
Also went to Bishop College in Dallas there it is right, Okay, Josh, Josh, listen,
you're in the digital world. How did you become interested
in the digital world?
Speaker 4 (05:39):
You know, it was always a thing. Now, I would
say the pathway started with video games, and you know,
I was just having a conversation before I got here.
For people who grew up in the nineties and everyone
who grew through the nineties, you remember how the public
library system that's either a where you were going to
get your computer access you might not have computer at home,
or B we treated it like Blockbuster at the time.
(06:02):
Now it's funny, anyone who's born in the two thousands,
doesn't you know what I'm talking about. But it's like,
you know, that experience of being able to just get
lost in our computer. Had a childhood Windows ninety five
computer and I would get lost on that and after
a while it just made sense to me. Technology made sense,
And so there was a seed that was planted for
(06:23):
my childhood of just understanding and having an appreciation for
technology that I would say fuels the work of the
work that we do in Cleveland, Like I want others
to be able to experience play, just being able to
play around with the computer, playing around with the Internet
and not being afraid to do so, not looking at
this that I'm going to drown in all this information.
It's like, no, let's teach people how to swim and
(06:44):
let them swim to their destinations of learning, whatever that
might be. And you know, I was just very fortunate
and blessed to grow up in a household where technology
was prioritized to some degree and I was able to
take that degree in essentially go significantly further than what
we even thought was possible.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, you have a question for Josh Okay, Yes,
all right, well this is I'll tell you. This is
what I would like to do. Uh, there are a
couple of things I want to kind of set the
scene for our our dialogue my classmates. She moved back
to Nigeria last month. Yes, doctor Beisha Day And she
(07:28):
says in her book Butting Heads, she has the uh
Aryan model, which is four uh components five really with
with with security, but I want to deal with two.
That's imperialism and hegemony. H Imperialism is the belief that
Caucasians have the right to control and rule non Caucasians
(07:53):
politically and economically. Then she goes on, hegemony is a
belief that Caucasian and have the God given right to
impose their religion, culture, values and standards of beauty upon
Caucasian none Caucasians and non Christians. UH. And then I
want to move to Wooly Lynch here of the breaking
(08:14):
the curse of Woolli Lynch and the the black slave
after receiving the Wooly Lynch in doctrination, shall carry on
and will become self refueling UH and self generating for
hundreds of years, maybe thousands. And I see Josh here
breaking that mold all right and setting and trail blazing
(08:37):
and setting the model for for Black America UH in
the future. And so with that being said, Josh, you
have been given the task of digitizing the city of Cleveland,
and you received X millions of dollars to do that,
(09:00):
and you're in process of doing that. And I want
to thank you for joining us. And let's look back
on in terms of what have been the biggest challenges
digital ce phase for the past. The last time you
had to appear before the city City of Cleveland, the
City Council of the City of Cleveland, YEP.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
So to give to give contexts again, we're the only
internet provider headquartered in Cleveland. That matters. That means a
lot because now we're in the information age. Everyone knows this,
like if we're in the digital age, it's the information age.
You're talking about Internet. Internet is information, and so by
us being headquartered here and having ownership of our information,
(09:42):
I don't think it quite literally puts the phrase powers
the people in practice, Yes, because information is power and
knowledge is power. We know that. So by us breaking
down barriers and connecting people the Internet, in many cases
some people who've never had the Internet in their home,
we are transforming these homes and ways that I can't
(10:02):
fully even quantify the impact that we're having on Cleveland,
but I'm thankful when I'm blessed. And so January, at
the beginning of this year, we didn't have the greatest start,
but it's not how you starts, how you finish, and
so it was pretty contentious. We had lost a million
dollars from our contract. So million dollars in twenty twenty
five is it is significant. It's always gonna be significant.
(10:25):
I don't care when anyone says a million is always
a million. And so that was very significant, and you know,
the subsequent press about us they're saying that we didn't
hit our goals. It was not a bright time for us.
But to be able to be motivated by this cause,
even looking at the quote that you had just mentioned
about being self generating, that we don't need to look
(10:47):
outside of ourselves for what's already within us. Being able
to rely on that, that's what brought us through. And
you know, my candor is much more happy now because
we just had a council hearing and it's quite literally
day and night. And I said that in that order
on purpose, because the first one was dark and the
one we just had was much lighter, and being able
to change the minds not by what we said, but
(11:12):
what we did. We now have over four thousand, two
hundred households on our network who are customers subscribing customers
of our Internet thank you. And this goes from January
one of twenty twenty four to now, so four thousand,
(11:32):
two hundred households are already taking the service. And within
our first quarter this year, we had eleven hundred, oh
actually close to twelve hundred households sign up for our service.
The reason why that's important the weather is a factor. Yes,
we're going out in these elements and we're still connecting people.
In addition to that, last quarter our last year. So
(11:54):
in twenty twenty four, within the first quarter from January
one to March thirty first, we had three hundred and
eight households. What we just did this quarter January one,
in March thirty first, we had almost twelve hundred. The
growth that you're seeing Digital ced Do is the reason
why now city Council and other folks like they are
(12:15):
now believing they're dialing into digital se much more.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Okay, tell us about your service, Josh, What does it
include when we say digitized in Cleveland Wi Fi? You know? Okay?
So yeah, So as a recipient of the service, what
can I expect?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
So you can expect reliable, high speed internet, a nominal costs,
and we do not change the price. We can't change
it legally for the next five years. Oh okay, And
so now you don't have to worry about well, you know,
they're trying to get me on this promotion. They're trying
to change this and I signed up for one price
point and then six months I'm paying something completely different.
(12:57):
Like that has been a big frustration Cleveland when the
other companies do that to residence where it's like, WHOA,
I'm want to fixed income, I can only pay X
amount of dollars a month. Why now am I paying
almost triple than what I signed up for? And so
we we fix that. In addition to that, we're responsive.
I mean, I'm the CEO of the company and I'm accessible.
(13:20):
And I say that to say, it's more of our headquarters.
So the Midtown tech hive that is our headquarters. That's
sixty ninth in EUCLID. People just pull up. Residents pup
all the time and they just say like, hey, I
have a question about this, Hey, I want to talk
to you. Us being accessible, that's what you can expect
as part of this customer experience. In addition to that,
if anyone would like to talk to one of our representatives,
(13:42):
I'm not going to give you a one eight hundred
number to call because we don't have one. We have
a two one six number two one six seven, seven, seven,
three eight five nine three again two one six seven,
seven seven three eight five nine. The reason why that's
significant is because we're we're building trust. We don't look
to behind some type of corporate structure as if we're
afraid of Cleveland. It's like, no, we're here. You want
(14:05):
to talk to us. I gave you the two and
six number. You want to see us, I gave you
our address. We're accessible, we have nothing to hide. We
hire from the neighborhoods. And you're anyone who is essentially
going with Digital C. You are choosing to support community.
We talk about the dollars circulating in the community. We're
an internet provider headquartered here. You get your internet with us,
(14:26):
it circulates if you go with the other ones, they're
not headquartered here. So as soon as you pay your bill,
that money leaves. When you pay your bill, it stays.
We're hiring from here. When percent of our team lives
in Northeast Ohio, over half of us living in the
city of Cleveland. Myself included what makes you different than
the other Look, I don't know who they are.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
What is the value of the quality that Digital C presents?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Well, you know, I think again, one of the big
challenges that we see in our market economics is a
challenge here. We all know it. We're still figuring that out.
And for us to have a set price point for
five years, meaning we can't change that price, I think
there's value in that. That's something where lets people know like, Okay,
now I can do my financial planning knowing that this
(15:16):
is going to be a constant. I don't have to
worry about a variable charge over here. That's set and
again that's a nominal rate. In addition to that, if
you have a kid in the public schools, it's free.
No one else has that set up here. And so
being able to take care of the community the way
that we do, the community partners that we work with,
and the emphasis on local. When your local, you tend
(15:39):
to care more when it's your neighbor, when it's your
family member, when it's your relative. If we treated everyone
like strangers because we didn't really get to know the
people that we're serving, well, then you know we'd be
able to disrespect you. But the beauty about this, if
you go on anyone can google this. You can google
digital see right now, put them into Google bar and
look at our reviews. The fact that we have four
(15:59):
points eight stars, four point eighth when everyone right now
is like, man, if you just get a cold burger
from McDonald's, you know you're saying whatever. Four point eight
stars overwhelmingly positive reviews. Everyone is rating this thing excellent
because that's what we're showing up as. When I say
the price is nominal, that doesn't mean the quality is.
(16:22):
And so what we want to do is we want
to usher in a new chapter of Cleveland where yet, Clevelanders,
we're not asking you to pay an armor leg for this,
but we're gonna over deliver on quality. We want something
that's gonna be sol quality that you're gonna look at
this and say, you know what. I can tell that
y'all care. I can tell that y'allre willing to go
the extra mile for little O me, and like that
(16:44):
attitude is something that Cleveland is personal for us. And
to be able to have a personal charge, a missing
driven one and delivering service for Clevelanders and delivering value
to them. I don't think that any other Internet provider
could communicate the passion that we have for Cleveland because
they're not from here and they're not recorded here, but
for us who are who live here, like, we see
what this is. I remember when we didn't have this infrastructure,
(17:07):
and when you had neighborhoods that didn't have choice, and
now they're having choice now they're choosing us. I mean,
this is probably one of the greatest stories that we'll
be able to tell in recent history about Cleveland outside
of like sports and politics.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well, people, now you're listening to Josh Edmunds, the CEO
of Digital c with the Rabbi and the black you
have called along with the CEO of Digital ce Josh Edmunds.
Josh you. I mean, I just you know, since I've
met you, I appreciate the energy. I appreciate the vision
(17:40):
that you bring to the table and bring to our community.
And I want you to know how much I value
you and appreciate you. Now. You I know, I see
you sitting over there about the bus. Questions questions, question,
all right, you know, come on talk with Josh.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I want to know what happened with the artists.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Oh yeah, man, we had so this this is the thing.
All right, you are gonna understand this. Let's say I
went down to the Jacks casino right now and I
won I don't know, fifty three million dollars, but I
won that type of money, and I stayed in the casino.
Everyone's gonna be watching my hands. It doesn't matter what
(18:21):
table I go to. There's just me watching like there's
no way he's either cheating or he's going to cheat,
or he's doing something wrong. And so that's essentially what
happened with DIGITALC. We raised all this capital, we're doing
the work, but there are people like, there's no way
not in Cleveland. And obviously we have a history of
(18:42):
greatness as black people in the city accomplishing things, but
there's also a history of us black people sometimes not
doing the right thing, and so they don't know what
to make of me in this regard, and so what
they do is like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna do an audit. We were audited from I
would say the day before, so Christmas Eve we got
(19:03):
a notification that we'd be audited, and it ended, I
wouldn't say, like the last week of March. So we
went essentially the entire quarter of them just asking us questions.
Auditors from the city, the entire team coming down and
talking to us for like three days, just them in
our in our space, asking us questions, writing down things,
pulling random members of my team. I'm not in these meetings,
(19:25):
my team is. But that's the value when you don't
have to hide anything. There's beauty and honesty, there's ease
and honesty.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Peace.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
It is because I'm like stsful, like come on, I
hide anything, Come on, whatever y'all want to do, ask away,
And actually, I'm not gonna be here. I'm gonna walk
away and let my team handle that. And the fact
that they didn't find anything negative in our audit and
that we passed that audit with the thousands of records.
This is what we turned in last year. We said
that we connected two thousand, over twenty eight hundred households.
(19:57):
They verified those households. We indeed did that. We said
that we trained over seveny five hundred residents in the
city of Cleveland with digital skills training. They then went
through the audit and they said there was no foul
play there. They did that. So we're standing on the
word that we said that we would. We're doing the
work that we said we would. And that has now
brought people who might have been on the fence with
(20:17):
respect to trusting Digital Seed and now saying no, they're legit.
They're doing what they need to do. And that's the
part where I would just tell anyone, any black person,
if you're doing anything of significance and there is capital involved,
everyone's going to be watching you. There is nowhere to hide,
there is no let me try and move some money
over here to stop. This is my PSA to all
black people. If you are in any position of power
(20:40):
or authority and you were touching money in any way,
I promise you people are watching, and you're not smarter
than those that are watching, so just stop. Just just
be honest in your dealings, get the work done, do
it with pride, and you'll be all right. And that's
exactly what happened with us. So the audit be passed
with flying colors, and thank for I'm thankful for the
(21:02):
folks at the city. You know, I didn't want it
to be a thing that someone said, Well, you asked
them all the easy questions, so of course like no, fine, fine,
We'll accept it at whatever level. And that's exactly what happened.
And thankfully, like I said, we passed that audit. We're
moving on, and it got us a two point seven
million dollar payment from the city with respect to the
passing that audit, So it all worked out well.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
You should beak to a question. You said that there
was the two meetings there was much different to.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
The same way.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
What was different in the two meetings the first meeting
and then over and against.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
The second And do you feel like the audit constituted
that temperature change.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Partially? Partially? So I think that the first meeting, because
we had a goal to hit. We said we were
going to connect thirty five hundred in the first year.
We connected twenty eight hundred in the first year, and
they took a million dollars from us as a punishment
for that. I'm like, oh, okay, that's pretty excessive, especially
considering there were permits that the city had to issue
(22:09):
for us to be able to get the numbers we needed,
and it took them over a year to issue that permit.
And so it's like, how are you all going to
penalize us for something that you're in charge of that's
like a ref giving me a technical foul or playing
basketball and it's like, ref, you're the one holding the ball,
but you got to release that. And so like, again,
(22:29):
that felt a little bit odd to us. It felt
incredibly excessive, But at the same time, you know, we
can't ruminate on on those things. It's like, look at
that happened stick and move, keep moving. And I would
also say during that time, our network didn't reach every ward,
and so there are certain council persons who are assessing
(22:50):
a value that they haven't got to see up close.
So if everyone's raving about this thing on this side
of town and your side of town hasn't seen it,
well you might feel some type of way. Yeah, and
it's easy for me to punch you now because it's like, man,
you ain't doing nothing for me anyway. But now that
we have a customer in every single in every single ward,
there's digital c it changes it now because now it's tangible.
(23:14):
Now it's residents saying to their councerorces, well, hold on,
hold on, this works for me. My family needs this.
You know, my husband was laid off and we need this,
this affordable internet. It changes the narrative. And what we
did was we made it about the residence. That's so
often there's an ego play that happens that if you're
leading an organization, you you're you're you're getting the vision
(23:38):
and this is purpose driven work, so you're you're obedience
to the vision, you're working on it. But what comes
first in this city is the residence. The residents come first.
It's not the mayor, it's not council, it's not digital,
you know, it's the residence first. And so we began
putting residents first in our storytelling, highlighting our four thousands
customer you know, we went it was in Slavic village.
(23:59):
We went over there and we celebrated this gentleman early
in the morning with a cake with balloons, all this stuff,
and he was touched by that, and we caught that
on camera. You know, we released that and there were
other people were touched by that because they're seeing It's like, man,
these people are literally just making a difference in lives.
And I think that's the biggest difference that we went
in there with a resident facing strategy versus a company
(24:20):
first strategy. At the beginning of the year. Beginning the year,
we're talking about what Digital c has done. Now we're
talking about what residents are feeling, what residents are seeing,
what residents are taking advantage of. It's a completely different style.
And as long as we put residence first, I'm seeing
how people respond to us in this city beautiful.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Oh yes, please.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So with all of that love and energy from the
community and all of these people that you all have
been training in which I do want to hear a
little bit more about the Click program so people understand
what digital C is offering on what they can take
advantage of.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Can you talk on that first? Actually?
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Yeah, yeah, So, and I got to give a big
shout out to Leadna Norris and her team Digital C
who lead our Click and digital skilling efforts. So for
residents in Cleveland, not only can you come to Midtown
Tech Hive, we also do have a satellite site at
the Cleveland Food Bank as well, but we offer trainings
to residents who either a on demand like you just
(25:18):
need it, Like, Hey, I got this new computer. I
don't know what's going on. My grand babies are being disrespectful,
they're not trying to listen, and they're not trying to
help me help, So we help out with that. In
addition to that, let's say you got a computer maybe
two or three years ago and it's starting to run
a little bit slower. Well, we do what's called a
PC refresh, So we'll help you refresh your computer, will
help you delete some of the clogged stuff that you
(25:41):
don't really need. We're not going to delete your pictures
and stuff that's important to you, but your cookies, your
cat like. You might not understand what that is, but
that's what we're gonna be deleting. In addition to that,
we also teach people how to protect themselves online. You know,
no different than a self defense academy here that hey, man,
i might need to learn some self to fundamentals when
I'm out here in these streets by myself. Whatever same
(26:03):
thing exists in the digital world. The digital world is
becoming much realer and the implications of what happens digitally,
we feel that in real time. And if you don't
believe me, if you get scammed digitally, you're gonna feel
that real time. And so we don't have a nine
to one one in this city that, hey, someone digitally,
someone just stole my identity, or someone just did this
(26:24):
to me online. We don't have that. So what we're
doing proactively, if we're going to give you the license
to drive online in the form of an Internet connection,
we're also going to arm you with the necessary training
to protect yourself so that way you can have the
experience that you deserve. We don't want to just connect
people leave them to their own devices and then they
have a bad experience online. That's not what we want.
(26:45):
We want people to thrive online. We want to build
a community online and that starts with togetherness and so
being able to move as a speed of our community.
And by doing these trainings, I mean we have trainings
on AI too, So someone's trying to figure out what
they mean by AI and how do I take advantage
this at GPT or whatever it's called. How do I
We have training for that and so it's free. Again.
(27:06):
We do met the tech Hive. We have a partner
sites all throughout. You can find more on our website
at www dot digitalc dot org. Look for the click
program just like a click of a button, it's called
click or. In addition to that, if you want to
learn more, you can always come to the Midtown Tech Hive.
We will always have people who are standing by who
are there to help you. There was actually a class
(27:26):
there were just this morning, another one of the cybersecurity classes.
They do teach it with a motown style, so it's
not a boring class. It's meant to be engaging. We
really are rooted in community and everything that we do.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I love that you ass sauce to the education and
make it fun.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
You have to, you really do. Gotta put the sugar
in it just a little bit. What are you most
proud of?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And when you look back in the past twelve months,
just the past twelve months, when it comes to the
work that you all have put in a Digital Seed,
what are you.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Most proud of?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Wow? If I had to say one, I'm the most
proud of. You know this, man, I'm proud of my team.
I'm proud of the people at Digital c They tirely
show up. They care. I can see it in their
eyes when I'm talking to them. I remember how frustrated
we were. This was not easy. It sounds easy on
the other side of it because like we figured out
a lot. But you know, my team is incredibly resilient.
(28:21):
They are smart, They are committed to Cleveland in ways
that inspires me because I get tired, Like I'm yeah,
I'm young and I got the energy, but yeah, I
get tired too, and they they motivate me. So as
much as it's about the residents, you know, and in
my order, it's residence first, but it's this team second.
And the way that this team shows I'm proud of them.
(28:41):
I'm so proud of the way that they've grown. I'm
proud of the way that they've been able to take
on challenges. And this latest chapter for us, they know
where it's coming from. But I tell them, we will
now run into storms if there is a storm that
is coming our way. No more of us avoiding it,
no more of us looking outside and saying, gee, that
sure looks like a bad storm. At this point, it's like, well,
(29:02):
we're better than that storm, and whatever storm comes our way,
we're gonna run into them. And seeing the team adapt
that and use that in their lives, I mean, it's
it's been one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
That. All right, people, we're gonna take another break here.
You've been listening to Josh Edmonds, the CEO of Digital C,
the Black Unicorn, and the Rabbi on Black Thought. Everything
must change, to inform, to inspire, to impact. On w
o VU ninety five point nine F you with Black Thought,
(29:32):
everything was changed to inform, to inspire, and to impact
on w o v U ninety five point nine FM.
We're with Josh Edmunds, the CEO of Digital C, Black
Unicorn and of course the Rabbi Josh. Listen. We've we've
(29:53):
heard some impressive lumbers from your team. Can you talk
a little bit about a digital seas performance. I know
you said what you've done in the first quarter, but
how did that first quarter really shape up and shape out?
I think it's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yeah, so our first quarter was our most successful quarter
ever in the company ever, you know. And it's funny
because last year's first quarter, I think i'd shared, you know,
we had three hundred and eight households that we connected,
and then this year we had close to twelve hundred households.
And to see the difference in nine hundred households is
(30:32):
purely you know, it's effort. But we've gotten better, we've
gotten smarter what we do. Cleveland is supporting us the
way the residents are just recommending us. We could spend
money on billboards, we could spend money on ads, and
in some cases we will do that. However, the single
greatest way that we've been able to get exposure and
(30:53):
attention has came from Clevelanders, other Clevelanders recommending the service.
Other Clevelanders. We can't compete with that it's just right up.
We'll connect the household and then we go back and
it's like we go back like four or five times
because so and so is telling so and so, who's
telling so and so and so and so. We know
word travels fast in the city. But it's beautiful to
see the word traveling fast. And it per good thing
(31:15):
that if this is going to be a rumor, this
is the rumor now of man. I heard they got
some low cost internet that's real high speed and reliable.
And if you got a kid in CMSD is free.
That's what I heard. I heard if you call two
and six seven seven, seven, three eight five nine, they'll
get you right. See that, right there is something that
we don't really get the chance to talk about. We'll
(31:36):
talk about how the rumors that happen in this city
sometimes aren't the greatest and how it could paint a
negative picture. But this is the beauty of community that
It's like, man, when you show up and you have
something of value, man, they'll do it for you. Like
these people are literally just saying, y'all got to get
digital c y'all need to sign up with that. Y'all,
I got it. You need to get like that. It's
(31:57):
so authentic, it's so beautiful, And I think that's been
the biggest difference between Q one of last year and
Q one now. Q one last year, people didn't really
know who we were. We didn't have the service in
the neighborhoods the way we do now, and so now
that we have that, it's been a quite Literally again,
it's a difference between night and day, the success we've seen,
(32:18):
the speed of which we've been able to resolve issues.
There was one of our reviews, and this one's still public.
This woman gave us a one star review, said the
service was terrible and it wasn't working for her. Our
team went out there again, fixed it, quadrupled her speeds,
and then she said, you know what, five stars and
she left her original review up there, but then she
added the comments about what happened. And that's the biggest
(32:40):
point of pride for me, from Q one of last
year to now that we're responsive. Yes, we're going to
run into issues and challenges. Absolutely, there is no perfect
business out there, and if they are perfect, then they're
just perfect at lying. So now that we know that
we can be a responsive entity, we can take care
of Clevelanders and Clevelands be fair with us. That allows
(33:01):
me to walk in with all the faith that I
need because I've seen Cleveland and one of the one
of the best ways that I would say as a privilege.
I don't believe many community leaders have had the privilege
of seeing Cleveland through the through the lens of which
I have. And the appreciation is just as bottomless at
this point.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And you're you're accessible at sixty eight fifteen euclids, going
to sixty ninth and euclid. It's a tech hive.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Well, Josh, what what's what's what's what's what's the future
look like? Are you going to expand? Are you going
to other cities, new technologies, new neighborhoods, what what's what's
what's on the horizon?
Speaker 4 (33:40):
This is you know, we we say this, but I
think I'll officially say, I mean, this is the Cleveland model.
Like I if think about Cleveland, we had our own pizza.
Now someone says we do, I'm like, okay, no, we don't.
But if we had our own pizza, we want to
take that on the road. We want other people to
(34:01):
experience how pizza should be made. This is how we're
doing Internet now. We believe that we have a superior
disruptive model. We're still figuring out some things, but whatever
we're figuring out, that's just an opportunity. That's not a
limiting thing. That's not going to stop us. That's just
gonna challenge us to be better. And so as we
are getting better and as we are scaling, absolutely the
(34:24):
goal is to export and expand this Cleveland model that
no matter where everyone goes, whether we're in the hills
of Appalachia or we are in the mountains of Colorado,
doesn't really matter where we end up, everyone's going to
look back at this and say that's the Cleveland model.
And I want every everyone to look at Cleveland with
(34:44):
pride and say that we exported something that transformed the
entire telecommunications industry in America, and they'll be referencing Cleveland
for that.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, Josh, it's been my understanding that Cleveland was way
behind in the digital world. We all has digital see
and what's going on brought us in compliance or online
with the rest of the world.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Oh yeah, I mean so to your point, Cleveland was
ranked as the least connected city in America for several years,
and then we would always go back and forth between
Cleveland and Detroit. And the fact that it doesn't matter
what big city you look at. You can look at Baltimore, Memphis, Miami,
doesn't really matter. Look at every single one of those cities.
(35:29):
You're going to see a pronounced digital divide. And in
every one of those cities, you were going to see
an absence of digital See, there is not another digital
sea that exists where you have four thousand households connected
in less than two years time, and what have eight
thousand in our two year stint. That doesn't exist. And
so the fact that we are building something here that
(35:49):
is so disruptive it will challenge these other cities to
get on par with us. So we went from the
least connected city to now having an engine so to speak,
that has now been that can drive results that will
ensure that we will no longer be the least connected
city in America and arguably one of the most connected cities.
You're not going to see this type of gains even
in the suburbs like this is. What we're doing is
(36:14):
a statistical anomaly that no one would have predicted to
be this successful.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
That's why it was so hard for the council to believe.
That don't even make sense.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
But it's revolutionary, that's real. It is very revolutionary, and
I'm just excited to see.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Where you take it, where you go.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You've mentioned during the break your team members of oh man,
they got some personality. They do as big as mine.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Are like.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
One, you know, I got, I got one and a
possible accident.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Okay, I'm excited to eat them.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
You mentioned bringing them out with uh of the I
guess the offices with cube cools.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Do you guys have cubicles?
Speaker 4 (37:02):
I who's got tables? It's like a community set up
where it's like a lot of us And I think
that's the cool part about how we do it. Like
we go in the office, so we're not all just
you know, working from home. Whatever. Know, we'll go in,
but a lot of times people just there's like a
big table and everyone just works on a table.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I love that. That's very communal.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
It is like we have a communal off it's a
communal culture. So that allows us to like look at
community and be like Sae, I.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
See cubicles and I think slow death.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah I do.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So I'm happy they they sit at tables together, and
you guys probably just turned the computers off and eat
lunched at the same tables together.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Is that like the thing?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
No, that is like that. Seriously. I know we eat
like there's a table upstairs. People eat lunch together. You know,
we were doing our happy birthday celebrations today. I missed
it for this, but it's all right.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You know, happy who birthday was.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
It's like eight people's.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Birthday, Happy birthday, all eighty y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Happy birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy birthday, Happy Birthday, Heavy Birthday,
Happy Birthday, Heavy Birthday. I love it, though, and I
just I'm just excited to see where it goes. Like
I've said, I told you this story before when I
first said, hey, we're switching, I'm getting rid of that
other guy. I'm not even gonna miss them because they
don't even matter no more. They're not in the house.
(38:17):
We don't even think about them.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And my partner said why, I'm like, why would we
do that?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
And I'm like, look, this is gonna be a new,
huge thing here in Cleveland, and I want not only
do I want to be a part of it, not
only do I want to support, but I want to
actually be involved as a customer to see for myself
when I tell you, the hookup smooth easy. All I
(38:45):
had to do is say where, and it was done.
My partner came home, he saw the box on the house.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
He was like, what is this freaky dick?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Then it didn't work, But because I still had Spectrum,
I didn't realize the connectivity.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
How all of that? You know, you know what you know,
and I don't know what you know, so all of
that it didn't work at first.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So I called when I tell you, the sweetest lady
answered and she said, oh, honey, do you still have
any other services?
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I said, well, yes I do. She said, oh, you
gotta take them off, honey. I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I felt like I was talking to my auntie or
grandma or something, but that was it was just so
like so warm.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
It was just warm, such a warm interaction.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And so I disconnected Spectrum completely, zero problems, none at all,
like PS, all the computers, all the phones connected, nothing
slow like I have zero complaints with digital CE. And
I'm an actual real life customer. This is UNI, y'all,
and y'all know I don't cosign nothing that I don't
believe in I believe in digital See that's why I
(39:49):
became a customer, and I appreciate everything that you have
brought to Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Josh you and the team at Digital c thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Well, I'm jealous because I live in the suburbs and
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Have it.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
That that Actually, that's that's a good point to highlight too,
because typically we would be in the suburbs first. Whenever
technology companies roll out any type of offering for residents, Oh,
we're bringing fiber, we're doing they don't pritise Cleveland. First,
they go suburbs and then they go into this if
they go into the city. The flip side now is
(40:27):
we're doing this first. Now the suburbs are hitting us
up saying hey can we can we get them like,
oh now, this is interesting. This will be one of
the first times that we've produced so much value in
Cleveland that now our surrounding suburbs are almost feeling like, well,
where's the love?
Speaker 2 (40:42):
What about us?
Speaker 4 (40:44):
And it's like, we'll get to you when we get
to you.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, I'm feeling that right now. You know what, what
what can we do in the community to help Digital
CEE is there opportunities for volunteers or you know what,
what is it the community they can do to be supportive.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
So I mean this right here, I mean this is
really a big part of this because and I've said
this before, but opportunities to tell our story matter so
much to us, more than I can even convey in
my words, because if someone doesn't give us this opportunity
to tell a story, someone else has an opportunity to
tell our story, and they're gonna leave out the details
that matter for a reason. And so this is beautiful
(41:27):
being able to If we have our customers, we love
to feature them more, featuring these Cleveland residents. So any
opportunity we get to feature residents getting their voice out there,
letting them share their experiences just who they are, I
think that we love that. So opportunities for exposure always,
and even the opportunities to knock on doors. I think
like being able to do the door knocking allows us
(41:51):
to It allows us to be in a position where
we're building these relationships. And so this summer it's gonna
get hotter obviously, and us being able to have volunteers
who are willing to knock on doors, you know, I
get it. It's an election season, so there's already gonna
be some door knocking that's happening. We're staying out of that,
(42:14):
but being able to knock on doors and just build relationships,
letting people know, hey, this is the thing that's out there.
You know, we can't have enough volunteers, So if anyone
who just loves the work that we do wants to
spend more time with us, you know, as the summer
rolls around and we get some more stable warm weather,
we would love to have a volunteer core who are
knocking these doors and let people know about the incredible
(42:36):
offer that Digital Seed is providing.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
If they are businesses, charter schools, any anyone who wants
to partner and connect with Digital.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
C and just bring it to their community of people.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
How will they connect with you so they can go
on one our online So our website www dot digitalc
dot org, we do have our contact information there. In
addition to that, I would say our social media we're
much more responsive. I'll send on our social media at
times because there's just amount of the amount of people
are just hitting us up. So if you're on Instagram,
(43:10):
if you're on Facebook, you can just search digital C.
And when we say digital C, it's not like sea
like water, it's see like connection. And so if they
find digital C that way. Again, we're always looking forward opportunities.
Very rarely are you going to hear me say no
to something. What I might say is not right now.
That's not a no, that's just not right now. But
(43:31):
we're always looking to expand and a partner with people.
We like to partner what we call sometimes off the
wall partnerships, partnerships that you wouldn't expect us to have,
Like we like that, like you know Evan Reid with
Evan Towing, he's a toe goat, you know, man, he's
(43:52):
he's he's a big support of ours, support of his
and you wouldn't think that we would be partners. We
absolutely are partners. And he just does an incredible work.
You know, he's local, he's here, you see him, he's
out here. And when we find essentially people who are
like part of our tribe, you know, we do our
best to just lift them up. And you know, the
(44:13):
more and more people who are doing work in this city,
who are just providing value or even in this region,
we want to work with them and we'll figure it
out from there. There is not a clearing house to
be a partner of ours. You don't have to come
perfect and so articulate that we're like, oh, yes, that's
the standard. Like no, like come as you are, and
I'm sure that we have something we could partner on.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
One of the things I'd like to offer to you
that I think UNI was headed towards something, all right,
and I want to kind of like preemptor is I
would like for you to come back once a quarter,
all right and talk with us, let us know where
you are, what we can continue to do to support
(45:00):
be supportive of you. Again. I believe like Uni, I
believe in what you're doing, and I'm seeing at work
for us by us and kind of of us, okay,
and we want to make sure that it gets to
the suburbs.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
You know. And on that note too, this is a
beautiful thing that I'm going to be able to say
here that is a significant second quarter when that now
that we're in the second quarter of the year, being
able to come back to this table, it would mean
a lot because we are going to have this entire
(45:41):
city covered with our internet this quarter. And the reason
why that's important is we started January twenty twenty four
zero coverage, and then by summer twenty twenty five, the
entire city's covered. When I tell you that does not happen,
that timing doesn't happen. There are cities who have been
trying to plan how to bridge or digital divide for
a decade. Now what they've done with all their planning
(46:04):
and money allocated. Had they just invested in digital c
they would already have their digital divide bridge. So the
fact that we can say within less than two years
time eighteen months, we build an entire network that covered
one of the least connected cities in America, I think
that that's the type of stuff where I would love,
not be honored to share those type of updates at
this table.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Do you have anything to say to the haters, the
ones that try to discourage you from doing this, to
say they couldn't be done.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
I would tell them, thank you. They are necessary in
the story. You know. If you don't have any haters,
I would say, maybe you're not you're not really doing
it to the level that you could be. The minute
they're muttering or that can't be done, or they'll never
(46:58):
you know, I heard people say they're not gonna get
over one hundred customers. Then it was they're not gonna
get a thousand. Well they're not gonna get two thousand.
Now it's they're not gonna get five. I'm like, enough enough,
we're getting it. We are. Our contract is to get
twenty three five hundred households in this city. That's what
we're aimed at. So the four thousand and five thousand six,
(47:20):
they're going to keep moving the goal posts, and they're
gonna keep doing that because the more they move these
goal posts back, it just means that we're getting better
at kicking these field goals. And I'm okay with that.
So the haters, I'm thankful for them. The skeptics, I'm
absolutely thankful for them, because those are ones that are
on the fence that the minute they give us a chance,
(47:40):
now they'll say, hey, I was the biggest skeptic. I
didn't think I don't think it was gonna come out
and say I was the biggest hater. They tend not
to do that, but I will say, you know, I'm
appreciative for everybody in this city, whatever role that they
decide to play. Obviously, I wish that they would play
the role that as an outright supporter. But we don't
just need cheerleaders, we need opposition. And so to our ops,
(48:03):
we're thankful and we pray that they keep doing what
they're doing and maybe one day they will publicly act
like they dislike us, but privately they'll have our service.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Thank you, Thank you, Josh Well, thank you for coming
and sharing with us. It's been wonderful having you here.
A couple of things I want to share with our
listening audience. On April twenty ninth, we will have the
doctor rich Roland Crowder annual Foreign Missions Drive. As many
(48:34):
of you know, the foreign aid has been dismantled by
the federal government and it's going to impact Africa especially,
and so each year we have a foreign missions drive
here and this year doctor Kimber Boise Kimber, who is
(48:57):
the president of the National Baptist Convention and USA, will
be the guest preacher. It will be held on April
to twenty ninth. The meet and greet will be from
six to seven and then the program will start at
seven o'clock on the twenty ninth of April at the
second Ebeneza Baptist Church at eighteen eighty one East seventy
(49:20):
first Street. Please come out in support and then, last
but not least, yours truly, Ben Goldston aka the Rabbi,
will be retiring as pastor of the Heritage Community Baptist
Church on May third at six o'clock at the Mediterranean Room.
(49:41):
We do have tickets available. If you want a ticket,
you can call Elaine Goldston, my wife, area code two
one six seven eight nine seven five eight four again.
That's two one six seven eight nine seven five eight
four again, Mad josh I, thank you for coming with us.
(50:03):
It's been a joy having you here, and we want
to make it lonely. Let's put it in our calendar
that he will come back once a quarter and share
with us the progress that this fine organization is making
and the impact that it is having on our city.
(50:24):
Until then, you have been listening to black thought. Everything
must change on w O VU ninety five point nine FM,
and I will drink from my part of the river
and no one shall keep me from it until next time. Shilomhabah.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
This is WOVU Studios
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!