Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen has a book coming out entitled Fresh Medicine: How to Fix, Reform and Build a Sustainable Health Care System. Right now it is available on Amazon for pre-order, but unimpressively it isn’t available on the Kindle. However, I still look forward to this read.

Before becoming Tennessees’s Governor and the Mayor of Nashville, Phil Bredesen ran HealthAmerica Corp, a publicly traded company on the NYSE with over 6000 employees. It will be interesting to see if Governor Bredesen is offered a job to work for the federal government at some point. I feel that he would be a prime candidate for Secretary for Heath & Human Services if Katherine Sebelius ever steps down.

Governor Bredesen’s current office:

Over the last few weeks I have gotten into Gowalla, having been converted from Foursquare. The basic concept of both programs is that the user geotag’s themselves (or “Checks In”) at different locations (restaurants, stores, parks, etc.) while including photos, comments, all along collecting pins and items to complete trips and challenges. This information is shared with selected friends allowing them to know where you are. I know the concept can be a bit much for many people, but so was Twitter and Facebook when they first arrived on the scene.

There are many interesting uses for this information and many corporations have begun to use this to reach new customers. I will give you my real life example.

Last week I noticed on BluWiki that new items had been added to Gowalla that corresponded with TOMS shoes and AT&T Wireless. Long story short, if you checked-in at an AT&T Wireless store you could possibly win a pair of TOMS shoes, an AT&T phone or a netbook. Regardless, anyone that checks in is entered in a drawing to win.

So, I went to the local AT&T store and checked-in while looking around to enter myself in the drawing. Yesterday I got the following message via email:

“Congratulations!  You have won an AT&T Netbook through the AT&T | TOMS Gowalla Giveaway! Please allow 8-10 weeks to receive your prize.”

Shocked doesn’t begin to describe my feelings. So, I read more into this on the correlating website and find out that only 10 netbooks are being given away. Unbelievable. All I can say is that I sure hope its this netbook. Oh, and just another reason why YOU should be on Gowalla.

AT&T Wireless in Cookeville, TN:

Yesterday I made my second micro finance loan along with 126 others to a committee of 19 entrepreneurs in Paraguay to support their catering business. Huh? Yes, you read right. With the help of a few friends (mainly ACH) I discovered Kiva earlier this year. Kiva is an online tool whose “mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.”

While some of you may already be familiar with Kiva, my intutition says that most are not. Essentially, Kiva offers users, such as myself, the ability to browse individuals or groups who are requesting financing (generally between $500-$5000) to make a product, provide a service, etc. Over a designated period the money is repaid with interest allowing users to reinvest or withdraw permanently. Now there is much more to this process, but I won’t bore you with further details.

Consider giving Kiva a try. It’s fun and interactive. Plus we can all spare a few dollars to help empower those among us with less.