Lessons Abound from Tiger, Desiree and More

Catching up...

The World AIDS Day event was the best! More than 150 Ohioans of all ages testified to Chris Bates from U.S. Health and Human Services with their ideas, experiences, requests and suggestions to improve care for those in the HIV/AIDS spectrum and beyond. They were there from across the state.

I tweeted my little heart out, reporting the gathering to the Twitterverse using hashtag #HIVAIDSOH. It was the first real test for my little netbook and mobile broadband plug-in. (I couldn't have done it without HubbyMine who figured out how to set up the plug-in. I'd given up and was heading for the Verizon store to beg for help.)

I met a lot of people on Twitter who had no idea what a hashtag is, and it reminded me how hard it is to really "get" Twitter.

But now I can pay more attention to what was background noise: the White House crashers and Tiger Woods ...two back-to-freakin'-back examples of egos not listening to the best PR advice on the globe. Not that high-priced talent is needed when we're talking about core public communications principles that these players should know by now.

For instance, never, ever, stonewall when an early fall on a little sword will do. White House Social Queen Desiree Rogers (at right, on her way to the party she should have been attending only as a worker-bee) should have gone to Congress for a little chastising.

The problem, I fear, is that Ms. Rogers is used to being catered to as though she is the only lady in the room. These days, Michelle Obama is the Lady that matters, and Desiree just ain't going softly into an understudy's good-night.

And surely the branding pros told Tiger that when you send a photo of your adorable family to People magazine and acknowledge being the highest-earning athlete on the planet, the public will want to know how things are going, ya know?

NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that like many famous men, Tiger neglected to be on guard when dating sexy girls who already have a pile of 8x10 glossies of themselves in hopes of being "discovered". LOL. I'll bet Tiger was stunned to discover that his ladyfriends not only saved his voicemail messages; they sold 'em.

The truly stunning news for the public, I think, was that golf has the same type of groupies, wild sex parties, illegal drug use and partying till dawn that thrives in the NFL, NBA and MLB. Gives foursome a new meaning, fer sure.

All this while the Goddess is all over the net, and northeast Ohio, too, trying to find bargains on gifts for friends and fam. Life is complicated only the teensiest of bits by the holiday birthday of HubbyMine. Extra gifts, I can handle. It's remembering to have birthday wrapping paper on hand that I tend to forget.

I have to thank a Twitterfriend, @writetechnology, for turning me on to mittens with detachable thumb-flaps for easy texting in the cold. What are they called? Why, mittenberries, of course!