Archive for October, 2009
Your Questions and Concerns on HealthCare
Early this week I posted a video of Michelle Obama speaking about healthcare. This is a touchy subject, I guess…with a lot of misinformation and disagreement. I’m leaning toward the passage of the bill…and I also think a public option is a good idea (after all, my mother is on Medicare – that’s government funded, and it works).
But, I don’t have all the answers. I also get it when some people voice opinions against a public option. So, I trust you will all make an educated choice. With that in mind, here’s a follow-up video where Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, directly responds to health care issues, including the cost of care and medications (medication is a concern of mine) and the whole “pre-existing conditions” problem (another concern of mine). See video below.
I was offered this video from our women friends at iVillage where their press release quoted Jodi Kahn, Executive VP of iVillage, saying, “Health care is clearly top-of-mind for the women of iVillage, and that was reflected in the outpouring of thoughtful, substantive questions from them.”
Share your questions and concerns here, also. I will pass them along to the folks at iVillage, and we can be confident they will reach the right ears. Thank you. (FYI: Mary was feeling under the weather today – she will be back with her usual great writing next Friday)
Sponsors Would Have Dropped Andre Agassi
Andre Agassi would have been a pariah in his own sport if his drug-taking
exploits had been made public while he was playing, it was claimed last
night.
Leading sponsorship experts said that Agassi’s new status as a revered
philanthropist would protect him from rejection by the sponsors who now
support his charitable causes.
But they were shocked by the revelation that Agassi took crystal
methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug, and then lied to the tennis
authorities.
If that had become public knowledge at the time, they believe
he would have been thrown out of tennis so fast there would have been scorch
marks on the lawns of Wimbledon.
“There is no question he would have been banned and rejected by every sponsor
he had,” Dominic Curran, director at Synergy, the sport sponsorship
consultancy, said. “It was not just a question of taking
performance-enhancing drugs or a recreational drug but a substance that has
horrific consequences.
“Any sponsor would have dropped Agassi like a hot potato and could not
countenance being associated with an offense and a lie on that scale.”
Agassi became one of the most sought-after sportsmen in the world, racking up
more than $100 million in endorsements during his career — putting him in
the same league as figures such as Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher and Roger
Federer.
Michael Phelps, the eight-times gold medal-winner at the Beijing Olympics last
year, discovered just how fast sponsors can react when Kellogg, the food
company, refused to renew its $1 million endorsement deal with him after he
was pictured appearing to smoke cannabis through a glass pipe, known as a
bong, in January.
But Agassi, with Steffi Graf, his wife and winner of 22 grand-slam singles
titles, have devoted themselves to their charitable foundation, which has
raised more than $40 million to educate underprivileged children. His deal
with Longines, the Swiss luxury watchmaker, has also been used to raise
money for charity.
Deals like that will go on if and when Agassi’s image is rehabilitated, in
spite of his drug-taking confessions from a difficult past.
Facebook can be fun – despite my whining
Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows that I whine and complain about it all the time. It rarely does what I want it to. The apps work periodically, but mostly, not at all. And, clicking links in Facebook often freezes my system.
That said, I have become a convert. Donna (who writes for this blog, you may realize) is working with us to create some Facebook fan pages and so far we have one for the petblog – Scratchings and Sniffings, which is fabulous! I’m having so much fun with it. I did not expect to have fun with it. But, fun I am having.
Today I uploaded some pictures of Carmie (my beloved dog who passed away a year ago – and no, I’m not over it, yet) and of the resident Queen Kitty here, Wabby Wibby. I’m surprised by the number of fans we already have and I hope you’ll hop over and consider fanning us, too. (that sounds strange, as if you should be cooling us off with a fan…hmmm…what I mean is please consider becoming a fan of the Scratchings & Sniffings fan page.)
This article, which Donna shared with me, shows that Facebook really is a useful and successful way to “drive repeat visitors” to a website or blog, or twitter, I suppose. And, I have fanned a few sites – like Dove chocolate (yum!) as well as Best Buy. My goal there is to get coupons and sweepstakes notices and updates on what’s new and exciting with those brands.
Facebook gets a lot of press – you may have noticed their new design and trash talk from users, which I agree with. But, for me, right now, Facebook is useful as a tool to keep me updated. I’m connected to more women than men and that does not include my family which is dominated by the tender sex. It’s that I use Facebook for information gathering and connecting and staying on top of life (both business and personal). For me, women provide that information better than anyone else.
Don’t get me wrong. There are a good number of men I am friends with, including Tom and my son, Don. They are smart men. They are approachable. They are giving and trusting. I am lucky to know them. Just the other day I was having lunch with a girl friend and we discussed the fact that everything we do – wherever we do it – is based on our people needs, not necessarily on our gender needs. In the end, men and women need each other. So, I applaud the men in my world.
But, I still pay more attention to my women friends and what they say or recommend. For that, I will admit Facebook has been useful. Now, with my new petblog fanpage, and the excitement of knowing I can do a LOT of things with it (hold sweepstakes, give away gifts, have contests, post videos)…makes me appreciate Facebook more than I have in the past.
If you are not using Facebook – at least as a place to connect to colleagues and industry experts, I recommend you fix that today. Facebook is not going away. Social media tools, like Facebook, will be with us for a long, long time. They will change and morph and become whatever WE need them to be, because they are, truly, consumer generated content at its best, and their presence in business has become ubiquitous. Ignore them at your peril.
I suggest you be a part of the change you want to see – let social media, ala Facebook as a start – guide you.
That’s my thought of the day. I’m going back to my fan page and play around some more. (Thank you for showing me this side of Facebook, Donna!)