Blogging Mistakes Equal Lessons Learned

I didn't write a post for 60+ days, totally a mistake. Easy fix, though, as I dusted off the keyboard and churned one out yesterday!

@gail_nelson thanks for the RT:)

@gail_nelson Hi Gail! Long time... how are you?

@annelizhannan xoxox

@adamtoporek Ha! Or just a dummy admitting a mistake.

@PeterSterlacci Thanks Peter!

@RoastedKeyboard Yeah...you were there seeing me in person when that whole thing exploded.

I tried this blogging thing once. It worked. Sorta.

Since we all have a fiduciary responsibility to be as truthful as we can be it behooves us to find the facts. Not always as easy as it looks but what is easy is owning up to your mistakes. That in itself is where respect is borne.

Everyone screws up, even me. I know, shocking, but true.

It isn't the mistakes in life that hold our final judgement but it is the willingness and fortitude to address those misgivings and change that will be our ultimate measure. We are a combination of our past, present and future. You possess a heralded past, remarkable present and incomparable presence. Each of the comments on this page bears witness and commits faith that you will continue to have a triumphant future. 'Nuff said. 

How do we know they did not create the fake accounts? Just because they said so? Just curious is all. Also curious did mashable respond like you did? I do not see an update on the post.

Very impressed with you find it important to write a retraction due to lack of proof.

@ginidietrich Allow me to edit this .... I'll get right back to you.

@debdobson DId you have a nice birthday?

Well said, Gini! :)

Integrity? Conscience? Admitting mistakes? Learned from those mistakes? Open to discuss and learn deeper lessons? That, my dear, is why we love you.  (BTW, I think you just earned some write-in votes for November's election. Now wouldn't that be a hoot...) 

gini - as others jumped into the fray, flaming the issue before verifying or even understanding the context, you're the *only* one who is brazen and confident enough to admit you made a mistake.

as social media provide an opportunity for discourse, it also allows people to go on irresponsible rants without all the information. i wish facebook had a way to verify accounts. i wish company's or people had a social and legal way to go after those that misrepresent themselves/their companies (in the u.k. a 17-year-old teen who faked being a reporter was arrested for malicious communications: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/diving/story/2012-07-31/Olympic-tweet-threat-diver-arrest/56601380/1). i wish people could keep their politics out of pr chats, but it happens. see the recent solopr chat.

but mostly, i wish we could reign in our personal rants in favor of dialogue or in addressing the issues in the post. most of us are really, really tired of the vitrolic words (see recent survey - it's 8 in 10 of us: http://www.kofc.org/en/news/releases/detail/poll_civilityinamerica_20120726.html) and we would do well to remember we all need to promote more civil conversations.

brava to you for owning up to the mistake and making us all take a step back and ask if we've done the same. jr 

Bravo!  Well spoken, Gini

Gini, I love you my friend and one of the reasons is your honesty, openness, integrity. I respect and admire you tremendously.

I don't have any blogging mistakes, but god, life is full of mistakes and I certainly have my share.  I have found I've learned so much from making a mistake whether that is in business, social or on the tennis court.  And being able to admit your mistake is something many are not comfortable doing, particularly on such a public forum.

I must say that some of political/religious comments were definitely not meant for a PR blog and I knew your intent was to create a dialogue, but not in that tone. 

I can't recall making any mistakes, but that's not a positive. It means I'm unwilling to take risks in my posting.

With a hot-button issue like the CFA one, it's tough to separate out the PR issues from the political ones, because they frankly are tied together in a bunch of ways--crisis comms, the leader being the face and defacto voice of the company, the issue that is covered, etc. There is a reason Public Affairs work is part of PR (and, that was the practice group I was in at FH). Trying to contain the discussion to just the PR aspects isn't impossible, but it can be tough.

I think your apology is admirable, but also that you are being a bit hard on yourself. I'll add my apology here as a contributor to the off-topic part of the discussion. It won't happen again.