Category: Getting Oprah’s Attention: Going Home, Lessons Learned

Today the founders of ILiveInspired, who mounted a seven-day walking campaign to get a seven-minute meeting with Oprah Winfrey, are going home. Read our original post and our updates.
They’re leaving without their prize in hand. Oprah hasn’t granted an audience. So the duo is headed back to Washington, D.C., to pursue more conventional outreach methods: […]

How easy is it really to find a grant to pay for training at a small company?

When looking for grants, you might pay a visit to your statehouse. Pictured: the Pennsylvania Statehouse rotunda. Photo credit: Flickr/jimbowen0306

As I wrote this Small Business Link story about how small companies can track down government dollars to fund employee […]

Corporate wikis can give some managers the willies.
Wikis – Web sites that allow users to post and edit items easily – can help companies promote knowledge sharing. Read my article about an email-marketer’s wiki for sales reps to ask and answer questions, among other things. Their low cost can make them especially attractive to […]

As of tonight, the founders of ILiveInspired.com are still in Chicago. And still trying to meet Oprah. Sometimes Chicago hotels can get guests onto waiting lists for audience tickets. So the walking duo sweet-talked a W Hotel concierge into trying for them. But no dice. [They were staying at a friend’s apartment.]
So tonight the pair […]

“Business is filled with examples of people who have the advantage, but who don’t bet enough money. It’s a powerful lesson from blackjack.”
This from an interview today with Jon Hirschtick, founder of an engineering-software company in Concord, Mass. – and the inspiration behind a new Kevin Spacey movie, “21.”
WSJ’s Lee Gomes pressed the card-counter […]

Bellevue, Wash.
ThatÂ’s the best town to launch a business, according to Fortune Small Business. The magazine ranked U.S. towns and cities for its top 100 best spots to “Live and Launch.” Winners combined a nourishing business environment along with alluring leisure offerings. Good for you. Good for recruiting.
Criteria included: economic conditions such as local taxes, […]

The I Live Inspired founders are still at Harpo. (Read the original post and the last update). Their new security-guard pal told them today isn’t looking good for a meeting because of the show’s schedule. But he encouraged them to come back tomorrow. So they’ll be back on the scene early in the morning.
Meantime, they’ve […]

Update: (9:57 a.m.) Entrepreneurs Rob Foster and Chris Deutsch made it into the lobby of security at Oprah’s Harpo headquarters. After standing outside the building since 5:15 a.m. chatting up the mostly female ticket-holders for today’s show and Oprah’s security team, they got a lucky break. Read the original post.

Chris reports that one top security […]

Original Post: (8:48 a.m.) On March 24th, two entrepreneurs left Hope, Ill., on foot en route to Chicago and the doorstep of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. Their mission: an unscheduled seven-minute meeting today with the media diva to pitch their company, I Live Inspired, which delivers inspirational text messages to subscribers’ cellphones.
Their dream world […]

“It’s not my job.”
IÂ’ve been chewing on this phrase this weekend. Finally at the end of a year-long kitchen renovation, IÂ’m about to say good-bye to the cadre of workers who made it happen. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with several “yes” people. For instance, my small-town cabinet makers, a husband-wife duo, don’t see problems they […]