In our “here today, gone tomorrow,” “what have you done for me lately?” society,

how has Oprah Winfrey managed to be SO successful for SO long?  What has given Oprah her unique staying power?  The Washington Post wanted to know.  So, they polled a panel of successful men and women, of varying backgrounds and areas of expertise,

Since I first read the panelists’ responses a few days ago, I have been thinking a lot about how Oprah’s recipe for success can be applied to business.  Personally, I relate to “Oprah the Entrepreneur.”  Three thoughts have continued to resonate with me, from this panel’s responses and my own ruminations.

These are:

Oprah’s Connection

Oprah identifies with her audience. She exudes a genuineness that allows her audience to relate to her. As an entrepreneur, it is important to connect with each client. Delivering best-in-class service, in each client’s genuine best interest, will always set you apart from your competition.  Know your client.

Doing Good Oprah was able to recognize, early on, who she was; what made her tick.  Knowing jer own strengths (and shortcomings), Oprah has been able to find situations that value who she is.  As a small business owner, it is crucial to understand who you are, recognize your strengths, and channel those strengths to pursue and develop business opportunities that are comfortable for you.  Do not chase projects that require skills that you do not have, are not interesting to you, or that may compromise your values.  Do not seek relationships with clients who you cannot help.  In other words, seek comfort.  This does not mean that you should not have a reach that exceeds your grasp.  But, it does mean that you should not compromise your values or promise anything that you cannot deliver.  Know yourself.

Knowing What is Next Oprah has announced that she will end her television show after over twenty years on the air.  She is leaving at the top.  You can bet that she did not make this decision without a lot of thought.  This may be the most challenging part.  No doubt, as entrepreneurs, we are consumed with our business 24×7.  We are constantly looking for ways to serve our clients and help them to achieve their goals.  Sometimes we can lose sight of our own goals for a project.   We should always have personal goals for a project and, periodically, we should re-assess these goals and make necessary adjustments.  Sometimes, knowing when to call it quits, learn from the experience, and move on may be the best option.  Be honest to yourself and to your client.  Know the Relationship.

I attended a session from the Gov2.0 Camp around Using Social media for Outreach. Here are the notes.

Educate – Frame the conversation – Deliberate on the issues – Identify shared priorities – Refine conversation – Bring back conversation - Act

Gov2.0 Camp March 27, 2009

Questions people want to get out of the session:

• How can we use web 2.0 tools effectively?
• Twitter strategy for outreach
• Using social media to create awareness
• How do you define success? (Google moderator)
• How to engage public in a meaningful way
• How do we use social media to gain trust in the customer base
• Connecting communities – promote collaboration
• Building online audience and drive to 1:1 relationships
• Media think tank outreach
• Communication to senior leaders on why they need to be involved in the social media
• Metrics, privacy issues, how do you know the impact
• Sharing best practices
• Security issues, guidelines on what to say and what not to say
• How we filter what will help us and what’s jus t the noise
• Inform the public on what we do
• Want to make sure that the vocal people do not drown out the conversation –by having topical blogs to drive the conversation
• Capitalize greater government transparency through social media
• Bridge cultures using social technology
• Elaborate and leverage the network
• Want to get beyond the numbers when measure success. How are we going to action the information to help set priority and utilize the information in a meaningful way
• How to overcome management resistance
• How to engage in the public through technology in the time of crises

What is meaningful participation? Meaningful is in the eye of the beholder, start with the mission and define the right mix that help you as an organization.

• Recommend a book written in 1965 by Ellul: Propaganda – How you skew information, depending on your purpose and how you are trying to influence. How unity and action need to work together.
• You can use social tool to establish relationship with people with 1:1 levels
• How do you start? Begin with a dialogue, keep it rolling by user generated content

o Make sure you know what people want to do

o How will you make it successful? Credibility

- It’s important to include what the citizens think (comments) as meaningful metrics

- One of the success measure is to see that their audience / comments self moderate

• People have to have a mechanism to know that their comments will make a difference

• Need to be responsible for managing the outcome, take ation and communicate that to the public
• Recommend to use Metafilter and Dailypost, which has a 24 hour delay to monitor the comments
• Set expectations to your audience has to understand that not every comments has to be responded to
• Social media Showing a face from the inside of the agency can express more government transparency
• America Speaks is hiring. Check out www.Americaspeaks.org/jobs