Postcards

Career advice on the move, globally

by Patricia Sellers

Gerry Laybourne likes to stake out new ground.

As a cable-TV pioneer in the '80s, she built Nickelodeon for Viacom (VIAB).

Later, she founded Oxygen Media to fill a female void in media.

In the past two years since she sold Oxygen to NBC Universal (GE) for nearly $1 billion, Laybourne has been advising a few small businesses and serving on boards--Symantec (SYMC), Electronic Arts (ERTS), and, pending her nomination,  MORE

Black Friday 2009 thwarts shopping habits, and sleep too

I've been reading Credit Suisse (CS) analyst Gary Balter's reports on hardline retailers since the mid-'90s, when I wrote about companies like Home Depot (HD) and Sears (SHLD). Balter is not only a savvy analyst. He's also a very good writer. This morning at 7:17, Balter emailed this note to clients about Black Friday shopping, which he titled "Bring Back the Good Old Days."  I'm on his email list, so MORE

Power Point: Heed the ham!

"All of a sudden this ham... hit me full long in the face and 'bout knocked me cuckoo."

--Celebrity cook and Food Network star Paula Deen, who was hit in the face by a ham today while volunteering at an Atlanta food drive. Deen, who was helping to unload 25,000 pounds of meat donated to a local food bank, was the honored guest at a recent "Fortune Most Powerful Women Evening MORE

Ex-White House Press Secretary: Straight talk on careers

by Jessica Shambora

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino (third from left) at the Minute Mentoring event she coordinated. Photo courtesy of Charlotte Sellmyer.

Dana Perino is only 37 years old and already has the title "White House Press Secretary" on her resume.

But at age 25, after working on Capitol Hill for two and a half years, she was saying to herself, "I thought I'd be further along than this."

All MORE

Portraits of Powerful Women

With so many movers and shakers gathered at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in September, we jumped at the chance to capture some of them on film. Xerox (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns, McDonald's (MCD) USA COO Jan Fields, and Google (GOOG) VP of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer are among the portraits you'll find in this gallery, shot by another notable woman, photographer Robyn Twomey. A regular MORE

Career advice in a minute--or 10

by Patricia Sellers

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino (third from left) at the Minute Mentoring event she coordinated. Photo courtesy of Charlotte Sellmyer.

What good is having power unless you give it away?

The quickest and easiest way of dispensing power--and career advice--might be what I saw one night last week in Washington, D.C. It's called Minute Mentoring. It's speed dating applied to mentoring.

This pairing of role models and wannabes MORE

Power Point: Oprah says, "Own yourself"

"If I lost control of the business, I'd lose myself--or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself."

--Oprah Winfrey, in "The Business of Being Oprah," a 2002 cover story that I wrote about the billionaire media titan. Back then, Oprah was figuring out who she wanted to be, beyond a daytime talk-show host. She had recently (and warily) formed a partnership with Hearst--from MORE

Behind Oprah's next big move

by Patricia Sellers

Now that Oprah Winfrey is talking about her life-changing moves--to cable from broadcast TV and to Los Angeles from Chicago--I have to say: I'm not surprised at all.

After all, Oprah, who says she'll end her daytime show in September 2011, does things only one way: with her full self in the game.

What I know for sure (and she does too): Building a major cable network will take all MORE

NBCU's "Trash TV": the full view

by Patricia Sellers

I told you that NBC Universal (GE) is decorating its "Green is Universal" eco-campaign this week with a strange but cool art project inside 30 Rock. An environmental muralist named Tom Deininger spent all afternoon yesterday inside Studio 8H--the home of Saturday Night Live--with 300-plus inner-city school kids and NBC staffers building a massive wall relief completely out of trash.

That's right. 100% garbage. Used cue cards from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Old cassette tapes MORE

Power Point: How to pick a magazine cover

"Young is better than old, Pretty is better than ugly, Rich is better than poor, T.V. is better than music, Music is better than movies, Movies are better than sports, Anything is better than politics, And nothing is better than the celebrity dead."

--Stolley's Law of Covers, created by Dick Stolley, senior editorial advisor to Time Inc., and founding editor, People. A legend of the magazine world, he made history when he secured the rights the Zapruder footage MORE