Postcards

Oprah owns her power, takes the CEO job

Last fall, in Oprah's Next Act, Oprah Winfrey talked about how she has learned to embrace her power.

Well, she did that today, by naming herself CEO of OWN, her new cable network that's been struggling to find its audience.

So much for the life of leisure Oprah once imagined she might have after her daytime talk show ended. ("La-di-da, I'll do a show and then I'll go have lunch with my MORE

Social networking 101: Do the guys really beat the girls?

Men are savvier online professional networkers than women. So concludes a recent study by LinkedIn (LNKD).

The study garnered lots of attention in the blogosphere, but are LinkedIn's findings really correct?

The professional networking site picked seven large companies -- such as Best Buy (BBY), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Lockheed Martin (LMT) -- and counted the number of "connections" that each company's registered LinkedIn users had.

The results: Men had more connections than women.

Nicole MORE

Martha Stewart at age 15: Soap star

Last week in France, at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, Martha Stewart (MSO) and I both spoke about women, power and diversity at an event hosted by Interpublic Group (IPG).

IPG showed no teenage pictures of me, thank goodness. But they did show Martha at 15, long before she was a brand.

She distinctly remembers this day, she said. She had to be pulled out of school to film this Lifebuoy commercial.

Movie cowboy Buck on leadership: Taming managers is like taming horses

I recently met Buck Brannaman, the star of the new documentary Buck, at a screening hosted by Tom and Meredith Brokaw. This laconic cowboy cast a spell on the former NBC anchor and his wife, who have a home in Montana and got to know him up there in horse country. Buck cast a spell on me too. He was the inspiration for the best-selling novel "The Horse Whisperer" and MORE

Spider-Man producer Laura Ziskin's tiniest film makes a difference too

If you read the stories about Laura Ziskin, the Hollywood producer who died of cancer on Sunday at age 61, you'll get a glimpse of a woman who made a lot of difference without a lot of fanfare.

When she made movies like No Way Out and Pretty Woman and As Good as It Gets, she pioneered in a man's business and created a string of major hits.

When she produced the MORE

CEOs, global stars, and Presidential offspring

"Leaders must role model what GREAT looks like."

In her comments at  the "Fortune Most Powerful Women Evening With..." dinner in New York City Tuesday night  McKinsey & Co. 's Joanna Barsh was talking about the importance of corporate women leaders helping middle managers. But her comments helped set the tone for the evening, which also recognized a group of international rising stars who have been mentored by some of the MORE

Dick Ebersol, the real man beyond the business guy

It's a stunner that Dick Ebersol quit NBC Universal (CMCSA) yesterday. The man who ran NBC Sports for 22 years. The King of the Olympics. The guy who hired Lorne Michaels, who created Saturday Night Live. Ebersol produced SNL during a short stint outside sports entertainment -- and got the girl when actress Susan Saint James hosted the show. They fell in love and married.

None of that drama, though, compares MORE

How Warren Buffett got a role in The Office finale

Buffett will appear tonight on the one hour NBC season finale of The Office at 9/8c.

Tonight on the season finale of The Office, a galaxy of stars will be jostling to replace the hapless Michael Scott as boss of Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch. You'll see Jim Carrey, Ray Romano, Ricky Gervais, and...Warren Buffett.

It's a quick cameo for the famous investor, but Buffett had a juicier role last month when he starred MORE

Too Big To Fail premiere: The stars align

Hollywood, Wall Street and New York media converged last night at the premiere of Too Big to Fail, the movie.

Michael Douglas, Brian Williams, and Regis Philbin met Warren Buffett, uber-analyst Meredith Whitney, and CNBC's Becky Quick at the Museum of Modern Art, where HBO's screening took place, and at a swishy after-party at Manhattan's Four Seasons restaurant.

Hank Paulson is indisputably the hero of the film based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's MORE

The queens of media are falling fast

I was on stage with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the producer and director of Miss Representation, on Friday just after the news broke that Christina Norman was out as CEO of Oprah Winfrey's new TV network, OWN.

What an odd coincidence, since Newsom's documentary explores the dearth of women in "clout positions" in the mainstream media. Newsom says that this number is 3%.

Clearly, it is getting worse.

The day before Norman, a former president MORE