Hail to the Chief

We conclude USA Week here on Canadian Entrepreneur with a nod to PROFIT Magazine’s story this month on "5 Management Lessons from Barack Obama."

PROFIT editor Ian Portsmouth says the new U.S. president, who dashed into Canada today for seven unforgettable hours, can teach us a thing or two about landing customers. Here’s an excerpt:

* In order for Obama to demonstrate his empathy for the average citizen, he portrayed himself as the American everyman: shooting hoops with voters, conducting kitchen-table talks for a national TV infomercial audience and even wearing jeans and sneakers at campaign stops. LESSON: Be like your customers.

* If John F. Kennedy was the first TV president, Obama is the first Internet president. The Web-savvy former senator used text messaging, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to recruit Obamamaniacs and raise millions in campaign contributions. LESSON: Grow with Web 2.0.

You can read the full story here. It'll take you two minutes.