The National Black MBA Association® Scholarship from University of Phoenix is awarding two full tuition scholarships for undergraduate or masters' degrees to NBMBAA® members with a record of community service. Don't miss this amazing opportunity. The application deadline is July 24, so apply today!
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Had a lousy morning? Things looking grim? Not to worry. The rest of your day need not be a disaster. It can in fact become one of your best. Use these mental tricks to change your momentum. (Inc.)
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There's a power struggle underway in Silicon Valley. At stake: Power itself. Over the past two years, one of the most influential venture-capital firms has turned the usual rules of start-up investing on its head. Andreessen Horowitz is telling entrepreneurs it prefers situations where the founders have controlling stakes, reckoning that they'll be better able to resist outside distraction and focus on making great products. (Wall Street Journal)
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Although it’s increasingly common, telecommuting may be hazardous to employee evaluations. But employers can take steps to ensure that remote workers are judged fairly. (MIT/Sloan Management Review)
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Amy Johnson works from her home in Dixon, Ill., talking with clients and filing reports for her job as a fingerprint technician. In one way, though, she might as well be sitting at a desk next to her boss in Chicago. Using a computer-monitoring program, Timothy Daniels, vice president of operations for Accurate Biometrics, can track whether Ms. Johnson and other employees are working – or slacking off. (Wall Street Journal)
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Often, the most effective way of solving a difficult problem is simply walking away. The moment we allow ourselves to disengage from the individual pieces of a puzzle is the moment a solution appears. It’s why Albert Einstein regularly went sailing and why Charles Darwin planned his day around a countryside stroll. Thomas Edison simply napped. (Fast Company)
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Anton Vincent is a man of diverse interests. In fact, that’s what drew the Mississippi native to a career in brand management. As president of the baking division at General Mills (GIS), he oversees such popular brands as Betty Crocker and Bisquick, and he is a founder of the company’s Black Champions Network. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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In the West, women typically make up 10-20% of upper management and company boards. They are relatively lucky. A report from McKinsey, a consultancy, shows that Asian women lag far behind. (The Economist)
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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced a new round of austerity measures Wednesday as his government struggles to meet deficit reduction targets mandated by the European Union. (CNN/Money)
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The euro fell to a two-year low against a broadly firmer dollar on Thursday after the minutes of a Federal Reserve meeting dampened the prospects of more U.S. monetary stimulus in coming months, weighing on riskier assets and growth-linked currencies. (Reuters)
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The NBMBAA® 11th Annual Leaders of Tomorrow National Business Case Competition was a great success! The level of professionalism, dedication and hard work of each student was evident in their presentations of this year’s case about Facebook. We thank all of the high school students from chapters across the country who participated.
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A Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the University of California are combining ready-made software, rented Web services and Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer in a high-tech effort to bring career training to baby boomers looking to upgrade their skills. (Wall Street Journal)
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The admissions interview is the business school’s opportunity to meet potential students face to face and go beyond the pages of their applications. "We are looking for qualities that you can’t necessarily assess on paper, such as communication skills, poise, charisma, and the right fit for the school," writes Dawna Clarke, director of admissions, and Dia Draper, associate director of strategic initiatives for the admissions office at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Take advantage of early bird discounts and first choice on sessions and hotels by registering today for the NBMBAA 34th Annual Conference & Exposition, September 25-29 in Indianapolis. Visit the Conference website for our new Pre-Conference Planning Guide and get all the information on why Conference is for you, what you get for your registration, costs, hotels, programs and more!
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In September, Nathan Gaude, the mobile-device manager at accounting firm Decosimo in Chattanooga, told his co-workers to ditch their BlackBerrys. The number of devices there shrank from 40 to three. "We watched RIM really going downhill," Gaude says. "They may not be around in a year to support their devices." (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Consumer-products companies are turning to new technology to overcome the biggest obstacle to learning what shoppers really think: what the shoppers say. It turns out consumers aren't a very reliable source of information about their own preferences. Academic research has shown focus-group subjects try to please their testers and overestimate their interest in products, making it hard to get a read on what works. (Wall Street Journal)
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The Google-designed, Asus-built Nexus 7 is currently the best 7-inch tablet money can buy, but it isn’t the most profitable. Its biggest rival, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, is about $19 cheaper to produce. While $19 might not seem like much, it adds up quickly when tablets are sold in the millions, as Amazon has done with the Fire and as Asus and Google hope to do with the Nexus 7. (Wired)
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The Fenix solar charger is far more expensive than most similar solutions to lack of power in the developing world. That’s because the idea is that once you buy it, you sell charges to everyone else. (Fast Company)
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The most successful people in business approach their work differently than most. See how they think – and why it works.(Inc.)
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Sales teams that focus on relationships quickly learn the value of providing personal and professional value to clients rather than focusing solely on the sale. The impact of relationship building with your customers may surprise you. (Harvard Business Review)
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In the aftermath of the Barclays rate-fixing scandal, the most surprising reaction has been from people in the financial sector who fully understand the awfulness of what has happened. Rather than seeing this as an issue of law and order, some well-informed people have been drawn toward arguments that excuse or justify the behavior of the Barclays employees. (The New York Times)
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Forget the one percent denounced by the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Hedge-fund managers have made so much money for themselves that they are in the top percent of the one percent. The billions they have raked in make bankers’ bonuses look titchy. Their vaunted success trading stocks, bonds and other instruments has helped to transform a cottage industry into a behemoth; today hedge funds oversee more than $2.1 trillion. (The Economist)
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If you make a donation worth $250 or more to an IRS-approved charity, you must receive a qualified "contemporaneous written acknowledgement" from the charity to claim a charitable deduction. If you don't get a qualified acknowledgement, you cannot legitimately claim a deduction even if your donation was worth millions. (SmartMoney)
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There is no single number. The compilers of the widely accepted FICO credit score allow lenders to customize their system, so different lenders produce different scores. Plus, each of the credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion – has a proprietary scoring model. As if that weren’t enough, the credit bureaus together invented VantageScore a few years ago to compete with FICO. (Kiplinger's)
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Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon’s new goal is to get stuff to you immediately – as soon as a few hours after you hit Buy. (Slate)
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Kim Dotcom's business facilitated more online piracy than the mind can conceive. Yet it might have been legal. How did we get here? Is there any way out? (Fortune)
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San Bernardino became the third California city to file for bankruptcy in the past few weeks ... but it won't be the last. Many municipalities in the Golden State and around the nation are struggling to cover their costs as the economic malaise continues to hurt tax revenue streams, experts said. This will lead to more municipal bankruptcies, which have been rare until now. (CNN/Money)
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Duke CEO Jim Rogers faced North Carolina regulators over the abrupt firing of his predecessor Bill Johnson, who held the CEO post for just one day. Questions about the company's future remain unanswered. (Fortune)
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Some executive education programs are tacking on a fitness component to make participants think sharper and work hard the old-fashioned way. (Fortune)
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So you're packing to go away for a few days, and your loved ones are giving you the stink eye as you slip electronic devices into your suitcase right next to the snorkel and sunscreen. Oh no, you're going to spend the whole vacation working – again &ndsah; aren't you? Understandable, of course: It's their vacation too, and they'd really like to have some fun (remember fun?) with you. But what if people at work expect to hear from you daily while you're away? (Fortune)
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Supermarkets have spent decades catering to the needs and wants of baby boomers, and now the millennial generation is disappointed with what they're finding at traditional grocery stores, and are shopping elsewhere in greater numbers. (NPR)
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