Early Bird Discounts End This Week! Register Now for NBMBAA's 35th Annual Conference and Expo and Save
Save big when you register now to join us September 10-14 for our 35th Annual Conference and Expo, "Courageous Leadership: Owning Your Own Success." Register today to take advantage of early bird pricing, get first crack at hotel rooms and set yourself up for an unforgettable networking, career building and professional development experience in Houston. View our full Pre-Conference Planning Guide for help planning your journey to Conference.
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Here's a common scenario: a powerful, driven, clever management team drives their new business through stages a I like to call "Early Struggle" into "Fun" with laser-like focus and a ruthless dedication to effective execution. The business succeeds and grows, until one day the management team discovers it has seemingly lost the ability to implement. (Inc.)
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That's a question I am almost guaranteed to hear during any social media workshop, or indeed, in one-on-one conversations about social networking. Even committed LinkedIn users are often uncertain of which connection requests to accept, or which invitations to extend: Someone who regularly shares your blog posts on Twitter? That guy on your condo board? Your cousin's girlfriend with the commemorative-gold-coin business? (Harvard Business Review)
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Every day, our to-do list gets filled with various tasks. But not all "to-do's" are created equal. Far from it. Unfortunately, our natural tendency is to start with the small, easy tasks first, and push back the big, important ones because they're more uncomfortable. That’s a costly mistake that greatly reduces our productivity while increasing our stress levels. It makes us focus on things that don’t always matter, and creates anxiety about finally facing the tasks we’ve been avoiding all day. (Fast Company)
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There is a pressing need for more businesspeople who can think quantitatively and make decisions based on data and analysis, and businesspeople who can do so will become increasingly valuable. According to a McKinsey Global Institute report on big data, we'll need over 1.5 million more data-savvy managers to take advantage of all the data we generate. (Harvard Business Review)
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Given the forecasts of uncertain global economic growth, we might expect companies to hold off from hiring new employees and to limit whatever international hiring they do to emerging markets. But our 2012 global survey of more than 1,000 corporate directors, conducted in partnership with WomenCorporateDirectors and Heidrick & Struggles, said otherwise. The vast majority of board members told us their companies are hiring in double-digits and across the globe. (Harvard Business Review)
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When you ask someone to be a mentor, is your interest in their journey, or their destination? Too many of those who want what mentors have are unwilling to learn what they know or do what they did to get it. The exceptions have no problem attracting mentors; they have the spirit and attitude that inspires others to want to claim them as proteges. Here’s what they know. (Black Enterprise)
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Where, why, and how we get together to get the job done is changing every day. The cloud-based video conference company Blue Jeans Network crunched numbers from a million office workers to better understand the state of the modern meeting. (Fast Company)
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The upper rungs of big companies are still filled with mostly men, but top CEOs are starting to be inspired by their own daughters to shatter those C-suite glass ceilings. (Daily Beast)
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The Supreme Court voted on Wednesday to overturn Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act, and by doing so awarded to married same-sex couples 1,100 federal benefits that had previously been limited to opposite-sex couples. But how will this ruling affect the business world? (Forbes)
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What is happening in Brazil? Not so long ago, it was the toast of the global economy. More than 40 million Brazilians joined the middle class, the number of indigents plummeted, and the nation achieved the feat of reducing its legendary income inequality. The Latin American giant was awarded both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. It seemed to have finally buried the old cliche: Brazil is the country of the future... and always will be. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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It is budget season in east Africa and the spending is easy. A shopping list of roads, pipelines, ports and public-sector pay rises prompted Uganda and Tanzania to hike their planned expenditure for 2013/14 by 21%; Kenya’s spending is projected to rise by 12%. With Western aid declining and oil-and-gas income yet to flow, the problem is how to pay for it all. Answer: squeeze more revenue from the telecoms industry. (The Economist)
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In recent years, the continent has become a haven for renewable energy, spearheaded by small, tech savvy companies keen on capitalizing off of the global south's hunger for energy. (CNN/Money)
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Finding the right fit in a business school can be as difficult as finding the right spouse. In both cases, compatibility is sometimes both tough to define, yet critical to success. As prospective students spend the summer evaluating business schools in search of that ever-elusive "fit," it’s worth reviewing some general guidelines before embarking on the search. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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hanks to all 19 teams. Special congrats to Greater Harrisburg (first place finish and $15,000 in scholarship winnings), Houston (second place finish and $10,000 in scholarship winnings), Raleigh Durham (third place finish and $5,000 in scholarship winnings), Atlanta (fourth place finish and trophy) and Philadelphia (fifth place finish and trophy).
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United Airlines is pleased to offer a discount of 2%-13% off of your airfare when booking travel for the NBMBAA’s 35th Annual Conference & Career Expo.

To view flight schedules, air fares and obtain the discount click HERE.
You may also contact United Meetings reservations at 1-800-426-1122

You must provide the following Z Code ZQ2C and Agreement Code 506107 at the time of the booking to receive the discount.
More on Conference Travel
Visit the Conference Website

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The National Black MBA Association provides financial support to students pursuing careers in business, academia and related professions. Scholarship awards range from $1,000 to $20,000 however award amounts are contingent upon funding for the current year. The application period through June 30.
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After 18 months of deadlock on a stalled software project, a Seattle-based software company hired Chris Stephenson, co-founder of Arryve, a management consulting firm in Bellevue, Wash., as a troubleshooter. It turned out to be an employee issue and not a tech problem. (The Wall Street Journal)
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The same iPhones that fly off American shelves are losing ground in key markets abroad – an example, in case one was needed, that what works in the U.S. doesn’t automatically succeed overseas. This is no temporary stumble, according to new data, but an illustration that we’ve reached the end of the beginning for smartphones and a sign that Apple’s (AAPL) ways of appealing to customers could prove less effective in the future. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Small and women-owned businesses are two of today’s most optimistic sectors of economic and professional growth. In an effort to help further the development and success of some of the most promising of these businesses, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott has launched ELEVATE fueled by Fairfield, a pilot empowerment program offering free space, connections and resources to 20 female entrepreneurs across the country. Enrollment ends June 30th.
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1. To get more done, work fewer hours. Conventional wisdom says that working long hours makes you more productive. That's not true. Multiple studies reveal that working, say, 60 hour rather than 40 hours a week makes you slightly more productive... but only for about three weeks. After that, most people get burnt out, start making avoidable errors and end up getting less useful work done than if they worked a saner schedule. (Inc.)
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The Great Recession was not an equal-opportunity disaster. Some states (Nevada, Florida, California, Michigan) got absolutely mauled in the downturn. Others (Texas, New York), came out bruised, but not really bloodied. (The Atlantic)
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Rising interest rates have hit mortgages big time. Rates on 30-year, fixed-rate home loans spiked 0.53 percentage points to an average of 4.46% this week – the largest weekly increase in more than 26 years, mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday. (CNN/Money)
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The first rule of prices is that nobody knows anything. That makes us exquisitely sensitive to little tricks and biases. Research suggests that getting something extra "for free" tends feels better than getting the same thing for less. Expensive items are placed strategically near the front of a store to make other high prices seem like a bargain. (The Atlantic)
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The Affordable Care Act’s new insurance exchanges are designed to offer health plans at rates close to those currently only available to employees of large companies. But even young people who are offered health insurance through their workplace often turn it down, according to a new study. (MarketWatch)
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At the turn of the 20th century, drugstores were little more than a pharmacist and a soda fountain. If you wanted to go shopping, you went to a department store. Now, that trend is reversing. Department stores are suffering and drugstores are booming. So much so that Walgreens – one of the industry's leaders – is experimenting with expanding its goods and services. (NPR)
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Want to know exactly how much richer the average chief executive is than you and me? Take a look at the Economic Policy Institute’s latest white paper, which tracks the growth of CEO compensation over the last half century. Here are the major takeaways. (The Washington Post)
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At the end of this month, President Obama will begin his trip to Africa, visiting South Africa, Senegal (in West Africa) and Tanzania (in East Africa). The trip will be expensive, and The Washington Post has highlighted the large cost at a time of budget tightening. However, even the myopia of the US budget process cannot obscure reality in this case – this is money well spent. (Harvard Business Review)
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Managers at every level almost universally complain that many of their meetings are a waste of time. It's an old story, repeated over and over: "We didn't have an agenda." "We didn't manage the time well." "We didn't have the right people to actually make any decisions." It's a long list of dysfunctional behaviors that are familiar to just about anyone who has worked in an organization. (Harvard Business Review)
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You probably know the famous scene in the movie Glengary Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin's character tells his team to "Always be closing." I wish it were that simple. These days closing the deal, or even getting close, comes with more prerequisites – the biggest of which is understanding. People will not buy what they do not understand. Quality explanations are the key to getting prospects to become customers. I suggest a new motto for today: "Always be explaining." (Harvard Business Review)
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After my last vacation, I declared email bankruptcy. Translation: I deleted everything. Find out why this works magic. (Inc.)
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Getting onto a plane you'll have a chance to get a bit of work done on the way to your destination, right? Wrong. Leave your laptop in the overhead compartment, road warrior. You’re not at your best. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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