Honorees Announced: Take Advantage of Discounted Tickets for the NBMBAA 45th Anniversary Celebration, June 12 in Chicago

As a valued supporter of the National Black MBA Association’s legacy, we invite you to join us on Friday, June 12, as we celebrate 45 years of creating economic, educational and employment opportunities for Blacks in the business world. Plan now to attend this extraordinary event. Buy early and take advantage of $150 tickets before the price goes up!

HONOREES
Earl Graves Sr., Founder and President, Black Enterprise Magazine
Don Thompson, Former CEO, McDonald's Corporation

Buy Tickets!

The current generation of business school students is less parochial, less interested in prestige, and more entrepreneurial than ever, at least in spirit, a new report shows. On Tuesday, the Graduate Management Admission Council released a survey of almost 12,000 prospective business school students across the world. The students surveyed were all people who got an account on mba.com, the GMAC website on which students register to take the Graduate Management Admission Test. (Bloomberg)

Collaboration implies more than just passing data back and forth in an attempt to develop what is often a non-descript deliverable that can be as forgettable as the interactions themselves. Genuine collaboration is achieved through ongoing meaningful exchanges between people who share a passion and respect for one another. Trading ideas and taking risks on behalf of others and the organization is key. Ultimately, new innovations and critical problem solving are realized through relationships. However, today’s keyboard-tapping workers have very little context around who their counterparts are, how they feel about things, or what they hope for – in other words, what motivates them. (Harvard Business Review)

The University of Southern California Marshall School of Business will offer an online MBA program focused on analytics, social media, virtual teams and entrepreneurial thinking – the latest top institution to tap into learning tech. Business schools have been investing heavily in digital learning environments, as the full-time MBA loses some of its lustre to shorter, online courses. (BusinessBecause)

The global supply chain has become an increasing focus at companies across sectors as innovative technologies have evolved the supply chain landscape. But an aging workforce and a shortage of talent are stifling implementations of innovations like predictive analytics, 3D printing and wearable technologies. (BusinessBecause)

Regardless of your age, background, or accomplishments, you have probably fantasized about the possibility of a new career at some point in your life – those who haven’t are the exception. LinkedIn reports that of its 313 million members, 25% are active job seekers, while 60% can be considered passive job seekers – people who are not proactively searching for a new job, but seriously willing to consider opportunities. (Harvard Business Review)

Cheat Sheet, a regular series, is a detailed look inside the application gauntlet for the most sought-after jobs, with commentary from the people who hold eager candidates' fates in their hands – (Bloomberg)

Back when I worked in HR, a candidate I wanted to hire had listed a bachelor’s degree on her résumé. Come to find out through the background check, she’d never actually received it. She had completed all of the credits but was denied the degree due to outstanding library fines! Had she listed her credits rather than the degree – e.g., completed all 120 credits towards a bachelor’s – that would have matched the check done by the employer, and she would have been fine. Instead her exaggeration cost her the job.(Money)

I believe in the power of women to build inspiring careers in all types of fields. At least, that’s what I thought I believed. It’s what my conscious mind thinks, at least. My unconscious mind, however, favors traditional Western gender roles: men focusing on careers while women focus on family. I learned about this dichotomy from taking an implicit association test, a social psychology test designed to measure a person’s unconscious or automatic associations between types of people and specific concepts or ideas. (Fast Company)

Having a woman at the top of a company might signal that there is no room for any others. New research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and Columbia Business School finds that a woman’s chances of landing one of a company’s five highest-paid executive jobs drop 51% if there’s already a woman on the team. The explanation is not entirely clear, but the authors speculate that unconscious biases are at play. (The Wall Street Journal)

The currency crisis starts about 75 feet into Cuba. I land in the late afternoon and, after clearing customs, step into the busy arrivals hall of Havana’s airport looking for help. I ask a woman in a gray, military-like uniform where I can change money. "Follow me," she says. But she doesn’t turn left, toward the airport’s exchange kiosk. Called cadecas, these government-run currency shops are the only legal way, along with banks, to swap your foreign money for Cuba’s tourist tender, the CUC. Instead, my guide turns right and only comes clean when we reach a quiet area at the top of an escalator. (Bloomberg)

A handful of Chinese executives are raising their voices on social and political issues to burnish their reputations, an unusual move in a country that has long been hostile toward public debate. But the executives are treading carefully on more controversial matters, aiming to avoid a renewed crackdown on dissent by Beijing. (The Wall Street Journal)

With some 13,000 graduate schools of business across the globe, the M.B.A. degree has clearly become a commodity. Even among elite schools, courses and case studies are pretty much water from the same well (i.e., finance, operations, marketing, accounting). So how do you choose? By using the rankings? Which ones? The Economist’s? Businessweek’s? The Financial Times’s? And if you do, how do you tell the difference between a school ranked No. 6 and a school ranked No. 7?(The New York Times)

Would better education significantly reduce income inequality in America? No, says recent study from the Brookings Institution. But that doesn't mean that better education wouldn't help the overall economic picture. The study suggests that improving education does in fact help the economic situations of poorer Americans, even though it does little to whittle away at overall inequality in the country. (The Atlantic)

As millennials navigate a post-9/11 world marked by war, economic downturn and social movements LOT Alum Jamira Burley joins others with MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry in discussing where this generation stands on the political and social issues of today. (Video) (MSNBC)

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) today announced his appointment of Norwalk businesswoman Diane Winston to the Board of Directors for State Lottery Corporation. "With over 30 years of corporate and consulting experience as a communications professional, Diane Winston will bring an unparalleled skillset to the Lottery’s Board of Directors," said Sen. Duff. (Stamford Plus)

Veronica Coleman, financial advisor for Edward Jones in Granite City, has been selected as the 2015 auxiliary board of directors chair for the Tri-Cities Area Division of United Way of Greater St. Louis, according to a press release. Coleman has been a strong supporter of United Way for several years. (St. Louis Today)

It took three days – three long, often confusing and frustrating days – for me to fall for the Apple Watch. But once I fell, I fell hard. First there was a day to learn the device’s initially complex user interface. Then another to determine how it could best fit it into my life. And still one more to figure out exactly what Apple’s first major new product in five years is trying to do – and, crucially, what it isn’t. (The New York Times)

Forget about banks. Online peer-to-peer lending platforms have surged in popularity by connecting people who want to borrow directly with people who want to lend. And now banks want in on the action. On Wednesday, San Francisco-based startup Prosper announced a new $165 million round of financing led by Credit Suisse NEXT Investors, and which included participation by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, SunTrust Banks and USAA, among others. (Wired)

EVERY entrepreneur has failures. It's part of growing. It's my opinion that if you're not failing, it's likely you're not taking enough risk. It occurred to me though, maybe it would be helpful to arm first-time entrepreneurs with some rarely-discussed truths. Things that most people won't tell you because they're trying to be supportive and "nice". (Inc.)

The saying "It takes money to make money" is a popular one among aspiring entrepreneurs. Rarely can an idea come to life without funding to support all of its startup and production costs. In the event that you’re not sitting on mountain high bankrolls, here are five crowdfunding sites you may find useful in getting your business dreams off the ground. (Black Enterprise)

When you have money, you spend less on the stuff that ensures you survive the day and more on the stuff that ensures that you (and your children, and your possessions, and your estate) survive and thrive for many years. Poverty is a chaos that screams in the present tense, and the anxiety of having no money forces poorer families to direct their attention to immediate concerns. As a result, the poor spend relatively more on what will keep them alive, because they must. And the rich spend more on what will keep them rich, because they can. (The Atlantic)

Companies are expanding their wellness programs to focus on workers’ wallets in addition to their waistlines. Meredith Corp., Staples Inc. and PepsiCo Inc., among others, have begun offering programs aimed at improving employees’ financial security. Modeled after physical-wellness programs that invite employees to lose weight or undergo health screenings, financial-wellness programs include finance classes, counseling sessions and even videogames designed to help staffers pay down debt, stick to a budget and invest for their retirement. (The Wall Street Journal)

A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is the standard in the industry right now, but with interest rates so low, is the 15-year loan a better option? One of the best ways to eliminate your mortgage debt is moving into a 15-year fixed-rate loan. With the average spread a full 1% compared to its 30-year mortgage counterpart, a 15-year mortgage can provide an increased rate of acceleration in paying off the biggest obligation of your life. (Money)

I often write about the retirement preparedness (or lack thereof) of boomers – my peeps and the prime Next Avenue demographic. But how well is the generation right behind them – Gen X – doing on that score? "They’re on a retirement collision course," according to Catherine Collinson, president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS), which just published a survey of the 36- to 49-year-olds (as TCRS defines the group; there’s no universal agreement). (MarketWatch)

Does it seem like you don’t have enough hours in the day to get through everything you need to do? With so many competing demands on our time, we can all benefit from learning to ramp up our own personal productivity. HBR recently ran a series called Getting More Work Done. Here is a summary of the advice and best practices our experts contributed to the series. (Harvard Business Review)

Jopwell is a platform that lets companies connect with and recruit minority candidates for internships and jobs. These employers are considered "partner companies" by Jopwell, which helps them create a highly customizable employer page on the platform. That page enables companies to market their internships, job opportunities and programs to Jopwell’s minority users, which come from underrepresented ethnic minority groups – Black, Latin/Hispanic, and Native American. (Forbes)

It’s the season for corporate galas and awards, so before you head out to represent your company (and yourself), we wanted to give you some do’s and don’ts. Our advice is based on years of attending – and running – these events, with the knowledge that people, especially women and those from under-represented groups, are often judged more harshly. By the way, we hope to see you at The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity announcement dinner April 23. (DiversityInc)

Officials at the US's central bank were split about when to raise interest rates, latest minutes released by the Federal Reserve have revealed. Interest rates in the world's largest economy have been kept at close to 0% since late 2008, at the start of the financial crisis. (BBC News)

Most members of Congress will tell you that they’re a champion of small business. However, most can’t truly empathize, because they haven’t actually run a small business. Even fewer have started one from scratch. Sen. Rand Paul is one of the exceptions. One part politician, one part physician, Paul – who this week officially announced his candidacy for president – is an ophthalmologist by trade. (The Washington Post)

People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. A new report out last week from market research firm Gallup finds there’s still plenty of truth in that old cliché. The survey of 7,200 adults found that about half had left a job at some point "to get away from their manager." So, what do workers want from their managers? In a word, communication. (The Wall Street Journal)

They may be called "status meetings" "check-ins" "team meetings" or "updates." You may have them once a month, once a week, once a day, or once every quarter. They all have one thing in common: Your employees hate them. It might surprise you to learn just how much. In a recent Harris poll, sponsored by the online collaboration company Clarizen, 46 percent of respondents said they'd prefer to do almost anything else instead of sitting in a status meeting. Seventeen percent said they would choose to watch paint dry. Eight percent said they would opt for root canal. (Inc.)

Tech companies shower their employees with perks like dry cleaning, massages and haircuts. But there is one group for whom working at a tech company can be much more difficult than working elsewhere: parents. Facebook hosts all-night hackathons. Google has weekend laser tag retreats. Many start-ups have no parental leave policy at all, so the first employee to have a baby has to ask the company to create one. (The New York Times)

It's bad enough that procrastination can ruin your work day – an earful from the boss for blowing a deadline, say, or just a later evening at the office than you planned. But the effects of habitual delay can infect you at the physical level as well as the professional. Procrastination has been linked with headaches, digestive trouble, and colds or the flu, and a new study adds something far worse to the mix: heart disease. (Fast Company)