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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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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)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303292204577519134168240996.html to view the full article online.
Career
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)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303684004577508953483021234.html to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/1842441/where-you-spend-the-most-creative-minutes-of-your-day to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-06/how-i-got-here-general-mills-anton-vincent to view the full article online.
Diversity in the Workplace
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)
Visit http://www.economist.com/node/21558321 to view the full article online.
Education
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.
Visit https://www.naylornetwork.com/nbm-netwire/articles/index-v2.asp?aid=183529&issueID=27832 to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304708604577505222718048642.html to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-11/mba-admissions-interviews-gone-bad-really-bad to view the full article online.
NBMBAA
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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Technology
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)
Visit http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-12/the-survival-guide-for-life-after-rim to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577520760230459438.html to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/nexus-7-will-turn-a-profit-for-google-and-asus/ to view the full article online.
Entrepreneurship
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)
Visit http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/how_to_turn_a_relationship_int.html to view the full article online.
The Economy
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)
Visit http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/the-market-has-spoken-and-it-is-rigged/?ref=business to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.economist.com/node/21558231 to view the full article online.
Personal Finance
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)
Visit http://www.smartmoney.com/taxes/income/tax-rules-for-deducting-donations-1342043028507/ to view the full article online.
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)
Visit http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/6-things-to-know-about-credit-scores.html?si=1 to view the full article online.
Government
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)
Visit http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/12/news/economy/california-bankruptcies/index.htm?iid=HP_LN to view the full article online.
Lifestyle
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)
Visit http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/11/3-good-reasons-to-take-a-work-free-vacation/?iid=SF_F_River to view the full article online.
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