Career
In my line of work, career development is always a hot topic. Whether I’m in our headquarters in New York City or one of the nearly 50 countries where MetLife does business, I often get questions about it. So if I could travel back in time and talk with a young Frans Hijkoop about his career development, I’d basically give him the same advice I give my MetLife colleagues. (Fortune)
Visit http://fortune.com/2015/09/03/frans-hijkoop-metlife-career-advice/ to view the full article online.
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Jennifer Goff was fresh out of college when she landed a dream job at a thriving art gallery in San Francisco. Before long, she climbed the ranks to become the director of PR and media. She loved it, but after three years in the role, she began to feel restless. "I had adapted to the continuous deadlines, and had established smooth, efficient routines – yet I was less absorbed by the work," says the 27-year-old Goff. "I no longer had moments when I felt ‘in over my head.’ And, oddly, I missed that." (Money Magazine)
Visit http://time.com/money/4020779/career-comfort-zone/ to view the full article online.
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A personal branding workshop for would-be construction workers, store clerks and child-care providers? Only in New York. On a steamy August morning, Jonathan Gaffney distributes a handout to his small class in a fan-cooled church basement in the Rockaways, the isolated, beach-front peninsula known for its bungalows, hipster outposts and vast public housing projects. The photocopied sheet displays logos of well known brands: McDonald’s, Macy’s, Coca-Cola. (The Wall Street Journal)
Visit http://www.wsj.com/articles/branding-gets-personal-for-these-job-seekers-1440756000 to view the full article online.
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Diversity in the Workplace
When Steve Good’s two daughters were small, he and his wife Kathleen struggled to handle child-care duties alongside their intense jobs as managers at glass manufacturer Corning Inc. After the second time missing a day-care pickup, the couple decided someone had to take a step back to care for family. So Mr. Good leaned out, reducing his schedule to 30 hours a week and taking a 25% pay cut. The decision put him in a rare group in the U.S. workforce: professional men who opt to work part time to assist with family duties. (The Wall Street Journal)
Visit http://www.wsj.com/articles/dealing-with-the-daddy-track-men-face-challenges-going-part-time-1441099800 to view the full article online.
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We all harbor biases – subconsciously, at least. We may automatically associate men with law enforcement work, for example, or women with children and family. In the workplace, these biases can affect managers' hiring and promotion decisions. So when Pete Sinclair, who's chief of operations at the cybersecurity firm RedSeal, realized that – like many other Silicon Valley companies – his company had very few female engineers and few employees who weren't white, Chinese or Indian, he wanted to do something about it. (NPR)
Visit http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/09/01/434896292/how-startups-are-using-tech-to-mitigate-workplace-bias to view the full article online.
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International
Think of Africa, and you might be more likely to think of war or extreme poverty than beach resorts, tech hubs, or the fact that the continent has three female heads of state. But a few months ago, a 17-year-old girl from Ghana launched a new Twitter campaign to help change skewed international perceptions. Since it started, #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou has gathered tens of thousands of tweets and posts on Instagram. (Fast Company)
Visit http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050114/these-beautiful-photos-are-fighting-old-stereotypes-about-africa to view the full article online.
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At a pivotal moment in the U.S.-Africa trade partnership – and in light of the recent reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) – U.S. and African government officials, private sector actors, and civil society leaders met in Libreville, Gabon for the annual AGOA forum from August 24 to 27. The summit provided a unique opportunity for African and U.S. leaders to review the past performance of their mutual trade relations and discuss the future of the U.S.-Africa trade strategy, of which AGOA is a central feature. (Brookings)
Visit http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2015/08/28-agoa-forum-zimbabwe-international-economic-support-south-africa-peace-deal-copley to view the full article online.
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Education
For the past nine years, graduate students in the U.S. have had almost a blank check to take out as much as $80,000 a year in government-backed loans to pay for tuition and living expenses. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee thinks that’s too much. He’s introduced legislation, backed by his Democratic colleagues Michael Bennet of Colorado and Cory Booker of New Jersey, to limit borrowing to $30,000 a year, with a cap of $150,000. Programs with especially high costs could appeal to the U.S. Department of Education to let their students borrow up to $15,000 more each year. (Bloomberg)
Visit http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-03/student-loans-schools-want-the-sky-to-be-the-limit to view the full article online.
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NBMBAA
Claflin University announces the appointment of Dr. Charles Richardson as dean of the School of Business. Richardson has extensive business and academic experience. He was previously employed by AT&T for more than 25 years, serving in various executive roles including manager-marketing information systems; manager-international communication systems; manager-global business communication; director-World Partners Company; district manager – international strategy and alliances; and district manager-strategic pricing. (The Times and Democrat)
Visit http://thetandd.com/news/claflin-appoints-richardson-as-dean-of-school-of-business/article_f3a710b6-0a8b-599d-b39d-bedb3c89d5c5.html to view the full article online.
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Regular Registration Rates Extended – Register Now for The National Black MBA Association® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition
Celebrating 45 years of Black professional development and executive leadership, The National Black MBA Association® (NBMBAA®), the nation's premier organization for Black business professionals, has extended Regular registration rates for the upcoming NBMBAA® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL. Save over on-site rates by registering now! More than 9,000 attendees are anticipated to convene for networking, leadership development, and career opportunities.
Visit Conference Website
Register Now!
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Technology
The method in the magic is the subject of Alex Gibney’s new documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – think Going Clear, but about a person – which offers a decidedly unsympathetic treatment of the man who insisted that "computer" should be spelled with an "i." The film isn’t arguing against Jobs’s membership in history’s elite cadre of Dent-Putters; it is arguing, though, that he – and we – deserve more than the empty conveniences of hagiography. It’s attempting to rethink Jobs’s legacy in a way that implicates the legend and complicates the lore. (The Atlantic)
Visit http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/the-rethinking-of-steve-jobs/403549/ to view the full article online.
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The Samsung Gear S2 will probably make both gadget lovers and watch lovers happy. Samsung's newest smartwatch is slick and stylish, so you might actually want to wear it. The device is also extremely easy to use, so you'll become familiar with it fairly quickly too. After playing with the Gear S2 for a few minutes earlier this week, I felt like it was something I would want to buy (receive as a gift -- hint, hint). (CNN/Money)
Visit http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/03/technology/samsung-gear-s2/index.html?iid=H_T_News to view the full article online.
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Entrepreneurship
Just as her startup was turning five years old, Shauna Mei's investors started to get antsy. "There was quite a lot of pressure from our VCs to say, 'Hey, do you want to potentially think about selling the business? What's the next step?'" says Mei, founder and CEO of AHAlife. AHAlife is a venture-backed discovery platform for matching discerning online shoppers with curated high-end, limited-edition lifestyle products from a network of 2,700 designers. (Fast Company)
Visit http://www.fastcompany.com/3050491/how-i-get-it-done/need-a-cash-injection-consider-going-public-on-a-foreign-exchange to view the full article online.
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You want a cohesive team. You’ve read everywhere (including this site) that companies and teams with a strong culture, and a tradition of sharing successes and information, outperform those where employees are only looking out for themselves. But how can you build that kind of team culture in an age when job-hopping is the norm, and your most talented team members will only be there until the next great opportunity comes along? (Inc.)
Visit http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/7-ways-to-build-strong-team-culture-in-a-job-hopping-world.html to view the full article online.
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The Economy
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a sharply lower open on Friday ahead of nonfarm payrolls – one of the most significant data releases of the summer which will be closely watched for its implications on the timing of the first rate hike since 2006. Dow futures slumped around 160 points as traders geared up for August's jobs data, due at 8:30 a.m. ET. It will be the final read on monthly labor conditions before the Federal Reserve makes a decision on interest rates at its next policy meeting in about two weeks. (CNBC)
Visit http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/04/wall-street-set-for-rocky-ride-ahead-of-jobs-report.html to view the full article online.
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The stolid U.S. expansion has been driving the world economy this year, helping to offset a slowdown in China and emerging economies that once fueled global growth. A private survey of the American job market released Wednesday morning showed the country added 190,000 jobs in August, up from the previous month. Most of the hiring came from small- and medium-sized businesses, and many of the positions were in professional fields and in trade, transportation and utilities. (The Washington Post)
Visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/02/slowdown-in-global-economy-threatens-to-engulf-u-s/ to view the full article online.
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Personal Finance
Married couples can often boost their lifetime Social Security benefits with the strategic use of the spousal benefit. Whether only one spouse worked or both did, there's a place for the spousal benefit in any couple's retirement planning. Couples have two key claiming strategies to boost the power of the spousal benefit, which is worth up to 50% of a spouse's monthly benefit. One is called "file and suspend," in which the higher earner immediately suspends his benefit so the lower earner can take a spousal benefit. The other is known as "restricting an application," in which the higher earner files for a spousal benefit, even though his own benefit is larger. (Kiplinger's)
Visit http://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T051-C000-S004-social-security-spousal-benefit-strategies.html to view the full article online.
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Everyone's been there: having to change a flight and facing a fee that's almost as much as the original airfare. (Change fees can be $200 on airlines like American, United and Delta, and international flight changes can cost up to $450). Most of us have resigned ourselves to paying the fee of changing our itinerary, no matter how far out the trip still is, but you shouldn't have to. We dug deeper to find eight sneaky ways to get around paying those penalties. (Yahoo! Finance)
Visit http://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-ways-avoid-paying-airline-155509005.html to view the full article online.
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Professional Development
Time is Running Out! Register for the the 3-Day CertifiNOW PMP®/CAPM® Prep Course at the NBMBAA Annual Conference and Exposition in Orlando
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For senior executives contemplating organizational transformation, but
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Corporate America
If you are invested in an index fund, you may have outperformed the Oracle of Omaha, slightly. Despite his "Oracle" nickname,Warren Buffett doesn’t seem to have sidestepped the recent market selloff. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A 0.15% , the insurance company turned investment conglomerate run by the billionaire, appears to have lost $11.2 billion in value from its stock market investments, on paper at least, during the worst of the downturn from mid-July to the end of August. That represents a 10.3% drop. (Fortune)
Visit http://fortune.com/2015/09/03/warren-buffett-lost-11-billion/ to view the full article online.
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How would you react if you opened your browser tomorrow morning and saw an article titled: "Five Office Mistakes Costing Your 65-Year-Old Employees The Promotion"? Personally, I would be outraged. Age discrimination, particularly against older members of our workforce, has been a problem for many years. And yet we’re inundated with similar articles about millennials, such as "Five Office Mistakes Costing Millennials The Promotion," "4 Tips For Keeping Millennial Employees Engaged," and "The Five: Tips for Managing Millennials." And most of us don’t bat an eye. (Forbes)
Visit http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/09/03/millennial-stereotyping-is-hurting-corporate-america/ to view the full article online.
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Leadership
How should I interpret this? My boss, a division vice president, has told me that the company wants me to start meeting with an executive coach every week. The way he put it was, "We think you’re doing great work, and we want to help you get even better at a couple of things." In my experience, people are only assigned a coach if there is some kind of problem that no one wants to talk about, so this has me a little worried. (Fortune)
Visit http://fortune.com/2015/09/03/coaching-work/ to view the full article online.
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Lifestyle
Millennials just have to be unconventional and rebellious about everything, don’t they? And one thing they really will not accept, apparently, is the term "Millennial" itself. A new Pew survey indicates that of the roughly 75 million Americans born between 1981 and 1997, only 40 percent say the label "Millennial" applies to them. A third of them, mostly those born in the early to mid-’80s, identified more strongly with the term "Generation X," which is the label demographers use for Americans born between 1965 and 1980. (The Atlantic)
Visit http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/millennials-reject-term-generation-label/403672/ to view the full article online.
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