Black In Business

Today begins the weekend when we celebrate Memorial Day. In the states this is when we honor our war dead. Thanks to George’s Bush’s war, we now have another 3,000 lives to honor. Lives wasted for what, yes I said it and I will not apologize. I am not running for President. So unlike Senators, McClain, Kerry and Obama, I will not back down.

The fact is Bush is using our young soldiers as puppets to lessen the voice of war critics. Support our troops has been a rally cry and to not support our troops is viewed as un American. We can support a lot of things but, what about the poor Iraq citizens killed by our troops and those left homeless. What about the millions that have had to move. It is time to pull out, we have plenty of dead soldiers to honor on Memorial Day.

As you enjoy your holiday weekend, let’s support our troops by praying they come home soon. Let’s stop the Killing!

My friend Twinsherry hipped me to this link. Check it out.Iraq.

I have traveled throughout the the US and the world and have discovered Chicago is a city with a sterling reputation. People all over the world love Chicago. I am a native New Yorker and have lived in the midwest for 20 years and in the Chicago area for 12 years. I am still a east coast guy, and Knick fan but I also love Chicago. I am sharing some of the things Chicago people are talking about.

STOP THE KILLING!

A few years back I went to see Minister Louis Farrakhan speak for 4 hours and the topic was stop the killing. It amazes me why we kill each other as black people. Why do we hate each other to the point we take away hope and lives through violence. We have had 2 terrible situations involving the untimley death of 2 black young men, bright futures wiped away via gun violence.
Blair Holt, was a 16 year old Julian high school junior was gunned down on a CTA bus. Blair was a hero in death. Hero has become an over used term, but when this young man threw his body over a young girl and was shot and killed, he saved her life. She was shot as well but is still alive. Blair was a good looking young man not in a gang and on the road to success. I did not know him but I am prouder of him than of our troops fighting George Bush’s war.

A 23 year old, Tramaine Gibson was called a motherfu–er and told to open the bank vault. The father of 2 young did not know the code to the vault, the soon to be killer, told Tramaine, nword, I know you know the number to the safe. as the masked robber shot to death the bank teller. The dream of buying his first house went up in fire from a gun toward an unarmed father. This 23 year old is about the age of 2 of my children.It hit home. A terrible waste.

These young lives exhibited the potential to lead productive lives and become role models. they were trying to do right. I am really brothered by this senseless violence. I am at a lost for solutions, stop the killing, any thoughts?

Cubs suck again and the Sox are starting to hit.

Black manager Dusty Baker was thought to be the reason for all of the Cub problems last year. I would ask Cub fans, if Dusty’s being black had any thing to do with their hate. He was within 5 outs from a world series appearance for the Cubs, a 3 time manager of the year and now in Chicago he became the village idiot. What about the other 98 years with a world series game played by the Cubs? Who fault was that? In comes Lou Pinella. A new Cubbie hero, last night after another 1 run lost reduced to a stumbling bumbling mess trying to explain another failure. The Cubs spent 300 million this off season and still suck
Mean while on the southside of town the Sox bats have arrived and we are excited for another potential playoff run by Ozzie’s team. I love going to US Cellular Park. I predict 87 to 95 wins for the Sox.

Statue for Ernie Banks.

Michael Jordon has a statue outside of the United Center, The Sox have several players enshrined. On the uppie north side, the statue is of Harry Carey. The unlikely union of racist and sport talk host and the esteemed Rev. Jesse Jackson SR and gained support of Cubs management to build a statue of Erine Banks, Mr. Cub and the greatest of them all. This will be a well deserved tribute. Harry Cary was a great man and Cub announcer, he also announce for St louis and the White Sox, but a statue befor Ernie. Is it me or is another issue of black and white?

Speaking of racist Mike North, the rumor is he will replace Imus. Will his Chicago act sell in the big stage. I would not bet against him. That is news from one of the world great cities. I hope you enjoyed this.

Early this morning, 6:30 am to be exact, I arrived at Maggiano’s “Little Italy’” restaurant. Seth Godin a best selling author,entrepreneur and agent of change was speaking in downtown Chicago.There were close to 1000 people investing 50 dollars a person to hear Seth’s wisdom. I was surprised by the ages of the audience and the gentleman next to me and I estimated the median age to be 45 years old. I had pictured a younger crowd. Mr Godin did not appear to be a young man but to use the description as brilliant marketeer is not an exaggeration.

I saw about a dozen blacksinbusiness at this event. I met and sat close to a very bright man and black blogger, Oldude. Oldude is a big Seth fan. Godin worked the room and introduced himself to me and in a short period provided me some information that could help my business develope. He was down to earth, friendly with a dry sense of humor. I am glad I went and urge you to check out Seth.

The question to ask yourself, why not be the best? if you cannot be the best, are you willing to quit and find something new you can be the best at? Our school systems are set up to make us average so we can work for someone who wants to be the best. Trying to be like everyone else is a formula for mediocrity. we are all capable of great things, do not worry about fitting in. Is your vision strong enough so when you hit a dip you can continue. If th dip causes you to lose your vision ,it is better to quit.

In sports we called it “hitting the wall,” many times if we could move pass the psychological barriers, and still have the will to win, a second wind would appear. When you felt there was no hope, you could find a way. That is the essence of Seth’s talk. What do you think?

I just posted about a member of the first team I managed, Darryl Gresham, here’s another star, Chris Baggott. Chris was the number one salesman on that team and ranked very high in the nation. You may know Chris from his award winning blog Email best marketing practices. Chris is an amazing person and has exhibited, tremendous insight and business acumen that is only out done by his confidence, his entire business career.

We met working for a company that was a division of Abbott Laboratories. We open up a sales office in Buffalo, New York. Chris was a major reason we were able to change the culture. We had a team of nice people, fun folks and could enjoy a position that offered security. I had a different vision and Chris jumped on board. We wanted to win and win big. My team was not sure we could compete with big city markets, I was new and black and I took over a team of all whites. Guess who is coming to manage?

Chris Baggott was fresh from being a white water rafting guide on the Cheat River. Displaying an attitude that would serve him well in his remarkable rise through the business world, Chris felt anything is possible. He did not know any better.

Chris took off in his career and enjoyed success as a Donnely Marketing Manager, business owner and co founder and CMO of the highly acclaimed Excat Target. He has started a new venture, Compendium software, and I predict this software has the potential to change the world.

Chris has no fear, and is open to change. He is the world’s leading authority on Emai Marketing, and coined it as the world’s greatest marketing tool. Chris’s book shares his secret and for those of us that can use help in building strong customer relationships, this book is for you.

“Are You ready to create better business relationships with your customers and prospects? Are you ready to take advantage of email’s affordability,interactivity and targeting capabilities? Wheater you work for a mom and pop shop or a megacorporation, the tactics here will take your email marketing program to a higher level” Chris explains how to:
.Speak to your audience as individuals
.Spark and maintain subscriber engagement
.Build a database of quality address
.Segment an audience based on data
.Find and create relevant content
.Combine email with a viral word of mouth marketing strategies
.Use surveys,forms and other feedback tools
.Keep your email program legitimate and spam free

Buy and Read this book, it will more than pay for itself with more sales, profits, better understanding of your customers, and they of you, plus it will save you time.

To Chris, thank you for your loylity and friendship but most of all for your trememdous results when you worked for me. I am very proud of you.

I came across a blog on The Afro Spear, called acting white. The author is a Harvard MBA and his blog is interesting. A post today spoke on Obama down playing race and the the potential role Affirmative Action could have on his 2 kids. I was compelled to take a test that came with a warning,”You may not agree or like the answer,” The test held no surprise to me but I encourge all to visit the site and be tested. See my results below.

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You have completed the Light Skin - Dark Skin IAT.

Your Result
Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Dark Skin compared to Light Skin.
Thank you for your participation. Just below is a breakdown of the scores generated by others. Most respondents find it easier to associate Dark Skin with Bad and Light Skin with Good compared to the reverse.

Many of the questions that you answered on the previous page have been addressed in research over the last 10 years. For example, the order that you performed the response pairing is influential, but procedural corrections largely eliminate that influence (see FAQ #1). Each visitor to the site completes the task in a randomized order. If you would like to learn more about the IAT, please visit the FAQs and background information section.

You are welcome to try additional demonstration tasks, and we encourage you to register (easy) for the research site where you will gain access to studies about more than 100 topics about social groups, personality, pop culture, and more.

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