WOW, Freaking Financial Genius.

Russell Simmons Speaks About The Power Of Black / Jewish Partnerships

Posted by: Russell Simmons via Global Grind

There is no question about the well documented history where the Black and Jews have stood together in their fight for civil rights, equality and political power. But, not so much is said about the creative alliances in business where Blacks and Jews are and have been forging new businesses and ideas that have helped enable Blacks and Jews to enter the mainstream in American business. These are the partnerships that have and will create goodwill and change the future.

There are many examples of how Blacks and Jews have come together to fight against hatred and bigotry. In fact, as my friend Rabbi Marc Schneier at The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, often states (and he even wrote a book about it called Shared Dreams), that Dr. King was an ardent supporter of Israel and the Jewish people, including taking part in efforts to ease discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union and the safety and security of the State of Israel. Dr. King also spoke out strongly against anti-Semitism in the United States. We all know that no segment of the American population provided as much and as consistent support to Dr. King and to African Americans as did the Jewish community.

But, like any relationship, the bond between Jews and African-Americans has experienced its ups and its downs. However, despite claims to the contrary, the relationship between Blacks and Jews today remains strong.

Maybe it’s because the Jewish community has suffered from tremendous anti-Semitism throughout history and as a result of their plight, Jews have been able to better sympathize with the struggles facing Blacks. Or maybe it is because the Jewish community know that if it happens to the Black community it can also happen to them.

So for generations, Jews and Blacks have marched together in the streets of Birmingham and Washington, and shared the stage at venues in Harlem and elsewhere. Our two communities are not afraid to stand side by side, continually defying those who would prefer to see us behind solitary bars and forgotten, not in front of cheering crowds.

Rabbi Schneier and I, travel the country sharing these stories, discussing our tale with anyone who will listen – Blacks, Jews, or otherwise. This is true in synagogues and churches as well as college universities like Queens College – which Rabbi Schneier and I will address next week.

Despite the years of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community has not let the hatred of others hinder their ambitions or drive for success. The Jews have been resourceful and have stood together and time and time again prospered in business, medicine, law and entertainment. This is a great example of what a tight knit family and education can accomplish even against a world filled with shut doors and hate.

While I have many first hand experiences in records, jewelry, fashion, internet, tv, film, financial services, and much more, I have also noticed Jay Z, Puffy, and most of hip-hop out-branding the record business that is dying its own death, and building partnerships in areas previously reserved for white men. Both Jay Z and Puffy are truly creative entrepreneurs, and both have learned a lot of these skills from their Jewish partners and suppliers.

Entrepreneurs are usually raised in cultures that feed that free spirit that allows them to dream up new ideas and break the mold. Without documentation I can still safely state that in most hoods, and certainly in mine, going to school to “get a good job” was the goal.

But I built many businesses with Jews who didn’t let school dim down their dreams and they were comfortable with the idea to let go of the idea of job security and fly. This I learned from Orthodox Jews, Syrian Jews, Reform Jews and other sects of Judaism. All of these communities have welcomed me.

Since the days when the white gang “The Green Ways” in Queens chased me into the white housing development where the kids and mothers accepted me, and I learned the difference between the “different whites in Queens,” the Jewish community has proven to be a safe haven and a place to empower myself and other Blacks.

From our president to everyone in the hip-hop community, we have a strong history and partnership with the Jewish community and today I thought I would restate this fact in case there is any doubt about who else has struggled like Blacks and who else has stood by Blacks in our most difficult times. We know that we still have work to do, however, each individual must exude the kind of tolerance and love that we would want to receive ourselves. We must learn how to love everyone, not just within our own community, as the world is too small, and our potential is too great.

-Russell Simmons

EES 09 @ Joseph Business School (Chicago) from Wealth Tour Live 2009 on Vimeo.

Quiet Storm // Derek Roche from Arcade44.tv on Vimeo.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — He has been called the NBA’s greatest player and one of the country’s top pitchmen.
Now Michael Jordan is ready for a new title: NBA owner.

With minutes to go until his exclusive negotiating window was to expire, Jordan struck a deal late Friday night to buy controlling interest of the Charlotte Bobcats, putting the six-time NBA champion in charge of the money-losing team in his home state.
Owner Bob Johnson announced in a statement that he’s agreed to sell the Bobcats to Jordan, who has been a part-owner of the team since 2006. Jordan has been running the team’s basketball operations.
The purchase price and details of Jordan’s ownership group — called MJ Basketball Holdings LLC — weren’t immediately available. A spokeswoman for Johnson and a spokesman for Jordan said neither was available for comment early Saturday.

The league’s owners must approve the purchase.
Jordan was in competition with former Houston Rockets executive George Postolos, who also had an ownership group together to buy the team. But Postolos said Jordan had the exclusive right to buy the club until just before midnight Friday night.
Jordan hit another last-second shot — reaching a deal minutes before the deadline.
“I remain committed to becoming an NBA owner, and I’m glad that Michael will continue to bring his talent to the sport and the league,” Postolos said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “He’s very, very committed.”

It will end Johnson’s stint as the first black majority owner of a major professional sports team. Jordan becomes another black owner in another milestone for the Hall of Famer, but one that comes with many challenges.
Jordan, a five-time NBA MVP and 14-time All-Star, has made millions selling sneakers, apparel and other items. Now he’ll begin a completely different role trying to make the Bobcats a winner, and the franchise and Charlotte’s downtown arena profitable.
After paying $300 million for the expansion team that began play in 2004-05, Johnson has accumulated about $150 million in debt and the team is expected to lose tens of millions this season as they struggle to draw fans and find sponsorships.

Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, shook up management several times before recruiting Jordan to be a minority investor while giving him the final say on all basketball decisions.
Jordan, who turned 47 this month, has had a unique role with the Bobcats. General manager Rod Higgins runs the day-to-day basketball operations and Jordan has rarely attended practices or games, or worked on the marketing side of the operation.
Jordan has had some missteps — drafting the disappointing Adam Morrison No. 3 overall in 2006 — but he was also able to lure Hall of Famer Larry Brown to become coach at the beginning of last season.
Jordan and Brown have made seven trades involving 21 players since the start of last season. The November acquisition of Stephen Jackson from Golden State has helped Charlotte get into playoff contention in the Eastern Conference.

But attendance has still lagged, and Jordan has been criticized in Charlotte for rarely being seen — despite his iconic status in the state.
Jordan grew up in Wilmington, N.C., led North Carolina to the 1982 national championship with a last-second shot, then remained one of the state’s favorite sons when he starred with the Bulls.
Jordan’s first stint as an NBA executive came with the Washington Wizards, where he was roundly criticized for drafting Kwame Brown with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2001 draft.
He changed roles when he returned briefly as a player, then was fired by owner Abe Pollin in 2003 when he tried to return to his role running the basketball operations.

No one will be able to fire Jordan after he takes control of the Bobcats, and it’s likely the team will not change much in the front office.
Jordan’s close friend, Fred Whitfield, is team president, and Higgins was Jordan’s hire.
________

VIA ESPN

* I Wonder if Nelly kept his stake in the team ?

Check out Clark Howard from CNN for more info.

This is different…pretty cool.
“The new Durex campaign made entirely of typefaces by German illustrator/designer Andrej Krahne.” – NVELT

Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing…

This is my motto; the words I live by. The status quo will get you nowhere. Everyday I think about the fact that there is someone out there working hard to have what I have earned, someone willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to succeed, and if I’m not working harder than that person, I have no place in business.
If you want to succeed, you must adopt this attitude. You need to work longer, fight harder and sacrifice more than your competitors, and then go even further. No one ever said it would be easy, but when you win it’s all worth it.

What are you going to overdo today?

VIA The Great Daymond John Daymond John’s Twitter Account

Click Here and Buy This Book Now !

Rahr Makes Birthday Rounds
February 19, 2010 – 1:45 pm
Katie Evans Bio | Email
Katie Evans is an associate reporter on the Forbes Global Wealth Team.

Birthday billionaire Stewart Rahr updated his status for the second time in the last hour through another email sent to his massive group of friends, including Forbes.

The latest note describes his morning adventures, including several celebrity meet-ups, as the pharmaceutical mogul makes the rounds on his 64th birthday.

“Wow I am rocken it 2day,” he writes, again in all caps. “Had first breakfast w my pal Mike Milken at Regency..Then had second birthday breakfast w Pres Clinton.. Now at 1my pals Alicia Keys n Swizz Beatz having lunch at Kinray..Wow then later meeting w Will I Am of Black Eye Peas..”

Of course, Rahr signed his usual, self-coined title “Stewie Rah Rah, the #1 King of All Fun.”

Happy Birthday, Mr. Rahr.

*This is from yesterday, 02/19/2010, Rahr expressed his thoughts on Tiger Woods. Make sure you read Rahr’s bio via Forbes down below after his thoughts on Tiger. He seems like he would get the party started and end it, I bet Mr. Rahr is hilarious.

Earlier this morning, in another mass email to a group, including Forbes, Rahr expressed his thoughts on Tiger Woods:

Rahr expressed his thoughts on Tiger Woods (See “Rahr on Tiger Woods: A True Phony”). Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Rose, Digg’s founder, spoke this week at Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand and covered 10 amazing tips for entrepreneurs. They were truly insightful
- and obviously came straight from the heart and soul of someone who worked a day job and built his dream after hours. This is our take of what he had to say.

1: Just Build It: You don’t need anyone’s approval and in fact, you probably won’t get it, so don’t even try.

2: Iterate: Build, release and iterate. Make a list of the features you want to create over the next six months and get going! For small companies, once a week; for larger companies, maybe twice a month.

3: Hire Your Boss: Make sure you hire people that you would want to work for, who challenge you and you can learn from.

4: Demand Excellence: Ensure staff are committed to and understand your vision. Passionate, committed staff have a tendency to rub off on people. There is nothing like a new junior developer who runs circles around everyone to get people hyped up and raise the bar! Stay involved in the hiring process as long as you possibly can.

5: Raising Money: The higher your evaluation is, the more equity you have to work with. Beg, borrow and steal. Be creative about finding ways to cut costs. For example, tell the bar you are having a “birthday party” instead of a corporate event (which they would charge you $5,000 for). Rent servers, don’t buy them. Don’t just take the cash, make sure your investors can add value. Stick with angel investment. Venture capital mean board meetings, which is a huge sap on time and resources.

6: Hack the Press: Hit up the lower-end bloggers at your favorite tech blog. They have just as much opportunity to write about your product as any other blogger on the team. Attend the after-event parties. The same crowd that attends the events also goes to the parties, but the parties are free.

7: Invest in Advisors: Give away a small amount of stock to advisors (which they can vest after a few years) who you can call on in a pickle or for general advice as issues arise. Set the ground rules so you and the advisor know how much time you have access to.

8: Connect With the Community: Hold a live town hall where you can collect feedback and get advice from your users.

9: Leverage Your User Base to Spread the Word: Facebook notifications is a great example of how to do this.

10: Analyze Your Traffic: Pay attention to how people are using your site, and then learn and evolve. Use Google Analytics to understand and track traffic sources and entrance and exit paths.

VIA Read Write Web

These days, I’ve become increasingly alarmed by the growing pattern of recklessness and neglect that seems to govern the management of our personal finances. Recent actions—or I should say inaction—by large numbers of African Americans have prompted me to suggest taking a bold step and declare a state of financial emergency. I make this assertion not for dramatic effect but to bring attention to the need for us to take corrective measures. If not, this self-destructive behavior will continue to threaten the future of our families for generations to come.

Let me give you an example. I recently discovered much to my dismay, that 21.7% of African American households are “unbanked,” while 31.6% are “underbanked,” compared with 3.3% and 14.9% of white households, respectively. What does this mean? As a member of the unbanked, you’re walking around without a checking or savings account. The underbanked rely primarily on nonbank money orders, check-cashing establishments, and payday loans to conduct transactions.

By refusing to use traditional banking services, a sizable segment of our community is accepting what I consider a form of second-class citizenship, relegating themselves and their families to a financial underclass. Without access to checking and savings accounts or credit and debit cards, engaging in basic activities such as renting cars and booking hotels becomes difficult—if not impossible. Moreover, the inability to establish a solid credit rating derails any chance of buying a home, the cornerstone of wealth-building.

Many avoid financial institutions for one reason: fear. Last year’s financial crisis provided some with an excuse to maintain their outmoded mattress finance mentality. But the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has insured checking and savings accounts for 76 years (the coverage limit for depositor accounts currently stands at $250,000), and not one depositor has ever lost a cent. Moreover, you have to ask yourself whether a major bank has a better chance of going out of business than the local check cashing store.

I know some of you may believe this issue of being unbanked doesn’t have anything to do with you. After all, those who fall in the unbanked category reside in relatively low-income households—at least 71% had annual earnings of less than $30,000. But this money management phobia and lack of discipline is endemic across economic stations. For instance, Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that 42% of whites invested in an IRA or Keogh plan for retirement versus a mere 7% of African Americans. And the Ariel Education Initiative and consulting firm

..VIA B.E. FEB.2010 Issue

1. Lifestyle Reset Button.
* Marketing continues to move from just the marketing of ‘products’ to the marketing of ‘lifestyles’.
* Consumers: 2009 affected everyone, a young attorney in DC recently told me that he decided to print t-shirts for his friends all under the age of 35 that said: “I survived 2009”. People aren’t in the mood to just ‘buy things’; they have a need to understand how and why products fit into the story of their life. Many people are still gathering themselves from 2009 as many experienced the loss of jobs and reduced income.
* Careers become more diversified as chasing the almighty dollar no longer pays. One example is a banker that I talked to who moved to Paris to become a chef.
* Unemployment remains uncomfortably high as no real plans for companies to grow and thus grow their work force has taken hold. The administration talked about Health care for too long and how now lost some of the immediacy and urgency of the impending economic problems. As such, it will take much more energy of activation to get the Republicans on board for any plan.
* Consumer performance will be spotty.

2. The Internet is a Big Fat Mess. Publishers too.
* There are too many blogs, not enough experts, and a need for more curated voices on the aptly named information superhighway. I think I am going to start using the term information superhighway again.
* Publications. Watch the development of the major publications closely as this may be the augur for the progression of paid information on the information superhighway and the answer to a better distribution model. The major publications have given away free content on the Internet and many are now attempting to transition their models to a paid subscription format. Will it take?
* On-line ad margins continue to contract. And although certain elements of the Internet continue to become commoditized, Google’s Chief Economist raised a good point. 58% of newspaper costs come from printing. If papers can figure out a decent online model, they stand to find a way to revamp their businesses. This however may include a time of consumer pain and even lower profit margins as they retrain their customers to no longer expect print volume and they restrict unpaid access to their product.

3. Good Ole Fashioned Social Networking.
* Marketing, brand building, and consumers move back to good old fashioned social networking, think Andy Warhol factory parties, dinner parties, shaking hands and getting back to living life off-line.
* Face-to-Facebook Facebook and other sites will see reduced activity and the removal of profiles. Today I watched an episode of the Dr. Phil show that featured students performing poorly in school because they are addicted to Facebook.
* Online activity can play a role in spurring this offline activity.

4. Wall Street Recovers More, but America Does Not.
* Wall Street saw record gains in 2009 as many firms (both finance and non-finance) saw their stocks improve as they improved margins primarily via layoffs and other cost cuts. Recovery may continue in 2010 as The Street decides to consolidate driving M&A activity and more Wall Street gains.
* The stock market will sputter producing returns in the single digits, if that. In 2009, the DJIA returned 18.8%, the Nasdaq returned 43.9%, and the S&P 500 returned 23.5%. Although M&A activity may help, without a reversal of incomes and jobless numbers economic growth will be an uphill battle. What will be the top line drivers for companies if it isn’t the Consumer? The government provided top line growth for Wall Street, but the rest of the economy is not being bailed out. Margins will hit new struggles trying to expand without strong top line growth as there is a limit to how many people a company can layoff and still function.

5. Hollywood Obama’s Popularity Suffers.
* Of course The President was going to have to send more troops to Iraq, of course despite the fact that we got a new president the economic team of the cabinet included the same old players over the last 20+ years, and so of course Wall Street was going to get bailed out.
* As President Obama continues the grace the covers of GQ magazine (and the First Lady on Vogue), and was there for Wall Street but not Main Street. Rather than gracing another cover he should remember to show grace to those who got him elected with some kind of reward as well. Jobs would be awesome, but perhaps if he sent everyone a check like President Bush did, that would be a great start to saving his polling numbers.
* The president seems to be refocused after his State of the Union speech, where he attempted to put the economy first and waited 26 minutes before mentioning health care.
* For the president that promised hope, what is he doing to offer hope and inspire. He is a great campaigner, but can he execute being a great President. Wall Street, healthcare, Iraq, even his personal friend’s woes (Professor Henry Louis Gates) have all taken precedence over the well being of the public he sought to serve.
* The administration should seek to throw the American public a bone, or high media exposure and Jay Leno appearances might back fire and be the greatest memory of this president’s potential only term. 8 years is not guaranteed.

6. ”l’art pour l’art”.
* Art replaces Money as the ‘it’ thing to do. Not just buying it, but also creating it and participating in the culture and intellectual conversation art provokes. Consumers will seek to find deeper meaning and personal value to their purchases.
* Life’s number one inspiration takes center stage as we all look for more inspiration. Photography continues to grow as we remember to document our lives offline; culinary arts grow as we can’t afford to eat out as much (Food Network); gallery visits grow as realized other intelligent forms of free entertainment and inspiration; furniture design interest grows as we spend more time at home and look for more ways to be inspired at home; and corporations working with artists continues to grow.
* In France they have the phrase, l‘art pour l’art, art for art’s sake. In the face of a fledgling economy, creating with no expectations other than the experience gained and shared will be something Americans get exposed to.
7. The Analysis of Over-Analyzing is not Analysis.
* Things like Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) is going to annoy everyone else as much as it annoys me in the face of overall lower business efficiencies.
8. The U.S. Economy becomes even more like Europe.
* This is just the beginning. Dot Com money is not as easy to acquire any more, as fewer people are becoming rich over night. The Internet made a lot of people, esp. young adults feel like they should or could become very wealthy without having to do it the good ole fashioned way. And most importantly tarnished the time expectation curve of young adults.
* Longevity is in again. The young generation of young adults will learn to appreciated getting comfortable in a job and waiting like our parents.
* Europe has a steeped history in having built empires, and torn them down, and over the centuries have arrived at 2.0% GDP growth, long lunches, minimal stress, health care for everyone, and a true style for life.
9. Energy continues to outperform.
* Being one of the only asset classes that still sports a positive return over a ten-year period (+210.0%) oil will continue to add to its winning streak and the supply and demand dynamics of the much needed resource will never change.