Whew, I sure have been getting a lot of exposure to cold temperatures lately and it is killing me. I’m writing this post from NYC and I’ve got another story for you from the realms of “It sure can be tough to be a Black dude in America”. Last night, I had to meet a friend for dinner at a restaurant that was only about 10-12 blocks from my hotel, but I was reluctant to walk the distance because the temperature was down around 10 degrees. So, I went to the closest corner heading downtown and spent about 10 minutes trying to get a cab to stop and they just kept on zooming by. That may not seem like a long time, but, when it’s so cold outside, every minute waiting for a cab feels like an hour. To add insult to injury, some of the cabs would pass me by and stop on the next corner to pick up groups of other people who just happened to not look “like me”. I eventually ended up walking the distance to the restaurant because it wasn’t worth waiting on the cabs anymore after that. Arrggghhh, I swear that things like this frustrate the hell out of me, but there isn’t much I can do about it…

My other recent encounter with the cold weather was a trip up to Michigan over the weekend to attend the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) Black Business Student Association Conference. McK was a sponsor, so I went along with one of my coworkers to represent the Firm and reach out to potential full-time hire candidates from the Ross Class of 2008. The first thing I remember was walking out fo the plane and into the jetway on Friday night and feeling the kind of cold that’ll make you wish you were never born. I don’t know how folks in Michigan can stand that kind of weather year-in and year-out. As for the conference, I didn’t know what to expect because the only BBSA Conference I’d ever attended was our own out at Stanford GSB, but the kids at Ross put on a show that knocked my socks off. If I’m remembering correctly, theirs had events that stretched from Thursday to Sunday and, while I was only able to attend the Saturday events, I was amazed at how fantastic everything was. On Saturday, they had several panels, ranging from “Pathways to a Career in Sports and Entertainment” to “Franchising and Entrepreneurship as a Wealth Building Strategy”, and four keynote speakers including:

- Quintin Primo, Chairman and CEO of Capri Capital Partners, a real estate development firm based in Chicago that has recently made some huge investments to redevelop inner city areas in LA and Chicago
- Percy Sutton, Civil rights activist, lawyer, and entrepreneur (several businesses in the broadcast and IT spaces)
- Lynette Khilfani, Financial coach and advisor known as “The Money Coach”, http://www.themoneycoach.net
- Kwame Jackson, Runner-up on the first season of “The Apprentice” and founder of an investment firm called Legacy Holdings LLC

Kwame spoke at the closing banquet and, by the time he took the stage, it was past 10pm, but his words snapped everyone out of the food coma that the meal and late hour brought upon us. When I left Michigan on Sunday, all I could say was “WOW!” because those kids at Ross put it down for real, for real…that was a ridiculously tight conference and I hope I get a chance to represent McKinsey at it again next year.

Before I go, I want to send a shout out to my man Todd who will be joining our Chicago office after he finishes up at Ross in the Spring…he was one of the conference leadership team members and those guys did a GREAT job of putting everything together and making it come off without a hitch. Also, I’d like to shout out any folks I met at the conference who read this blog, including one young lady who hit me with “Oh, and don’t blog about me either…you might like putting all your business out in the street, but I don’t want to be put out there online”…hahahahahahahaha!