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Let's Talk Small Business

Dr. Lenore Coleman with Healing Our Village

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Small business owners these days often do not have much residual time to invest in the procurement of knowledge about the current Affordable Healthcare Act, and its impact on their business. In this LTSB we speak to Dr. Lenore T. Coleman about the new reform, how it will impact small businesses, and the importance that employee health plays on employer productivity and cost.

Meet Dr. Lenore T. Coleman. Dr. Coleman is the purveyor Healing Our Village, and the advocate of two important precepts in her service line: 1) The management of chronic disease through programming and wellness leaders, and, 2) The importance of data procurement for minority populations in clinical trials.

Dr. Coleman does not just cater to the Georgia market, she has 2 other locations in DC, and LA. As a small business owner herself, Dr. Coleman understands the importance of employee health, the idea, she says, is to engage employees in a health program that, ultimately, not only lowers the overall cost of health for the employer, but increases employee productivity. Dr. Coleman is engaged with several institutions on furthering this initiatives throughout her 3 locations (Atlanta, DC, and LA), the most notable in Georgia being Morehouse, which is one of the largest physician’s groups in the state.

Although Dr. Coleman has only been in Atlanta for 3 years, her practice has been around for 15 years altogether. That, coupled with her doctorate, also makes her a veritable well of knowledge for what the Affordable Healthcare Act really means for small businesses. Atlanta, considered the national hub of Medical IT, she suggests, would benefit greatly from the new Medicaid act. “Medicaid,” she says, “increases the number of clinics and expands the number of people who can enroll in the program,” which opens up the number of jobs for people in the IT medical field. Today, with telehealth, technological advancements, and the constant influx of innovation in the field, the expanded opportunities are endless.

Ultimately, this LTSB brims with education and information on the benefits of how to raise the bar for employees and their health, and provides vital clarification on the hot topic of healthcare reform for small businesses.

Dr. Lenore T. Coleman / Healing Our Village

Lenore T. Coleman, Pharm.D., CDE, received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of California, San Francisco in 1979. She completed an ASHP approved residency in Ambulatory Care at the USC School of Pharmacy in 1980.

Since that time, in every practice setting, Dr. Coleman has developed innovative programs to address medication adherence and barriers to health for minority populations.

Dr. Coleman has been a practicing pharmacist for over 30 years. She has worked as a clinical pharmacist in the acute care, ambulatory care and community pharmacy setting Within each of those practice settings, Dr. Coleman has focused on the care and management of people with diabetes and heart disease with a special focus on African Americans and Latinos.

Dr. Coleman holds the title of Adjunct Professor, Xavier College of Pharmacy and is the past Director of Diabetes Research for the Health Disparities Center of Excellence. She is also a Research Fellow, Center of Excellence, Howard University School of Pharmacy.

In 2001, Dr. Coleman founded Total Lifestyle Change, Inc. (TLC) and is currently the Executive Director and CEO. TLC a non-profit service organization (501 3 c ) and has most recently gotten the IRS designation as a pubic charity. Dedicated to eliminating health care disparities in ethnic populations www.tlc-global.org TLC has two primary programs that are provided in the US and abroad. Project FAITH is a church based program that provides wellness screening and educational workshop.   Operation DETECT is a Diabetes and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program that is provided to Community-Based Organizations.

Dr. Coleman is currently the President and Founder of Healing Our Village of Maryland, Inc. (HOV) www.healingourvillage.com). HOV provides minority recruitment for clinical research trials as well as a medication therapy management and health education programming in physician offices, urban hospitals and community health clinics.

In March 1996, Dr. Coleman became a Fellow of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists which represents sustained excellence in a practice area for more than 10 years. Dr. Coleman has 15 publications and provides professional training in the United States, Nigeria, Trinidad, USVI and Jamaica.

 

 

Todd Gray with Grady Health System and Dr. Alita Anderson with Eubio Medical Communications

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How will opportunities in Georgia be affected by the changing landscape of healthcare? This question concerns practically every small business across the country. In this edition, we are joined by the Director of Supplier Diversity from one of the top medical institutions in the nation—Mr. Todd Gray, of Grady— and by an MBE that is capitalizing on a burgeoning field in healthcare/pharma— Alita Anderson, MD of Eubio Medical, a medical communications firm.

The opportunities, according to Grady, are great. In the next two years alone, Grady plans on creating 132 jobs, and Gray expects the minority inclusion on that to be 30%– an exceptional number for any organization. Grady plans on doing this through several initiatives, including a GMSDC partnership and through expanding the list of services and products that it will pull from (marketing, IT, untraditional suppliers, GOPs, etc.). His dialogue teems with advice such as:

  • Remember Healthcare is NOT fee-driven, but all about quality outcome
  • Think about strategic partnerships before setting your sights on a large bid
  • 2nd tier does not mean 2nd class
  • And consider how supplier rationalization factors in

On the other side of the field of medical/healthcare, meet Alita Anderson, MD. Alita found a need and turned it into an opportunity for her small business, Eubio Medical. In the growing field of healthcare, there are so many moving parts that the need for a clear voice is essential, and an overarching, clear vision is imperative. That’s where Alita comes in. Her firm, comprised of a virtual “A-Team” of professionals in scientific backgrounds, come in and facilitate a conversation with stakeholders about the product or service to reveal what is important about the data and she then comes up with “credible and compelling” communication surrounding that item or service. Once she gleans and crystalizes that information, she provides training to the professionals that need it, so that everyone in the system is up to speed on the critical facts.

Overall, through the lens of a supplier diversity professional from a large organization, and an entrepreneur who created a successful firm out of the need she saw as an opportunity, we learn that there are real, and concrete opportunities on the horizon in healthcare—we just have to go out and look for them.

Todd Gray / Grady Health System

Alita Anderson, MD / Eubio Medical Communications LinkedIn

Alita Anderson, MD is Principal of Eubio Medical Communications, a team of physicians, scientists, writers and designers that inspires clients to communicate medical and scientific information both credibly and compellingly. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale University School of Medicine Alita combines her passion for science, her love of the written word and her desire to positively impact other’s lives in her leadership of Eubio.

 

 

 

Kevin Mobley with The Ian Thomas Group

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LTSB

On June 23rd we were joined by Mr. Kevin Mobley of the Ian Thomas Group. With the focus of Cyber Security this month in the Chamber of Commerce, the GMSDC wanted to highlight the real threats and benefits involved in securing organizational data. A veteran in the security space, we could not have chosen a better candidate than Mr. Kevin Mobley to speak on the evolution of cyber security throughout the years, and best practices for companies of any size.

Knowledge about your company’s cyber and software security, Mobley says, is not something CEO’s have the luxury of being absolved from knowing these days. CEO’s need to be aware of just how important it is to keep their systems secure, how to keep them secure, as well as where the real dangers lie.

Mr. Mobley talks to us about his fascinating real-life experiences with major organizations, banks, federal agencies, and small businesses alike. Through an extensive tenure in development and IT, he has seen the results of bad security- from stock prices falling, loss of confidence, to stakeholder pull-out, the cautionary stories are varied, and plenty, he warns.

A huge proponent of being pro-active and building checks and balances into your systems to secure your accounts, whether that be your personal email accounts, your software, or your hardware, the take away from this segment is clear: identifying the weaknesses in your system should be every company’s imperative.

Kevin Mobley / The Ian Thomas Group, LLC LinkedIn

Kevin Mobley is a Six Sigma Black Belt with over twenty years of experience creating software systems for Fortune 1000 companies in the entertainment, financial services, government, retail and travel sectors. Kevin Mobley is the Chief Executive Officer of The Ian Thomas Group, LLC (ITg). ITG provides strategic and tactical software performance engineering and deployment services to organizations deploying complex software systems — solving the types of complex performance problems that have recently plagued Healthcare.gov.

The services of The Ian Thomas Group are being leveraged by Bank of America, Capital One and AT&T during the replacement and management of their enterprise software. Engineering teams led by Mr. Mobley have managed the performance engineering of complex multi‐tier systems of more than 100 customer implementations. Mr. Mobley’s teams have rewritten the core components of software architectures with increases in performance of several by more than 1300%.

Mr. Mobley has a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from George Mason University and Masters of Science in Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech.

 

 

 

Charles Weems with Weems Design Studio

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LTSB

On June 16th Cyber Security edition of Let’s Talk Small Business we are joined by the dynamic Mr. Charles Weems. Mr. Weems, an engineer by trade and business owner of Weems Design Studio, a full-service IT company, comes to us with some insightful personal stories on his encounters with cyber security and the underbelly of the data security world. In this sweeping look at IT security we cover everything from the identity theft black market, to hacker protocol, to the perils of emergent tech.
 

 

 

Mr. Weems stresses two main proponents for small businesses:
1) Work with a network administrator

2) Have a tiered process for any important data transfers

Click on the audio above to hear why!

Charles Weems / Weems Design Studio, Inc.

 

 

Manish Madan with Systel Technology Services

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LTSB

In this edition of Let’s Talk Small Business we speak with Manish Madan. His successful minority business enterprise, Systel, a certified MBE for 3 years, joins us to dialogue about IT in the highly competitive Georgia market. Being a GMSDC member for 3 years, Madan testifies, has been an immense help in growing and providing guidance for his business. The Mentor Protégé Connection, a program Madan is also part of, is another program that provides invaluable tutelage and tools for small businesses to scale their capacity and form partnerships in Georgia.

Staying relevant is another focus for Systel. Madan’s many projects all revolve around this precept. Amongst those, a B2B network for minority businesses is in the pipeline, a digital content platform for celebrities, and creating the next “Uber for Staffing” is all part of the exciting line of innovative solutions he currently is working on. You have to stay abreast of the market’s needs, and anticipate, anticipate, anticipate!

Some take-aways from this segment are:

  • Understanding the “Internet of Things”
  • Disruption is a step in evolution—embrace it
  • Focus on 3 main tenets in your business (e.g. employee satisfaction, customer focus, and innovation)

Ultimately, Manish’s story is not only a segment that sheds light on how a small business can set itself apart from the fray in a saturated market and field, but is a personal testament to how a small business can leverage in-state programming, and the support of one of the best minority council’s in the nation.

Manish Madan / Systel Technology Services

Systel Technology Services is an IT services company providing IT Services and Staffing solutions to some of the largest System Integrators and Fortune 1000 companies. With over 500 employees globally, Systel prides itself in long tenured relationships with its clients. IT Staffing continues to be the core foot in the door strategy for US clients, helping Systel to gradually move up the value chain to IT Services. Systel plans to invest and grow in the Media & Entertainment vertical, and the Healthcare vertical, with its Staffing, Services and Product & Platform investments. With disruption being the way of life today, Systel recognizes the need for evolution in its industries and is now also focused on building disruptive business models supported by technology driven platforms.

In its staffing business Systel focuses on staying abreast with building a talent pool proactively that its customers would need in the near future. Systel also differentiates itself by focusing on client relations, and it has successfully adopted a philosophy of a few and deep rooted relations.

In the IT Services space, Systel recently completed an e-Governance project implementation digitizing all government services through a common web-front for the citizens of a state. This has won them several accolades, and Systel is now proposing to rollout the same integrated e-Governance platforms in several countries in Asia and Africa.

In the product & platform space Systel recently beta launched a digital content delivery platform for celebrities to build and manage their brands that can be monetized. Systel believes disruption is the only way to progress, and continues to find ways to disrupt the as-is in its space.

Systel was recognized last year as the Supplier of the Year, at the prestigious Spirit of Alliance awards of GMSDC. Manish Madan, the CEO of Systel, also graduated out of the very coveted Georgia Mentor Protégé Program last year, and was recognized for his “Winning Spirit” during the program.

Manish and Systel love Georgia and have made it home after moving here almost a decade ago. They are actively involved in the community, and support other MBEs and the MBE ecosystem.

 

 

Geoff Kho with Supreme Resources

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LTSB

This interview with Geoff Kho is a case study in a company that thrives in a niche market through meticulous execution, thoughtful approach and, as Mr. Kho says, “Work[ing] on your company, not in your company.” This interview touches on market innovation, product differentiation and staying true to your company’s end-goal.

Innovation is something that Mr. Kho has lots of experience in as well, which is made evident throughout the interview with comments that both encourage and advise. “Stick close to your knitting,” and, “Don’t innovate too far beyond what you know in 1 giant step.” Innovation, he warns, must also make sense for a company.

Product differentiation, Mr. Kho proffers, is yet another imperative to any successful company. Starbucks, he claims, is a prime example. How did Starbucks differentiate itself in a throng of coffee shops? “It created a Piazza.” It branded itself as a true boutique coffee shop that offered those amenities (such as wi-fi) that went hand-in-hand with coffee, and they brought all of these complimentary elements together under one roof. This, amongst several other things, brought a level of convenience, differentiation, and, of course, success that set it apart from every other coffee shop out there.

An advocate for small businesses, Kho identifies what he sees are the challenges and solutions for small businesses moving forward. Namely:

Challenges being: human capital, money, tyranny of customization, and competition. Solutions: education, connections, and access to capital.

Kho is an advocate of small business education, and the proprietor of an innovative chemical manufacturing company that started in 1988, which has since grown by leaps and bounds. An inspirational interview with an MBE who has made more than chemistry a science—but has made success one, as well.

Geoff Kho / Supreme Resources, Inc.

 

 

Spotlight on GMSDC Business Opportunity Expo

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LTSB

On this Let’s Talk Small Business we discuss the upcoming 2015 GMSDC Business Opportunity Expo with Florena Oliver, Vice President of Operations at GMSDC. With 7 years at the organization, Ms. Oliver has first-hand knowledge about how to get the most out of a GMSDC event. Being that the Business Opportunity Expo is one of the oldest and longest running event in the Southeast, it is a prestigious and affluent event to kick-start your networking initiatives for the year. Not sure you have what it takes to network with Corporate America? Listen in on what it takes to start building those relationships, and capacity by leveraging the Business Opportunity Expo in 2015.

Florena Oliver / GMSDC Twitter Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Livia Whisenhunt with PS Energy Group

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LTSB

Join us in a conversation with a certified MBE of 28 years. Ms. Livia Whisenhunt is great GMSDC case study on the advantages of being a member. On this episode of Let’s Talk Small Business, Ms. Livia Whisenhunt talks to us about what it means to invest in your future pipeline and the real impact of grabbing an executive’s attention with an elevator speech. A timely conversation to have in light of our Business Opportunity Expo coming up on May 4th-5th, where an elevator speech is truly a key induction into future opportunities. For corporates- maximizing your investment with suppliers is explored, and the advantage of getting to know your suppliers. “Don’t think you won’t learn from your potential customers- they may teach you.” A great conversation for MBE’s and Corporates alike.

Livia Whisenhunt / PS Energy Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GMSDC Financial Summit – Access to Capital

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LTSB

Archie Jones / NOWaccount Network Corporation LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Archie Jones is a leader in the corporate M&A world with a strong combination of financial and strategic skills. His expertise executing complex transactions around globe including mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and joint ventures provides a unique perspective on managing growth and expansion. Archie is well-known for turning strategy into action. He is highly effective working inside the organization developing and refining strategies and then setting priorities. He is equally effective and experienced navigating the capital markets, competitive landscape and global ecosystem to identify and assemble the right combination of capital, partners and assets to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. He is a well-rounded leader with previous Board experience.

Rodney Sampson / Opportunity Hub LinkedIn Facebook Twitter

Rodney Sampson is a serial entrepreneur (4 startups/2 exits), angel investor and author of four books, including Kingonomics: Twelve Innovative Currencies For Transforming Your Business & Life, Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sampson is also an Advisor to high growth startups such as Digit, growth stage companies such as Mark Burnett Productions, angel investment and venture funds such as Kay Koplovitz’s Springboard Fund and Semble’s WeFund; and Heads of State in Namibia, Gabon and Uganda throughout the world. Sampson is passionate about reducing our nation’s poverty and wealth gap by advancing the cause of innovation, coding, entrepreneurship, investment and capital formation as a way of life for all communities. To advance this definitive cause, Sampson created Opportunity Ecosystem (OE). Opportunity Ecosystem includes Kingonomics and opportunity.UP/unleashing private equity, the nation’s leading conference and learning platform learning for minorities and under-served communities to learn, navigate and master the innovation, entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem. Each year, Sampson’s conferences attract over 1,800 existing and aspiring entrepreneurs, 500 teenagers and 100 accredited investors and mentors.  Opportunity Ecosystem also includes Opportunity Hub (OHUB), a multi-campus coworking space, entrepreneurship school, pre-accelerator and incubator headquartered in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. OHUB is home to Opportunity Ventures, a new seed and early stage fund focused on making investments in early stage consumer products, technology, supply chain innovation and social impact companies that impact culture and beyond. Sampson, an Atlanta native, is married and has six children.

 

 

 

Sonja Williams with Shock Theory

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Continuing our spotlight on exceptional women entrepreneurs for our Women’s Month series, we were just joined by Sonja Williams from Shock Theory on March 17th, 2015, who had more than a few words of advice on how to stay digitally relevant in our ever-changing digital ecosystem. More than breaking molds on a personal level, her company, Shock Theory, is breaking molds on an enterprise level, as well. Necessitated out of the rising need for a coherent ecosystem to house emergent and dependent technology and services in-house, the evolution of Shock Theory almost seems like the inevitable solution to the one-off boutiques that limit your marketing vision to the services they can implement in-house. Shock Theory covers everything from experiential event marketing with complimenting technologies such as apps, presentations, and in-house video production studio and crew to create the digital piece that best fits your marketing or experiential needs. Today, Sonja Williams is looking to break the mold in other arenas. For more information on her new Micro University and Entrepreneur’s Ivy League online courses, follow her new hashtag campaign: #whateverittakes.

Here are the top 3 take-aways for our listeners:

1) Always design to mobile.

2) Stay authentic as a brand.

3) Less is more in rhetorical content – but visual content is king.

Tune in to find out more about social media best practices, and how best to optimize your web portal in the new era of DIY websites!

Sonja Williams / Shock Theory google+ Twitter Facebook

Sonja N. Williams is a serial TECpreneur, digital product architect and Chief Executive Officer of ShockTheory, a technology-­‐driven marketing agency that develops social engagement transactional-­‐based technology, produces live events such as conferences, conventions and tradeshows and digital content for on-­‐demand training platforms, live shows, products and services. The company has developed projects for Amtrak, Ford, American Family Insurance, Burger King, Verizon, The National Recording Academy and more.

Williams grew her company by delivering result-­‐oriented, technology-­‐focused projects that has yielded numerous awards including Entrepreneur of the Year by FraserNET and The Atlanta Business League’s Non-­‐Traditional Enterprise of the Year. With over 15 years of experience, Williams’ personal focus is on launching total-­‐market digital platforms with strategic efforts to disrupt the small business sector by helping underserved microenterprises and entrepreneurs to launch sustainable companies through digital consumer engagement.