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CHEF MARIYA RUSSELL BECOMES THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO EARN A MICHELIN STAR

Mariya Russell, chef de cuisine of Chicago’s Kikko and Kumiko just became the first Black woman to earn a michelin star in the Guide’s 94-year history, Chicago Mag reports. 

The Michelin Guide is one of the oldest guide books, published by the Michelin tire company first in 1926, rating restaurants and hotels. The Michelin star is a mark of excellence for restaurateurs and one of the highest honors a chef can receive.

Russell is an Ohio native who found her passion for cooking early in life.

During high school, she enrolled in a culinary training program where she performed exceptionally well. She eventually moved on to culinary school, getting her first job as a line cook. She met Noah Sandoval, the owner of Kikko and Kumiko, when they both worked at another restaurant, Green Zebra. Sandoval went on to open several avant-garde restaurants including, Senza, a wheat-free restaurant which closed in 2014, and Oriole, an interactive upscale dining experience that runs customers about $215 per person. By the time Noah asked Russell to run a bar for him, she had already fallen in love with his inventive approach.

Kumiko found near instant success. The Japanese inspired dishes and omakase format were a hit with Chicagoans. Last summer, they separated the omakase tasting menu and a la carte drink and snack menus, making the tasting menu reservations-only, renaming that portion of the restaurant, Kikko. The omakase format of the bar means that everything is left up to Russell, including the dishes and ingredients served, and the alcoholic pairings, no substitutions. Every night, she greets the guests, encouraging them to ask questions about the food and reminding them to have a great time.

 

Credit: Because Of Them We Can

 

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SERENA WILLIAMS WINS 1ST TITTLE FOR THE FIRST TIME AS A MOTHER

Serena Williams the world famous tennis champion has won her tittle since becoming a new mom. This happens to be her 73rd tittle and, first since becoming a new mom.

Serena proudly carrying her daughter

Williams hasn’t won a tittle since the birth of her daughter, Olympia. “Finally!” She gushed.
“Oh, it feels good!” said Williams, winner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles. “It’s been a long time. I think you could see the relief on my face.
“It’s pretty satisfying just to get a win in the final.
“That was really important for me, and I just want to build on it. It’s just a step towards the next goal.”
“You have to be your biggest cheerleader, especially if you’re feeling you’re not doing everything right — or even if you are doing everything right but things aren’t working out for you,” she added.
According to ESPN, “the 23-time major winner donated her $43,000 winner’s
she donated to the fundraising appeal for victims of Australian wildfires.”
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CAREER–Farida Yahya: Use These Methods To Create a Unique Brand Voice

This year, whatever brand tone you adopt, the most important rule is to ensure that your brand tone is authentic. Trying to fake your voice is like asking a goat to sing. You’re literally bleating and people can easily spot anything fake these days. As studies have shown throughout the years, consumers buy products from brands that they connect to on an emotional level. They also stay away from brands that they cannot connect with.

 As 2019 came to an end, a good number of startup founders took some time off work to do some introspection. What worked? What didn’t? How can they outsmart the competition in the coming decade?

In my limited interaction with all the sales and end of year bundle ads that flew around, I noticed a predictable pattern: most brands have lost their brand voice in a bid to cash in and stamp “sold out” across their social media pages. While that seems to work short term, it won’t be business as usual in 2020.

How do you keep your “I am different” slogan and still make some cool cash? I have four methods to share with you. But before then, let’s talk about marketing your new business.

New product idea? Check.

A good customer base? Double-check.

Before you proceed with marketing your new business, product or brand, you must define your ‘brand voice’. Your company’s brand voice is the heart and soul of your communication. It is the tone you adapt to speak and connect with your audience.

The absence of a brand voice means that you can’t create your blog, publish your first post, tweet or post a caption on Instagram. Your brand’s voice can range from being authoritative to fun, informative or witty. This year, whatever brand tone you adopt, the most important rule is to ensure that your brand tone is authentic. Trying to fake your voice is like asking a goat to sing. You’re literally bleating and people can easily spot anything fake these days. As studies have shown throughout the years, consumers buy products from brands that they connect to on an emotional level. They also stay away from brands that they cannot connect with.

So how do you make your brand’s voice unique enough to stand out from its competitors?

Build Prototypes

As you work on determining your brand’s voice, you must know who you’re talking to — beyond your audiences’ basic demographics. One trick to help you easily identify this is to pick a person from your target market (it could be the elderly, working mums, stay-at-home parents, bachelors, etc) to answer the following questions:

  • What does he or she look like?
  • What does he or she care about?
  • Where does he or she work?
  • What does he or she do for fun?
  • And, most importantly, what does he or she expect from your brand?

Answering these questions will give an insight into people’s heads and teach you how to attract them to your brand. Plus, it’s the first step to defining what brand voice to adopt.

Identify The Language Your Target Audience (Customers) Use

Pay attention to where your target audience gathers: online or in-person? Visit those places and observe the way they write and speak. See how they describe the challenges they face that your product or service solves and bring those terms into your official vocabulary. By using their words, you make it easier for potential customers to immediately understand your company’s value.

Answer These Questions

The next step is to answer the following questions:

  • I want my brand to make people feel _______ (happy, important, belong, create nostalgia, etc).
  •  _______ makes me feel this way.
  • I want people to _______ when they see my brand.
  • Three words that describe my brand are _______ , _______ , and _______.
  • I want to mimic the brand voice of _______.
  • I dislike brand voices that sound _______ (cliché, rude, angry, unsympathetic, and arrogant?).
  • Connecting with my clients and potential clients makes me feel _______.

Since your aim would be to adopt a sincere and natural brand tone, you must pay attention to the answers you get from the questions above. Should your brand voice be plain, witty, authoritative or funny? Is it rolling-on-the floor funny or laugh-out-loud funny? Should it be scholarly authoritative or I’m explaining something to a younger brother/sister authoritative? Take your pick!

Create a Test Group

Get a bunch of your closest people together (families and friends). Please note that these people should also represent your (proposed) target market. Ask for their opinion about:

  • What excites them the most about your brand?
  • What makes it unique?
  • What words describe your brand?

Based on their feedback, craft a 1-2 sentence mission statement in a few different brand voices. Then decide which one feels the most natural to you or excites you the most.

The answers you get here hugely determine the brand tone you adopt. Additionally, it’s okay to combine parts of the answers to the second question above to get the final product. Finding your brand tone can be likened to painting: sometimes, it requires adding a splash of this and that to get the perfect result.

In Conclusion

Finding a unique voice that your customers will love isn’t easy. It isn’t impossible either. With tons of commotion and unhealthy comparisons on social media, it’s hard to stand out and easy to get lost in the noise. However, remember that it’s very easy to create a bad or easily forgettable experience that will make your followers bored and press the mute or unfollow button.

When you develop and stick to a brand voice, social media interactions get easier. People easily identify your brand and know what to expect from it. Make sure to promote your brand voice and have a clear vision of how everyone sees your brand. Brand perception is extremely important!

Here’s to your success in the new decade.

Happy New Year

By Farida Yahya

Credit: Bellanaija

 

 

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31-year-old Google executive says reading this one book has influenced her career

Jean-Baptiste and her team have launched several products including Google Assistant, Gmail’s Smart Compose feature and Google’s Pixel Camera. She has worked tirelessly to test the product for racially and gender-insensitive language.

As head of product inclusion at Google, Annie Jean-Baptiste works to ensure that the products and services Google offers are inclusive and reflective of the diverse audience the company serves.

Since starting at Google nine years ago, the 31-year-old has served as an account manager and a diversity programs manager before stepping into her current role two years ago. When reflecting on the books that have influenced her the career the most, Jean-Baptiste tells CNBC Make It Adam Grant’s “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World,” comes to mind.

“Just given that sometimes you’re in a space that’s new and a little bit uncharted, I think that reading about people who have started something from scratch or started something that people didn’t totally get at first is interesting,” she says. “It’s just really interesting to see how they build that consensus up from the ground floor.”

In Grant’s bestselling book, the Wharton School professor uses data and research to show readers what it takes to bring an original idea to life. He also challenges the belief that you have to take a crazy amount of risk in order to birth a great idea.

“You don’t have to be a round peg in a square hole to be original,” Grant said on CNBC’s “On the Money” in 2016. “In fact, many originals hate taking risks.”

For example, he says, “If you look at the data, entrepreneurs who avoid risk by saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to keep my day job before I go all in’ are 33% less likely to fail.”

Though Grant’s book may be perceived as a read that focuses on entrepreneurship, Jean-Baptiste can relate to the idea of building something from the ground up, considering her current role at Google was non-existent a few years ago.

“Product inclusion” includes elements of business, product and diversity, and Jean-Baptiste had worked in all of those areas, she says. But that doesn’t mean the transition was easy. “It’s a culmination of a lot of the work that I’ve been lucky enough to do and learn at Google,” she says. “So seeing there was an opportunity and an opening to do that and to build that out, even though it hadn’t been something that was happening before, can sometimes be scary.”

In her two years as head of product inclusion, Jean-Baptiste and her team have launched several products including Google Assistant, Gmail’s Smart Compose feature and Google’s Pixel Camera. When developing the Google Assistant, which is an artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant that can hold a two-way conversation with its user, Jean-Baptiste and her team worked tirelessly to test the product for racially and gender-insensitive language before its launch.

“Google has always said focus on the user and all else will follow,” the tech executive says in a video about the product launch of Google Assistant. “If you’re thinking about a challenge or product, you need to make sure that you’re intentional about expanding who your users could and should be.”

Similarly with Gmail’s Smart Compose, Jean-Baptiste and her team tested the product before its launch to ensure that the predictive text feature wouldn’t create any negative or offensive messages. They also tested Google’s Pixel Camera before its launch to ensure that the lens accurately reflected all skin tones.

“I think, you know, the crux of this work is to really ensure that everyone feels seen and valued for their differences and feel like they were thought of,” she says. “We know that we have work to do and that we’re on a journey, but we’re really excited and committed to making sure that we’re building for everyone and with everyone.”

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Source CNBC

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Oprah Winfrey Media Journey
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OPRAH WINFREY TO FEATURE MICHELLE OBAMA IN HER WELLNESS TOUR VISION 2020

Oprah Winfrey has kicked off the new year with her Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus tour in partnership with Weight Watchers, according to Essence.

In the words of Oprah, let’s make 2020 our year to triumph!

Winfrey intends motivating all with this. She said, “to make 2020 the year of renewal and celebrate all we are meant to be.” According to Because of Them We can There will be interactive morning sessions, dance parties by Daybreaker, wellness planning and workbook exercises followed by afternoon sessions featuring Julianne Hough and her KINRGY method. And of course, there will be interviews with Oprah and the featured celebrity guests.

This tour has kicked off January 4th in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with Lady Gaga which was an impressive one..

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Sandra Ikeji Breaks Guinness Record with 200 Bridesmaid

Sandra an event planner and sister to popular blogger, Linda Ikeji makes history with her huge number of bridesmaid.  She celebrated her wedding at the Landmark event centre. She shut down Lagos state on her wedding day this Saturday, January 11, in Lagos state.

Ikeji excitedly shared photos of herself and her bridesmaids on her Instagram page.

She had earlier planned this record breaking feat according to bellanaija.

The bride had gotten engaged in 2018, and their traditional wedding was held in December 2019.

 

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UBER DRIVER LATONYA YOUNG OBTAINS COLLEGE DEGREE AFTER PASSENGER PAYS HER DEBT

Sometimes a conversation in a taxi cab can lead to good fortune. This is exactly what happened with an Uber driver who had her debt cleared from one of her passengers, according to CNN.

Latonya Young, who works as a hairstylist and Uber driver, picked up a passenger outside of Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and started engaging in a conversation. She told the man that after having a child at the age of 16, she had to drop out of high school to raise him and recently had to drop out of college because she owed a $700 balance to Georgia State University.

In response, the passenger, who was a man named Kevin Esch, decided to go directly to Georgia State University and pay off the balance of Young’s debt without her knowing about the deed. The university contacted Young to inform her that she was able to register for classes.

“I was literally blown away. A stranger has never done that — or done anything like that — for me,” Young said.

Last month, Georgia State University shared the story on Facebook.

The mother of three registered with the school and worked hard to earn her associate degree in criminal justice. “I maintained my grades, As and Bs, just trying to make sure he knows I appreciate him,” she said. She plans on pursuing her bachelor’s degree as she aspires to become an attorney.

Esch actually attended Young’s graduation when she received her degree.”There was something about Latonya that just—she resonates with me and we developed an incredible friendship now and I am incredibly proud of what she’s done,” he told CNN Full Circle. “I could’ve bought new clothes or I could’ve helped someone out. And what has come back to me has come back a hundredfold and I would do it 1,000 times over.”

In a statement to CNN, Andrea Anne Jones, a spokesperson at Georgia State University, said, “Kevin Esch has been justifiably applauded and heralded for providing the funds to enable Georgia State student Latonya Young to earn a college degree, but his gift is so much bigger than that. With it, he has changed a life and opened a door to a brighter future for a student who, like so many others we see at Georgia State, simply needs a chance to achieve and succeed.”

 

Source : Black Enterprise

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OAP Toolz Celebrates 10 years in Her career

Toolz Oniru Demuren has been appreciated for her 10 years of service and contribution as an On-Air-Personality with the radio station Beat 99.9FM

The popular media personality was presented with an award of service by the operators of the station which she shared on her Instagram page.

She wrote:

I’ve been in this industry for a second phewww!

Who would’ve thought that my first ever radio gig would last this long??

Grateful for everything!!
Thank you Megalectrics @thebeat999fm@chrisubosi @dayjeea (aka Terrorist).

She truly has had a rewarding career and is probably going to be longstanding with it.

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This Singer/Songwriter Helps The Australian Fire Victims During Her Tour

The Singer named Lizzo, at her Concert in Sydney Opera House took some time to volunteer,by helping those affected by the wildfires.

 

The nonprofit took to social media to thank the artist for her efforts saying, “Beautiful Lizzo stopped by our Foodbank Victoria warehouse today to thank our hardworking team and vollies who have been working tirelessly for the past 6 days. What a [star], she even packed hampers for fire-affected regions. Thank you for the support.”

According to Because of Them We Can The pop star volunteered at the Melbourne Foodbank Victoria, packing food hampers for those impacted by the fire. She took time to thank the other volunteers and took pictures with everyone. The Foodbank is the largest food relief provider in Victoria. Following the “Truth Hurts” singer’s visit, the nonprofit has set up links for people to donate on all of their social media pages. 

“Join Lizzo to deliver emergency food relief and water to the victims of the Bushfire Crisis. We need your support to continue delivering emergency food relief and water to Victorians affected by this devastating bushfire crisis,” a message on the Foodbank website reads. 

CNN reports at least 24 people have died, about 18 million acres of land has been burned and half a billion animals have been impacted by the fires. Victoria and New South Wales have been affected the most, with over 2000 homes having been destroyed and about 3.5% of the state of Victoria being burned, according to Mashable. 

 

 

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MICHELLE OBAMA LAUNCHES NEW SERIES IN IGTV TITLED ‘A YEAR OF FIRSTS’

While some would relax after eight long years in the White House, rest is something Michelle Obama isn’t doing just yet. The former first lady will be launching an Instagram video series that will premiere later this month.

Obama and her initiative Reach Higher have partnered with ATTN: on a new IGTV series, “A Year of Firsts.” The series aims to empower and inspire freshman college students across the country. Each episode will spotlight the journeys of the students as they embark on their quest for higher education. “A Year of Firsts” continues the tradition that Obama started as first lady of uplifting and inspiring young people and supporting their educational potential.

“As a first-generation college student myself, I know how intimidating it can be to take that leap and pursue your educational dreams,” Obama said in a statement. “That’s why I’m so proud of these students. By sharing their stories, they’re helping others see that the ups and downs of the first year of college are something everyone goes through—and they’re creating a supportive community for others facing similar challenges.”

“A Year of Firsts” is produced by ATTN: in partnership with Reach Higher. ATTN: is working with the students directly to document their first year as they explore issues like the academic stress of attending college, making new friends, college affordability, and the physical and mental health challenges they encounter while in college. Episode one of “A Year of Firsts” will premiere exclusively on IGTV in mid-January. Over six episodes, the series will chronicle the students’ first year in college and conclude with the last episode in June 2020.

Obama announced the series on her Instagram page: “The first year of college is exciting, but also a little nerve-racking. As a first-generation college student myself, I know how intimidating it can be to try to navigate through a new place and make new friends, all while trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be. That’s why I’m so excited that @reachhigher is teaming up with @attndotcom to share the stories of four first-year college students: Robert, Linette, Regan, and Haseeb. Can’t wait for you all to meet them and learn more about what taking that leap really feels like, day in and day out. Stay tuned!”

“As Mrs. Obama highlights in each episode, there are many hidden challenges to making it through college,” said ATTN: co-founder, Matthew Segal. “This series will meet many students where they live—on Instagram—and share candid perspectives about how to overcome barriers. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Mrs. Obama and Reach Higher to engage and inspire students to invest in themselves through higher education.”

 

CREDIT: Black Enterprise

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