On Call: Connections & Conversations

Da’Vinchi’s conversation with Cam Newton sparked a broader debate about Black American identity and work ethic. Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price examines the stereotypes beneath that debate, the history of Black enterprise and generational wealth, and how confidence and networks shape access to opportunity. A conversation about telling the accurate story and building connections across the diaspora.

Voting can often feel disconnected from the daily grind of paying bills, running businesses, and supporting our families. But for Black women, political participation has always been tied to community infrastructure. In this episode of 500 Forward, we explore the deep history of Black women’s organizing, what my research on "Network Agility" teaches us about economic and political survival, and why activating our networks—from our youth and Black male counterparts to our broader communities—is more urgent than ever.

What happens when the network that helped you get here can no longer help you get where you need to go next?
In this episode of On Call: Connections & Conversations, Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price introduces 500 Forward, her goal to bring 500 new people into The Networking Dr. community by October 1.
She also explains why this goal is about more than growing an audience. Drawing from her research on Black women entrepreneurs and her work with professionals and organizations, Dr. Stroman-Price explores what happens to our networks when jobs disappear, institutions change, businesses face new pressures, and the relationships we once relied on no longer provide the same access.
The episode introduces Network Agility and explains why strong networks must be able to change as our circumstances change.
If you are navigating a transition, growing a business, reconsidering your professional identity, or thinking more intentionally about the relationships around you, this episode is for you.
Follow. Share. Bring someone forward.

Labor Day asks us to think about work—but not everyone is working from the same starting point.
In this episode of On Call: Connections & Conversations, Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price reflects on the Black Woman Tax™, the hidden labor Black women founders carry alongside the work of running a business, and why rest has to become part of the operating model rather than a reward for burnout.
Drawing from her research on Black women entrepreneurs, she explores burnout, shifting markets, policy changes, contracting uncertainty, and the pressure to remain endlessly productive. She also discusses the work of The Nap Ministry and its Rest Is Resistance framework, the changing shape of protest, and one of the clearest findings from her research: faith as infrastructure.
This episode expands on the previously published Beyond the Business Card essay, “Rest Is Not the Opposite of Ambition.”
The question for this week is simple: What is one boundary you can set now to make your work more sustainable?
Read the original essay on Beyond the Business Card and learn more about The Nap Ministry in the show notes.

Customer intimacy is the hardest business advantage to copy, and in federal subcontracting, it might be the hardest one to build without breaking a rule. In this episode, Doctor DeJuan Stroman-Price breaks down why customer intimacy runs the whole business, not just the sales pitch, what actually stands in the way of building it, and where the real door is open in a federal market split apart by procurement rules. Whether you sell in the commercial world or navigate government subcontracting, the discipline is the same. Only the path to build it change

Cambridge's youngest Black professor was found dead days after resigning under a wave of plagiarism allegations. Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price sits with what Jason Arday's death reveals about race, credibility, and the myths institutions ask scholars of color to perform — drawing on her own experience finding a genuinely safe research environment at Pepperdine, where so many others don't. The full written analysis is on her Substack, Beyond the Business Card — link in the show notes.

In this brief episode, Dr. DeJuan Stroman-Price reflects from Philadelphia while attending the Academy of Management Annual Conference. She shares how her research on Black women entrepreneurs, professional networks, technology, and equity connects to today’s changing world of work—and why access to relationships and opportunity is never neutral.

Everyone is asking whether Cheyenne Bryant lied about her credentials. I'm asking a different question: what kind of environment makes that lie work?
This episode sits at the intersection of anti-intellectualism, media literacy collapse, AI, and the brutal paradox Black women face as the most educated demographic in the country who are still systematically undervalued. I bring in Baudrillard, break down the Amanda Seales and Maya Angelou comparison, and get honest about what it actually costs to earn the title.
Companion essay: https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com/p/the-weight-of-the-title

People ask me all the time — what exactly do you do? In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain. I break down the "networking first" model that defines every engagement at The Networking Dr.™, the doctoral research behind it, and the four service areas where I help founders, professionals, and organizations grow through relationships. I share a client testimonial, get specific about who I work best with, and introduce the Connection Blueprint™ intake — a tailored, two-part experience designed to give us both a clear starting point before we ever sit down together. If you've been curious about working with me, start here.
 
Start your Connection Blueprint™ intake: https://connect-blueprint-flow.base44.app Learn more: https://www.thenetworkingdr.com Subscribe to Beyond the Business Card: https://thenetworkingdr.substack.com

I spent years interviewing Black women entrepreneurs for my doctoral research at Pepperdine. I asked them about their networks, their decisions, their wins and losses. I wrote 387 pages about how they build and sustain businesses. And then I left my role as Senior Director at a small business and launched my own consultancy. This episode is about what that transition actually looks like when you stop studying it and start living it. I talk about the career arc that brought me here, from a global consultancy to a small business to my own firm. I talk about what The BOW Institute has taught me as a training participant, and why being in a room with founders who are building, not performing, has been one of the most grounding parts of this process. If you are considering the leap from someone else's org chart to your own, this one is for yo