"This being my first experience with the OBD conference, I found myself comparing it to the many others I had attended over the years. It wasn't as well organized. The sponsors exhibit room was a bit thin. To me, there were not a lot of topics on the agenda totally new. Then Scott Perkins said something that changed my perspective: there we were, in a room full of design professionals, architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, web designers—and 99 percent of us were African American."

"It reminded me of the isolation I have experienced as the co-director of a black-owned design firm. Then it reminded me that I was really not alone at all. Can you imagine how moving that experience was for me?"

- Charly Palmer, Owner, TP Design, Atlanta