Weekend Digest: The Peyton Manning Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

IS AMAZON A BULLY?
Harvard Business Review says Amazon’s public fight with the publishing group Hachette, “makes Amazon look like a bully.” The Review reports, “Amazon wants Hachette to cut its prices on books and e-books.”

Most people think Amazon has the upper hand, since books not available there are almost invisible, and since Amazon’s book business is just a fraction of its overall revenue. Amazon’s site now shows many Hachette books as “unavailable.” But they’re only “unavailable” because Amazon chooses to withhold them. Jokes from Stephen Colbert — a Hachette author — only worsen public opinion of Amazon.

Could Amazon be vulnerable over this nasty fight and how does the dispute “reflect a tension found in many other industries as well?”

Go to this link for the complete story.

A NEW LESSON FROM PRO SOCCER
When you’re at the workplace hanging around the water cooler sharing stories and anecdotes about the 2014 World Cup, did you ever consider what the office environment could learn from professional soccer?

It’s about diversity, reports Marketplace Business.

Questions regarding the costs and benefits of diversity for organizational performance affect debates over immigration, university admissions and business hiring decisions. While almost all interlocutors recognize the benefits of diverse talents, perspectives and experiences, there are legitimate questions about the costs that can arise when working groups must negotiate multiple language and cultural roadblocks.

The world of professional soccer provides an ideal testing ground that allows us to sidestep many of the aforementioned problems. First, soccer teams are engaged in the same pursuit — to score goals and win games. The benefits of a diverse talent pool will have the same theorized benefit for every team. This differs dramatically from business analyses that must compare widely diverse sectors where talent and creativity are employed very differently in the production cycle.

To learn more, click on this link.

BEING SMART VS. HARD-WORKING
This essayist from Fortune poses a very interesting question about brains versus work ethic: is it better to be smart or hard-working?

Having spent the past two decades watching people rise and fall in the innovation economy, I’ve never been convinced that IQ has much clout. In fact, I think it’s a burden if you think it does. It’s not smarts, it’s not talent, it’s not even luck or chance that separates the risers from the fallers – it’s grit.

I’ll add – grit isn’t just working hard; it’s continuing that effort long after the fat lady has begun singing. It’s finishing the race when you’re dead last.

What else is grit and does it continually trump IQ?  Follow this link to find out.

SAN FRANCISCO TECH COMPANIES RENEWING OLD BUILDINGS
Yelp, a multinational corporation headquartered in San Francisco, operates an “online urban guide” and business review site and it has the most urban-cool headquarters you could imagine.

Yelp’s new headquarters in downtown San Francisco has the qualities of a sprawling tech campus squeezed into a relatively narrow Art Deco tower. The offices, by San Francisco-based interior designers Studio O+A, spread across 13 remodeled floors in the historic Pacific Telephone Building, a 26-story tower built in 1925 and originally home to Pacific Telephone & Telegraph (later Pacific Bell).

Since the company signed the lease in 2012, it has gone from 500 San Francisco employees to around 1,200.

Yelp is just one of a number of companies upgrading old buildings in the Bay Area. But as Fast Company reports doing so means facing many challenges. With many Arkansas cities refocusing on their urban cores, there’s some good lessons to consider.

Click on this link to find out what challenges companies have overcome and the masterful designs to turn old into urban chic.

CANTOR’S FAILED POLL EXPLAINED
If that’s possible, and one writer for The Hill took a stab at it.

I’m going to defend the indefensible and attempt to explain the inexplicable. I’m unwilling to throw up my hands and blame statistics or incompetence for the failure of polls to foresee Rep. Eric Cantor’s primary defeat.

Start, in Holmesian fashion, by eliminating the impossible. Those with a middle-school-level knowledge of statistics explain that one in 20 polls is just “wrong.” Never mind the origin of this foolish calculation; the simple fact is that the chances a poll would show Cantor (R-Va.) garnering 62 percent of the vote while he was “really” getting 44 percent are about one in a trillion — literally.

So what happened?  Follow this link for the explanation of the seemingly inexplicable.

NEW GOP MAJORITY LEADER CHOSEN
On Thursday, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy was overwhelming elected by Republicans to take over the majority leader seat vacated after Eric Cantor’s primary loss to a little known Tea Party candidate.

What will McCarthy’s style be and can he get things done and broker deals? The New York Times takes an in-depth look at this rising GOP star.

When he was the leader of Republicans in the California State Assembly — an ideologically diverse group of lawmakers often choleric toward both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democrats who controlled the Legislature — Kevin McCarthy was known as the guy who could help bring a bill across the finish line. Gently, almost as if no one could see it.

If he said, ‘I can’t go there,’ he could not go there. He was always trying to negotiate for something better.

In Mr. McCarthy lawmakers are likely to see a more pragmatic and inclusive leadership than Mr. Cantor preferred.

For more on what to expect from McCarthy, click on this link.

NO MOJO FOR JOE AMONG SENATE DEMOCRATS
POLITICO reports, “Not a single Democratic senator, including the two from his home state, are publicly urging him to run for president.”

And this is Hillary Clinton’s lot: A majority of current Democratic senators are calling on her to run in 2016, years before the election and months before she’s expected to even make up her mind whether to seek the White House again. That despite the fact that her eight years in the Senate ended with more than a dozen colleagues spurning her presidential campaign in favor of a younger upstart senator from Illinois.

Such deep support for a potential candidate this early on, practically unheard of in presidential politics, reflects the deep hold Clinton has over her party and the sense among senators that there are no other viable options to keep the presidency in Democratic hands.

For the complete story and analysis, go to this link.

MASSACHUSETTS BILL PROPOSED TO INCREASE PAC DISCLOSURES
The Boston Globe reports, “The Massachusetts Legislature is poised to pass a bill that would dramatically increase disclosure requirements for the huge political action committees known as super PACs, a groundbreaking move that could shed light on the deluge of corporate and labor money expected to flood this year’s race for governor.”

The bill would also double the amount of money individuals can give to state candidates from $500 to $1,000 a year, the first change to those limits in 20 years.

With strong support from House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray, the legislation, which is expected to clear a key joint committee Wednesday, is likely to pass in the next month, a senior legislative aide said.

What are the disclosure rules if the bill is passed and how could this bill influence other states on a national level? The Globe explores it all at this link.

TWITTERBOTS FLY IN CONGRESS
It’s a fake produced by a Twitterbot, a program that produces automated posts. Many are just spam but are used to pad followers.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s political account — with more than 260,000 followers — holds the prize for the largest number of bots, at 35.1 percent. Just 46.2 percent of her followers were considered good, while another 18.5 percent came out uncertain.

Also atop the House bot count: Fleming, the winner of the first two GOP social media contests, with 28.3 percent of his 8,700-plus followers qualifying as fake; @RepPaulRyan (25.6 percent of nearly 374,500); @SpeakerBoehner (24.8 percent of 648,700-plus); @NancyPelosi, (23.5 percent of nearly 487,000); @MicheleBachmann (19 percent of 218,600-plus); Eric Cantor’s @GOPLeader account (14.2 percent of 223,000); North Carolina Democrat @GKButterfield (13.2 percent of almost 3,500); California Democrat @RepBera (12.5 percent of 4,200-plus); and Nevada Democrat @repdinatitus (12.4 percent of 4,600-plus).

POLITICO reports, “In the House, where 428 members have at least one type of active Twitter account, an average of 6.7 percent of the lawmakers’ followers are fake.”

Who has the most in the Senate and how can these fakes be harmful to lawmakers? POLITICO has the complete story and analysis at this link.

PEYTON MANNING’S ‘BRILLIANT’ NEW PLAN
The Denver Broncos’ quarterback makes new players play golf with him.

Soon after the Denver Broncos drafted wide receiver Cody Latimer, he received the kind of intense one-on-one tutorial that quarterback Peyton Manning is famous for.

“He was so precise. He told me how to stand. Where to put my feet,” recalls Latimer. “You have to take it all in, figure out his adjustments and do everything he says and you end up on his good side.”

This session wasn’t on the football field, however. It was on the golf course. Why?

“Putt” over to this link from The Wall Street Journal to find out.

OH NO THEY DIDN’T?
Oh yes they did. Harley-Davidson that is.

Though it does offer the more-modern VSRC and Street model lines, the company essentially lives on its rich heritage, offering updated versions of classic designs that date back as far the 1940’s with bad-boy names like Road King, Super Glide, and, of course, Bad Boy.

To its credit the Milwaukee-based company is hedging its bets that its core customers – men age 35 and older – will not live forever. To that end it just announced it would be sending a dramatic new all-electric motorcycle on a 30-city cross-country tour this summer to gauge market interest, especially among younger enthusiasts.

The all-electric motorcycle is so radical, Forbes reports “Hell freezes over.” If it unfreezes, what are the company’s ambitions for this totally new Harley, and what are it’s specs? Be assured, it’s fast.

“Bike” over to this link for the story and details.