Weekend Digest: Mad Men, The Comeback Kids & Jackie Robinson’s Untold Story

For our weekend business and political readers:

POPULAR TV SHOW A MAGNET FOR BUSINESS
The sixth season of AMC’s “Mad Men” premiered last Sunday, and along with it cash registers will be ringing across the country.

John Stires’ bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, usually serves wine and beer. But for weddings and special events they do have liquor. And this Sunday, they’re serving cocktails.

“We only do it for special occasions and Sunday nights for Mad Men is going to be one of them,” Stires says. The promotion helps draws customers on a typically slow night, and Sunday sales during the show’s run often more than double.

Including a popular clothing line inspired by the show, Marketplace asks the question, “What is it about ‘Mad Men’ that marketers love?”

Click on this link to find out.

SOCIAL MEDIA CREATES NEW ROLE FOR SALESPEOPLE
Social media has completely changed the face of sales engagement with new opportunities such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Companies such as Allstate, AXA Advisors, Northwestern Mutual, and others recognize the new role salespeople must play in the social, mobile, and digital era: that of a trusted advisor and subject matter expert offering highly personalized, human service.

As Primerica Chief Marketing Officer Duane Morrow says for Harvard Business Review, “Web 1.0 was about replacing human capital, what makes social media so exciting is that it is about enhancing human capital, to make your reps superhuman.”

So how do sales reps “justify their value and avoid getting replaced by a website or outcompeted by other reps?”

HBR has three solutions for best practices. Click here to read more.

DOES YOUR BOSS GIVE WEIRD DEMANDS?
Do the requests from your boss sometimes fall outside the lines of your job description?

Forbes has put together a list of “The 15 Weirdest Demands by Bosses,” compiled by jobs website Career Builder.

Here’s an example: “Boss asked employee to go online and post false good comments about him.”

For the complete weird list, go to this link.

SQUEEZING OUT MORE POWER FROM NATURAL GAS BY USING SOLAR
The New York Times reports that the federal Energy Department will soon embark on tests that it hopes will be a “new way for solar power to make electricity, using the sun’s heat to increase the energy content of natural gas.”

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., hope by this summer to carry out the test, which entails a process that could cut the amount of natural gas used — and the greenhouse gasses emitted — by 20 percent.

The Times says the system that will be used “is a marriage of chemical engineering and mechanical engineering.” The result is called synthesis gas.

Michael E. Webber, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-director of the clean energy incubator there, cautioned that there were still a lot of “engineering kinks to sort out.” He called the resulting gas “a wonderful fuel, but it’s a pain in the neck to make.”

But how does it actually work, and who will pay for it? And where are its best potential markets? Go inside the Times post for the full story at this link.

INFLUENCE OF JACKIE ROBINSON GOES BEYOND THE BASEBALL FIELD
He is in the baseball Hall of Fame, was the Most Valuable Player in 1949, and helped take his team, the Dodgers, to six World Series.

It’s commonly thought that Robinson broke the race barrier in major league baseball, but as a brilliant post by The Root accurately points out, Robinson was actually the third player to break the color-line, he was just the most talented and famous.

But off the baseball field, The Root has complete details of historic accounts of how prejudice forced Robinson to face a court martial trial in 1944 during his stint in the military.

Robinson was transferred to the 758th Tank Battalion on July 24, “where the commander signed orders to prosecute him.” On that day, he was arrested.

Rampersad says that “At 1:45 in the afternoon on August 2, the case of The United States v. 2nd Lieutenant Jack R. Robinson, 0-10315861, Cavalry, Company C, 758th Tank Battalion, began.”

Robinson’s fate was in the hands of nine men, eight of them white: “One was black; another had been a UCLA student [where Robinson had been an undergraduate]. Six votes were needed for conviction.”

What happened to cause Robinson to face a court martial jury and what was the verdict?

Go to this link for all the details on this classic story that reveals little-known facts about the pride, courage and bravery of this remarkable man.

EVERYBODY LOVES A COMEBACK
Scandals, bad decisions, and sanctions brought them down. Now the Washington Post takes a look at “The Six Best Political Comeback Stories.”

Here’s a closer look (in alphabetical order) at some prominent politicians who’ve regained their political footing, and the ones we are waiting on.

Click here to find out who they are.

GOP BUDGET DOUBLE-TALK CAUSES CONFUSION, CONTROVERSY
His name is Greg Walden. The Republican U.S Representative from Oregon is the new National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, and recently he remarked on something regarding the looming budget debate that has raised a lot of eyebrows on Capitol Hill and across the nation from both sides of the aisle.

With one fell swoop Wednesday, Walden signaled that he and his party might well try to use the entitlement reforms in President Obama’s budget against Democrats, calling Obama’s budget a “shocking attack on seniors.”

And that set off a round of criticism from Republicans, Democrats and special interest groups from the left and right.

GOP leaders have actually been pushing for the White House to pursue entitlement reforms and many of them have praised that aspect of Obama’s budget — particularly when it comes to the so-called “chained CPI.” They may not like Obama’s budget, but they have recognized Obama’s proposed entitlement reforms as an olive branch and bargaining chip.

Go inside the Post story to read more about the wave of criticism Walden has faced for his comments, mostly from his own party. But are the Committee chairman’s controversial remarks based on a possible underlying strategy of the future for the Republican Party?

For the full story, go to this link.

THE HEART OF THE FISCAL POLICY DEBATE
The Republicans want deficit reduction leading to a balanced budget. Under Obama, the Democrats’ priority is to “grow the economy from the middle class out.” But an op-ed post from The American says both parties should analyze the debt crisis from a singular point.

Our debate should not be about income redistribution or debt reduction but rather about how to achieve broadly shared growth — because when we achieve that, history shows that the deficit and the middle class will benefit.

Writer Steve Conover goes on to further explain that he believes both parties are making a mistake in the fiscal debate known as “cause-effect reversal.” What is cause-effect reversal and how can understanding this principal help the two far-apart parties gain some common ground?

For an in-depth analysis, go to the post at this link.

IT’S THE PUTTING AT THE MASTERS
The azaleas are in full-bloom. Rae’s Creek with its glistening reflection of Hogan’s Bridge is as picturesque as ever, and the patrons have packed the gallery spaces to watch the sport’s greatest stars play at the world’s most famous golf course.

That means its Masters weekend and The Wall Street Journal reports the holder of more majors than anyone, Jack Nicklaus, was on-hand as usual at the start of the tournament giving out advice for those who came to him.

This year Nicklaus told Nicolas Colsaerts, the long-hitting Masters rookie from Belgium, about the “half dozen shots on this golf course that can kill you.” Among them are the drive on No. 2 and the shots into the greens on Nos. 11 and 12.

But the bulk of their conversation focused on tactics for avoiding three putts and how to set up birdies. Augusta National’s tricky, quick, segmented greens are its best defense, despite the course’s impressive, 7,435 yard length.

For a good read on the inside-scoop, predictions, and more commentary from this fabled and fickle golf course, putt on over to the link(s).

DIGITAL MONEY ‘RULED’ BY WELL-KNOWN TWINS
It’s called a bitcoin. It’s virtual money that for now has little practical use according to Dealbook. And the “king” investors of bitcoins are the well-know identical twins from the Facebook controversy, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

The twins, the first prominent figures in the largely anonymous bitcoin world to publicly disclose a big stake, say they own nearly $11 million worth.

Or at least $11 million as of Thursday morning — when trading was temporarily suspended after the latest and largest flash crash left a single bitcoin worth about $120 and the whole market worth $1.3 billion. At one point, the price had plummeted 60 percent.

But according to Dealbook that plummet hasn’t stopped the twins’ enthusiasm for this new techno currency.  The Winklevosses say this week’s tumult is just growing pains for a digital currency that they believe will become a sort of gold for the technorati.

Is it a Ponzi scheme as some critics have said, or is it a true growing alternative to regular currency? For an in-depth look at the bitcoin phenomenon, check out this story.

PROBLEM SOLVERS ARE HAPPY PEOPLE
A writer for Harvard Business Review says about their jobs, “Too many people are tuned out, turned off, or ready to leave. But there’s one striking exception.”

The happiest people I know are dedicated to dealing with the most difficult problems.

Are you surprised their happiness isn’t about money? Writer Rosabeth Moss Kanter identifies “three primary sources of motivation in high-innovation companies” and she says money came in a “distant fourth.”

For a full look at Kanter’s essay on how money can’t buy happiness, read more here.