Weekend Digest: The Shaq-o-nomics Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

SHAQONOMICS
He is considered one of the best NBA players of all-time, but is Shaquille O’Neal’s career after basketball even more successful? Bloomberg Businessweek says it is, if you count dollars earned instead of points made.

Shaquille O’Neal has become one of the most financially successful post-NBA players, making more money off the court now than when he was playing. Bloomberg spent a day with Shaq during the NBA All-Star Weekend as he launched some new Shaq-approved brands. During the ride-along he gave us his insights into what makes him so successful… we call it: Shaqonomics.

Click on this link for a revealing video on the big man’s philosophies that have made his post-NBA career mega-successful for him and his sponsors.

THE GENIUS BEHIND THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT CAUSES
Forbes says a common link for important causes is the creative genius at A Hundred Years. The company is located in a large warehouse in the Downtown LA Arts District, and with clients like NASA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “they apply their digital design expertise to bring about real world results.”

Many companies have added a social impact component, but A Hundred Years is one of the first I’ve encountered that performs services exclusively for that sector.

“For us that means turning our backs on projects that would be good for the bottom line, but wouldn’t contribute to a better future for the world. Admittedly, sometimes this hurts, but on the whole, we’ve struck a chord with people and organizations who are a part of this shifting tide” explains A Hundred Years Founder & CEO, Marc Mertens.

The company was launched in 2002 and only has 25 employees, but its social impact has been enormous.

Learn more about this company’s history, why it was named A Hundred Years, and the unique model it has proudly established by clicking this link.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF LINKEDIN
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, connects 250 million people around the world with more than 1.9 million groups according to Hootsuite. You may be a member but are you getting the most out of the experience?

It can be hard to find Groups which cater to your needs. You can join up to 50 different Groups, but you might find it difficult to participate and build solid connections.

Is the group pertaining to your industry? Can I connect with other members? What are members talking about, and how often? Once you really narrow down your search, it might seem even more difficult to find a Group that is well managed. Here’s a great tip: if the most recent discussion was months ago, you may want to keep looking.

For more tips and “a look at a few successfully managed LinkedIn Groups from different industries” go to this link.

CONVINCING INFOGRAPHICS
So what makes the best infographics “so convincing?” Harvard Business Review says, “A great infographic is an instant revelation.”

It can compress time and space. It can illuminate patterns in massive amounts of data. It can make the abstract convincingly concrete.

These intriguing revelations come from a short trip around The Best American Infographics, 2013. Spend serious time poring over graphs, pie charts, bar charts, flow charts, timelines, interactive diagrams, maps, cut-away diagrams, and narrative illustrations, as Gareth Cook did to compile the collection, and you’ll come away with more than your share of these mind-bending moments – and a wide-ranging view of what infographics can do.

Take a look…and be convinced at this link.

THE SUPER CANDIDATE
What do the states of Hawaii and Georgia have in common with Congressional candidate Allan Levene? He’s running for Congress in both states. POLITICO reports he also tried to run in two other districts in Michigan and another in Minnesota, all in the same election cycle.

So far as anyone can tell, Levene is the first person in the history of the Republic to run for Congress in multiple states simultaneously. If that sounds illegal, it isn’t. The Constitution requires only that a candidate for the House be at least 25 years old, hold U.S. citizenship for at least seven years and reside in a state at the time he or she is elected to represent it. The FEC has weighed in, and Levene can go ahead with his campaigns, as long as he raises funds separately in each state.

So what do the odds makers and political observers say to all of this? And the real question: why is he doing it?

Learn more about this eccentric Mr. Levene, a British native, and his most unusual philosophy behind it all at this link.

FIRST LADY GETS A SURPRISE FROM A TEN-YEAR-OLD
First Lady Michelle Obama was hosting a White House celebration of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day when during a Q&A session she was handed something by ten-year-old Charlotte Bell that caught her parents and everyone in attendance by surprise.

What was it and why did the young girl do it?  Go to this link to find out.

DEMOCRATS IN PENNSYLVANIA STICKING UP FOR OBAMACARE
“Apparently they didn’t get the memo,” reports POLITICO. That’s in reference to Pennsylvania Democrats in the state’s gubernatorial race.

Democrats vying to be the swing state’s next governor are trying to one-up each other in showing their support for the federal health care law ahead of the May 20 primary — airing ads boasting ties to the president, tweeting old OpEds proving their pro-health law bona fides and even suggesting one Democratic contender is a “frenemy” of the law.

And while embracing the law is risky, since it could haunt the nominee in November’s general election, the jockeying is a reminder that Obamacare is still popular with at least one group important in the midterms: the Democratic base.

So who are these candidates and what tact is each taking to embrace the law as part of their election strategy? Go to this link for all the details and full analysis.

KARL ROVE BLASTS SENATE MAJORITY LEADER REID’S PAC
In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Republican Strategist Karl Rove says Republicans need to respond to the falsehoods propagated by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Senate Majority PAC ads.

Consider Republican Congressman Tom Cotton, who is challenging Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor. A Senate Majority PAC ad claimed Mr. Cotton “got paid handsomely working for insurance companies.” Actually, the management consultants McKinsey & Company employed Mr. Cotton. The Afghanistan and Iraq veteran’s only work involving insurance was helping the Federal Housing Administration to improve services, including insurance, for companies that finance apartment construction. His annual salary was $85,000. But Democrats are determined to portray Mr. Cotton as a rich tool of insurance companies, no matter how many lies are involved.

Rove goes on to say, “Campaigns often make shaky claims, but these Democratic ads are flat-out falsehoods.”

For the complete Rove opinion-editorial click on this link.

FROM A TWEET TO A WRITING GIG FOR SETH MEYERS ON ‘LATE NIGHT’
Bryan Donaldson was more-or-less an average middle-aged guy living in central Illinois with his wife and daughter, and had worked in IT for 20 years. Now he is a staff writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Vulture reports, “His journey began on Twitter.”

Want to know what happened and how Donaldson moved to 30 Rock? Go to this link to find out.

‘ENERGY TOURIST’ AND HIS SPECTACULAR PHOTOS
Fast Company has posted a marvelous piece and pictorial on Mitch Epstein who says, “I wanted to photograph the relationship between American society and the American landscape, and energy was the linchpin.”

He ended up spending five years on the road, visiting everything from oil platforms in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina to coal mines, the Hoover Dam, and solar and wind farms.

Go to this link and marvel at what he came up with.