Weekend Digest: The Post-Election Analysis Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

TV PREVIEW: ONE-ON-ONE WITH GOVERNOR-ELECT ASA HUTCHINSON
Election 2014. Republicans sweep all of the major races in Arkansas in a historic night of firsts. Our political roundtable with Talk Business & Politics Roby Brock, and KATV’s Scott Inman and Janelle Lilley offer complete analysis. What does the landslide mean for the GOP? Can Democrats rebound? How does all of this play out in the January legislative session?

Plus, Roby Brock sits down with Governor-elect Asa Hutchinson for his first in-depth, one-on-one interview since Election Night. The newly elected Governor recounts the campaign, the GOP’s big night on Tuesday, and how he’s moving forward with his new administration.

Also, central Arkansas is planning a big celebration to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Clinton Library. Gretchen Hall, CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, discusses the events surrounding the celebration. What has the Clinton Library meant for tourism and what’s next?

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics Sunday morning at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7.

IF YOU THINK CHRISTMAS MARKETING COMES EARLY, NOT SO FAST
The New York Times reports, “When Madison Avenue starts Halloween advertising before Labor Day and Christmas advertising before Halloween, it ought to come as no surprise that marketers are already talking about advertising during Super Bowl XLIX although it is still 86 days away.”

The front-running of Super Bowl hoopla is partly a result of holiday creep and partly of the popularity of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

They make it much easier to discuss and share Super Bowl spots well before the game, which encourages advertisers to speak up sooner than they did in previous years.

Another reason it makes sense to stimulate word of mouth for Super Bowl spots before Thanksgiving is the hefty sums involved: Given how much the commercials cost, it may never be too soon to start amortizing the expense.

How much will a 30-second Super Bowl spot cost this year and what companies have already signed on? For the complete story go here for all the details.

IS THERE AN ‘ASPIRING ENTREPRENEUR’ CLASS IN COLLEGE?
In fact there is, if you take the track suggested by The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal asks, “How do you use college to learn how to be an entrepreneur?”

For the student looking to launch a company after graduation, the answers to the typical questions — where do you go to school, what do you you study, what clubs do you join and so on — aren’t necessarily the usual ones.

Aspiring entrepreneurs should view college as a unique chance to build up a set of diverse skills, create a network of potential investors and partners, and soak up life experiences that will help them fly solo.

With that in mind, here’s the entrepreneur’s guide to getting the most out of college.

TAYLOR SWIFT AND THE ECONOMICS OF MUSIC
Harvard Business Review has posted an in-depth piece on the transformation of digital music to an internet distribution platform. It’s changed everything for artists, particularly older music acts, who have seen licensing revenues plummet.

Put simply it’s about digital streaming, which is overtaking the business of digital downloads.

The ubiquity of internet connectivity now means that consumers don’t have to download songs. Instead they can access the entire library of music on Cloud-based servers and to whatever they want whenever they want without having to purchase songs or albums. Instead, they either pay a monthly fee or put up with advertisements. Artists and record companies only get paid for the music that consumers actually listen to.

HBR reports, “This shift to digital distribution and production has opened up a Pandora’s box of dilemmas for artists and record companies–bringing into sharp relief the tradeoff between value creation and value capture.”

So what does Taylor Swift have to do with all this?  Follow this link to find out.

TIME MANAGEMENT FROM NOVEL WRITERS
Are you good at time management? Ever wanted to write a novel? Two uniquely different things, but are they?

Fast Company says, “Every November thousands of people participate in National Novel Writing Month. Here’s how they accomplish big goals in a short time.”

Every November, several hundred thousand people sign up for a crazy goal: They want to crank out a 50,000-word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo” for short, was started by Chris Baty in 1999 to provide support for fellow writers trying to cross “write a novel” off their bucket lists. The stunt has produced a lot of novels, but beyond that, it’s taught participants some important time management lessons.

Here are seven lessons that can help you achieve big goals of all kinds, even if you’re not trying to write a novel this month.

IT’S OBAMA, STUPID
“Why did so many Democrats lose on Tuesday?” asks The Washington Post.

Here’s the simplest answer: President Obama was a political dead weight for his party.

For the post-mortem, go to this link.

MORE DEMOCRATIC PILING-ON
This time it’s technology.

Remember in the last election when the Democratic Party crowed about its technology advantage over the GOP?  No more.

The National Journal takes a look at how technology helped fuel the defeat of Democrats with a focus on Tom Cotton’s winning Arkansas campaign for the Senate.

A crooked blue line skirted just above the top of seven consecutive bars, telling the director of voter turnout at the Republican National Committee that his Arkansas colleagues were short of their goals for this particular cluster of voters labeled “High Value GOP.” He called his colleagues in Arkansas.

Almost instantly, Tom Cotton’s Senate campaign started visiting, calling, and aiming digital ads at every young white male in the cluster. The data showed them to be the most persuadable of the “High Value GOP” voters. For each young white man – thousands of them – Republican Party operatives had a name, an address, a voting history, and most important, a rich attitudinal profile based largely on their online activities. Within a week, Cotton was back on target.

Welcome to 21st century micro-targeting – the ability to collect and crunch vast amounts of data on virtually every American and use that data to shape how people shop, eat, work, worship, play, and, of course, vote.

The Journal says, “In politics, over the last decade, the Republican Party virtually ceded a technological monopoly to Democrats, foolishly blinding the GOP to tens of millions of potential voters. Until now.”

For the complete story, go to this link.

AND NOW IT’S THE OPERATIVES TURN FOR A ‘VICTORY LAP’
POLITICO reports, “The operatives who led the National Republican Senatorial Committee to victory this week took a 100-minute victory lap on Thursday.”

They were most eager to criticize the Democrats’ much-ballyhooed ground game and turnout operation.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent the past nine months touting what it called The Bannock Street Project, a $60 million registration and turnout effort in 10 targeted states.

“It turned out to be the New Coke of this political cycle,” said NRSC communications director Brad Dayspring. “It just didn’t work.”

POLITICO says, “Republicans held the session with a small group of beat reporters to make sure that more of their behind-the-scenes efforts in winning the majority are known.”

Read more of the winning strategy at this link.

THE LOSS OF THE DEMOCRATIC TALENT POOL
POLITICO says, “As Democrats take stock of their grievous losses in the 2014 elections, party leaders are confronting a challenge perhaps even more daunting than their defeats in the House and Senate: the virtual wipeout of the Democratic talent pool across the country.”

After the Republican waves of 2010 and 2014, the party is depleted not just in its major-league talent, but also in its triple-A recruitment prospects. It amounts to a setback, Democrats say, that will almost certainly require more than one election cycle to repair.

This past Tuesday even the so-called up-and-coming stars lost. All of them.

Was this just “off-year voter apathy” as some are claiming or the beginning of a darker cycle for Democrats that could claim the White House in 2016?

For full analysis, go here.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK
From Republican wins in the midterm elections and the 1-year anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, to U.S. troops returning home from Afghanistan and a giant “fallstreak” hole in the sky over Australia, TIME presents the best pictures of the week.

Go to this link for more than 50 amazing shots.

EARLIEST KNOWN PHOTOGRAPH FEATURING A HUMAN
As CNN Living reports, “At first glance, it doesn’t seem that remarkable: An old black-and-white scene of a strangely deserted city, smudged in places by some primitive photographic process.”

But this image, taken in Paris in 1838, is believed to be the earliest known photograph featuring a person.

What famous photographer took it and why do the surrounding streets seem deserted in the shot?

Find out and take a look here.

ONE LAST POLITICAL AD
Media Bistro highlights one last political ad worth taking a look. A Des Moines TV station decided to create a promotional ad to spoof one of its anchors and his “bad” behavior.

“He wants you to think he’s a credible newsman… but his behavior is incredible… He turns the news into a one-man comedy routine, and worst of all he questions the forecast!”

For a good laugh and an exclamation point to the end of the political ad season, click here.