Weekend Edition: The Sony And Cuba Edition

TV PREVIEW: NEW CONTRIBUTORS & WOMEN IN BUSINESS
On this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics:

Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson makes changes at the top. President Obama doing the same with Cuba. And, an independent salary commission meets for the first time. What changes are on the political and business horizons?

KATV’s Janelle Lilley joins new Talk Business & Politics contributors Frank Scott and John Burris for a lively roundtable discussion with host Roby Brock.

A new study recently released regarding women entrepreneurs says females are getting the short end of the stick. Is the study spot-on or off-base? Carrie Ford with the Arkansas Venture Center and Tifany Hamlin with EZDiscovery Solutions discuss.

Plus, we’ll also run through the latest business and political headlines of the week. Tune in to Talk Business & Politics on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7.

For our weekend business and political readers:

SONY’S FINANCIAL LOSS FROM THE CANCELLATION OF ‘THE INTERVIEW’
It’s perhaps the top story from this past week, and now Forbes reports on the staggering loss Sony will incur after canceling the release of the film ‘The Interview’, which had been set to open Christmas Day.

Hackers calling themselves the Guardians of Peace warned theater owners that they will attack movie theaters that show the film. Earlier this week, Sony told theaters that they could pull the movie from schedules and later canceled press screenings, premiers and any further promotional time for the film.

With this latest bombshell, the hacking scandal (which started around Thanksgiving when private information including social security numbers, salaries and medical information leaked) has inflicted an enormous amount of damage on Sony.

The electronics and entertainment company’s stock price has fallen 7% since December 5th. Sony will take a huge loss on the film which cost $44 million to produce. We know the exact cost of the film because the movie’s budget was part of the cache of leaked documents which also showed that star Seth Rogen was paid $8.4 million for his work on the film, while costar James Franco earned $6.5 million.

How bad is this going to hurt and will Sony also have to respond to accusations that by pulling the film, it is giving in to terrorists? For more on the business end of this evolving story, click on this link.

DIGITAL MARKETING PREDICTIONS THAT WENT BUST IN 2014
It came in with much fanfare and Digital Current reports, “Last January, there was a blizzard of buzz about digital marketing — and for good reason.”

Those of us in this arena are experiencing a heady, exciting time. The technology is finally sharp and readily available, and hoards of hungry marketers are eager to test the wares, experiment with their words and ideas and attempt to push the trends to the next level. Some of these ideas, such as people-based research, brand advocacy and real-time marketing, achieved enormous breakthroughs this past year.

But there were naysayers with dire digital marketing predictions like “the death of banner ads.” (What a laugh.)

Among other notorious prognostications, Digital Current has compiled a list of digital marketing predictions that “fizzled” in 2014. You can find them here.

HOW GOOD IS THAT COMPUTER SCIENCE DEGREE?
Mashable says, it “may be a waste of your time and money.”

The tech world is filled with famous dropouts. David Karp, for instance, ditched high school at 15 and never graduated. Instead, he created Tumblr, which he later sold to Yahoo for $1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard University in his sophomore year, mirroring another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has also been a vocal critic of college, famously offering selected students $100,000 to drop out of college and instead focus on developing their ideas.

“One of the biggest issues with post-secondary education in the technology industry is it’s ability to keep a curriculum current and at the cusp of technology,” says Erik Zuuring, a 10X programmer who dropped out of college. “Just in the web-sphere, trends and technology change on a monthly basis.”

“You can get a computer science degree and after four years you’re $100,000 in debt and you still don’t know everything you need to code,” says Jordyn Lee, a rep for SkilledUp, a self-styled curator of online and alternative education sources.

But does the four-year computer science degree have its defenders? Go to this link to find out.

DOES MANAGING SMARTER EMPLOYEES MAKE YOU FEEL DUMB?
OK, you’re pretty smart. Real smart actually, but Louise in the corner office could probably teach at MIT if she wanted to. So Entrepreneur asks, “How do you manage employees smarter than you without looking like an idiot?”

It’s about challenges.

It’s a manager’s job to hire the best people. If they do their job well, they will choose the right people to grow the organization, even if they appear more knowledgeable in some ways.

Managers shouldn’t be afraid to challenge the whole team by hiring new employees with different skills or greater expertise. It’s the same reason why hiring diverse personalities is often encouraged. People who think differently bring dynamic ideas to the table that can create positive change.

Like what you are reading? For the whole story and why millennials are so much a part of this equation, click on this link to learn how to manage “forward-thinking employees without looking like an idiot.”

OBAMA AND CASTRO COME TOGETHER
But how did it really happen?

Politico reports it had its beginnings in early 2014 after Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern met with Cuban president Raul Castro in Havana.

“We have to talk about the present and the future,” Castro told him. “Because if we talk about the past we will never resolve it.”

“I thought, ‘Maybe this is a guy we can do business with,’” McGovern says.

That hope became reality on Wednesday, when President Obama announced that he would normalize relations between America and Cuba, more than 50 years after they became a casualty of Fidel Castro’s communist revolution and Cold War geopolitics. Coming with little warning and at a time when Washington’s attention has been fixed on the Middle East and Russia, the announcement was as sudden as it was stunning.

For more on this extraordinary story, how it evolved, and how it will shape President Obama’s foreign policy legacy, go to this link.

NEW MARKET…CUBA
The New York Times reports “Within hours of President Obama’s historic move to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba, companies in the United States were weighing how to introduce their products and services to a market they haven’t been in for the better part of 50 years — if ever.”

While many corporations appeared interested, consultants and others cautioned that there were still many details of doing business in Cuba yet to be detailed and that not all companies would be welcomed or find a robust audience in Cuba.

But as The Times reports, “the potential trade opportunities go both ways.”

While some Americans will be itching at the opportunity to more easily obtain famed Cuban cigars, the country also has a surprisingly robust biotechnology industry that makes a number of vaccines not available in the United States. Another hot spot for Cuba’s economy could be mining: The country has one of the largest deposits of nickel in the world.

For the complete story, follow this link.

JEB BUSH’S ‘BOLD JUMP’
It’s a jump that caught Clinton backers by surprise, says Politico.

For months, Hillary Clinton’s allies viewed one Republican as posing a bigger threat to her in a 2016 presidential general election matchup than any other: Jeb Bush. But they believed Bush wouldn’t ultimately take the plunge.

Over the last three weeks, however, it’s become clear to people in Clinton’s extended orbit that Bush is not only likely to run but that he’s taking the stage in an unabashedly aggressive fashion.

On one level, the distraction of another big name receiving the 2016 media klieg light treatment was a welcome development for Clinton. But Bush’s decision to plow ahead also highlights Clinton’s comparatively slow walk and relative caution as she approaches the starting line.

Bush announced this past week his intentions “to explore the possibility of running for president”, and Politico takes an in-depth look at how the battle and the strategy may shape up for the two candidates, if Clinton does indeed run. But what do true conservatives think about Bush? Would they support him?

For an intriguing story plus analysis, connect here.

PERSONALIZED LICENSE PLATES AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
It’s a battle ripe for the state of Texas.

On one hand, The Sons of Confederate Veterans in Texas want a personalized license plate celebrating the SCV complete with a Confederate flag, but then after some back-and-forth the committee that approves personalized plates called the design too “controversial.”

Enter the First Amendment.

The Texas Transportation Code says that the state may refuse to create a plate “if the design might be offensive to any member of the public.” Yes, any.

A district court rejected the SCV’s contention that this decision was unconstitutional, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit held that specialty plates are private speech, so the state had violated the First Amendment by engaging in viewpoint discrimination against the SCV.

Texas is appealing that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, “probably in vain.”

For more on this story and the surprising “body of license plate law,” go to this link.

‘COLBERT REPORT’ FINALE
It’s over for “his pompous, deeply ridiculous but consistently appealing conservative blowhard character on his late-night show, ‘The Colbert Report’.”

It happened this past Thursday as Stephen Colbert said goodbye to his wildly successful comedy parody to make way for his next ultimate move.

Devoted fans of “The Colbert Report” (the final T is silent) have dreaded this day since April 10, when their favorite late-night star announced that he was leaving to become the successor to David Letterman on CBS.

But whatever comic exercise Mr. Colbert devises to end his multi-award-winning run on Comedy Central, including perhaps some symbolic hara-kiri for the character he brought into American homes four nights a week, he has left an indelible mark on late-night television comedy.

Go to this link for more.

MORE SIMPLE UNDER THE GOLDEN ARCHES
Fortune reports that McDonald’s plans to cut its menu items down in an effort to “regain ‘burger leadership’.”

McDonald’s is going to dramatically simplify its menu next month as a major part of its strategy to halt a U.S. sales slide that has gotten worse of late.

So what’s being eliminated in the pared-down menu and what “chronic criticism from customers and investors alike” brought this on.

This comes on the heels of a July report from Consumer Reports ranking McDonald’s hamburgers “the worst” in the U.S.

Will this affect your Happy Meal? Find out at this link.