Weekend Digest: The dad jokes, retiring Colbert character, and shave club edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

Conventional Wisdom
The Presidential conventions are in the books. Donald Trump – the official Republican nominee; Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ top choice. What were some of their defining words from Cleveland and Philadelphia? We’ll explore.

Talk Politics
In our Talk Politics roundtable: Jessica DeLoach Sabin and John Burris. Which candidate heads into the fall with a lead? What will define the race? And what should we watch for from now until November?

Inside the Numbers
We’ll go inside the numbers for a look at three key business and political milestones. And more on computer coding – How will a new Arkansas academy change the workforce?

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

$1 BILLION FOR DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB
“Unilever is paying $1 billion for Dollar Shave Club, a five-year-old start-up that sells razors and other personal products for men. Every other company should be afraid, very afraid,” says The New York Times.

The deal anecdotally shows that no company is safe from the creative destruction brought by technological change. The very nature of a company is fundamentally changing, becoming smaller and leaner with far fewer employees.

“Dollar Shave Club was a phenom in the men’s grooming industry. The online business was founded in 2011 by Mark Levine and Michael Dubin to combat the high cost of razors. The idea was rather simple. Instead of paying $10 or $20 a month at a store for disposable razors, a Dollar Shave Club subscriber could go online and set up a regular order to be shipped to his home monthly at a fraction of the retail cost.”

“Everything changed in 2012, when Mr. Dubin’s comedic free ad posted on YouTube. Within 24 hours, the new business had more than 12,000 orders, more than it could handle. The ad went on to get over 20 million views and rocket Dollar Shave Club to over $240 million in revenue.”

Now it’s being purchased for $1 billion, and The Times says, “These super-successful companies with few employees should worry an America struggling with inequality.”

More on this story here.

WHY MARISSA MAYER’S STRATEGY FAILED
Fast Company says, “Though the writing has been on the wall for months—if not years—Yahoo has finally been acquired. Verizon has scooped up the company to the tune of $4.8 billion. For many, this is the beginning of the end of a years-long saga to fix a seemingly broken digital media company; Verizon says it will use the new assets to build a digital media empire. For others, it’s just another chance to pile on the blame game for CEO Marissa Mayer.”

All the same, there’s one big question that hasn’t quite been answered, and perhaps never will be: What exactly went wrong?

Find out at this link.

THE FOUR SEASONS RESTAURANT AUCTION TOTALED $4.1 MILLION
Bloomberg posts, “The marathon, 15-hour auction yielded blockbuster results.”

“Anyone looking for a deal at the Four Seasons Restaurant auction on Tuesday would have left disappointed. The sale carried a high estimate of $1.33 million, but when the hammer fell on the final lot at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday (lot number 963, a set of four guest check holders that carried an estimate of $150 and sold for $1,400), the total, with premium, was a staggering $4,102,500 – 215 percent higher than Wright, the auctioneer, had anticipated.”

The auction was held in the iconic Pool Room at the Four Seasons, whose soaring ceilings and paneled walls were designed by Philip Johnson. While the interior itself is landmarked, its plates, pots, tables, and banquettes are not. Following a failed attempt to hold onto the restaurant’s lease, proprietors Alex von Bidder, Julian Niccolini, and the Bronfman family held what amounted to a very expensive, very comprehensive fire sale before they move the restaurant to a new location a few blocks away.

Follow this link to read the full post.

LARGE EMPLOYERS ARE KEY TO REFORMING HEALTH CARE
“In a thoughtful review of the Affordable Care Act in The Journal of the American Medical Association, President Obama ends with a discussion of “lessons for future policy makers.” He talks about the difficulties in instituting change in the face of “hyperpartisanship” and “special interests” and makes a plea for “pragmatism,” reports Harvard Business Review.

Given the current state of affairs in Washington, this may seem like wishful thinking. But we think all is not hopeless, and that large employers can play a powerful role in building on what the ACA and other initiatives have achieved to date and accelerate the positive transformation of the U.S. health care system.

Here’s how employers can help address each of the challenges President Obama identifies:

Get it here.

FIVE TECHNIQUES THAT MADE MICHELLE OBAMA’S SPEECH EMOTIONALLY APPEALING
“Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention is earning high marks for its emotion,” post Forbes.

The word “emotional” appears in about half a million links to articles about the speech.

“There are several ways that speakers can incorporate emotion into their presentation, and Michelle Obama used every one of them.”

What are they? Learn the tricks by clicking on this link.

TRUMP GOES IT ALONE ON RUSSIA
POLITICO reports, “His call for Moscow to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails won him attention, but his foreign policy found few supporters on either side of the aisle.”

A day after Hillary Clinton made history, Donald Trump turned history on its head.

The nominee of the Republican Party – the party that takes credit for winning the Cold War – on Wednesday appeared to align himself with Russia over his Democratic opponent, in remarks that suggested to many he was urging Moscow to interfere in a U.S. election.

“That break with longstanding bipartisan policy toward dealing with Russia, or any foreign nation, for that matter, succeeded in getting him the lion’s share of the media spotlight as Wednesday evening programming kicked off for rival Hillary Clinton’s Democratic National Convention. But it was a leap few fellow Republicans were ready to make – with some in the party suggesting it smacked of ‘treason.’”

For the full read, follow here.

THE BEST DAD JOKES FROM TWITTER DURING TIM KAINE’S DNC SPEECH
“When Tim Kaine accepted his party’s nomination for the vice presidency at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, he wasn’t just introducing himself to America as a politician. He was introducing himself to America as an avuncular successor to Uncle Joe Biden,” says Slate.

And boy oh boy, did he pass that test. During Kaine’s corny but sincere delivery, with all those folksy “Can I be honest with you?” segues and that so-bad-it’s-good Trump impression, many on Twitter noted Kaine’s similarities to a well-meaning father, uncle, or high-school teacher. Within an hour, Kaine was transformed from a relative unknown to a legendary father figure on the level of Friday Night Lights’ Coach Taylor.

Here are the best dad jokes from Twitter about Kaine’s speech.

COLBERT FORCED TO RETIRE CHARACTER
“Stephen Colbert made a sad announcement on Wednesday night’s “Late Show”: His iconic “Stephen Colbert” character will never be seen again,” reports The Hill.

Colbert explained to his audience that after the character’s recent revival on CBS’s late-night talk show, corporate lawyers from “another company” contacted the network to deliver a stern cease and desist.

Why and who is the company? And did Colbert go down without a fight? Find out what happened by clicking here.

WATCH EARTH SPIN THROUGH A FULL YEAR IN THIS SPECTACULAR TIME-LAPSE VIDEO
“Talk about ‘As the World Turns’: A sped-up video of Earth spinning through space shows a dizzying array of clouds and continents from a satellite located 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away,” says Space.com.

The time-lapse video of 3,000 images shows pictures taken every 2 hours. The pictures come courtesy of the EPIC camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite. The satellite is located at a gravitationally stable spot in space between the Earth and the sun known as a Lagrange point.

Take a look and learn how the video was constructed, at this link.

AMERICA’S LEAST-LIKED FAST FOOD CHAIN
“The only positive for the chain may be that while it came in last place as it did in 2015, it did improve its score,” reports AOL Finance.

…the chain also scored lower than any restaurant in the full-service category.

Who is it and what chains scored the highest? Complete rankings from the American Customer Satisfaction Index “to go” by clicking here.