Weekend Digest: The Best & Worst Of 2013 Edition

For our weekend business and political readers:

APPLE’S CHINESE MARKET SET TO EXPLODE
“Apple received an early Christmas gift this year: 760 million potential consumers.” According to Marketplace, that’s how many Chinese subscribe to China Mobile, the world’s largest cell phone carrier. And this past week Apple and China Mobile inked “a long-awaited deal to sell iPhones to this pool of nearly a billion new customers.”

“China Mobile by itself is more than seven times larger than the biggest U.S. carrier – AT&T or Verizon,” says Philip Elmer-Dewitt, a journalist for Fortune who’s been writing about Apple since 1982. “So this is just a huge get for Apple, and I’m sure Steve Jobs would’ve loved to have had it before he died.”

But will the Chinese actually move to buy the iPhone on China Mobile’s new 4G network?

Find out what one expert thinks, by clicking this link.

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT RESURGING
That according to one Forbes’ contributor who believes “the days of the job work mentality are thankfully waning with more people looking to get satisfaction by making the world a better place, rather than just tolerating brain-numbing work to fund enjoyment elsewhere.”

According to the Kaufman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (KIEA), the entrepreneurial rate in the U.S. is already well above the dot.com bubble of 15 years ago, although we have slipped a bit this year from the high point of 320 new entrepreneurs out of 100,000 adults in 2011. It still adds up to over 20 million non-employer businesses out there today, with more starting every day.

And there is additional encouraging news for aspiring entrepreneurs on many fronts. To find out what it is, go to this link.

HOMESPUN CULTURE, KEY TO ONE COMPANY’S SUCCESS FOR ITS EMPLOYEES
The company is called Bandwith. It’s a 15-year-old company that focuses on IP-based communication technology – and is proud of the fact that they’re challenging the standards of old telecom in everything they do. David Morken is its co-founder and CEO.

Their stated mission is to unlock remarkable value for our customers – and, as I discovered when I spoke to him, Morken is convinced that a big part of doing that involves ‘unlocking remarkable value’ for their employees: making Bandwidth a place that supports employees’ body, mind and spirit.

How does Bandwith embrace all three with solid, logical culture?  Go to this link from Forbes for some surprising answers.

DO YOU LOVE YOUR JOB?
If you don’t, can you find one to love?  This writer has some advice:

Getting back to joy was a long pursuit. I had to change everything around me to find that first happiness again. Part of that journey involved understanding what brought me joy, in the context of my job and company, and what brought fear.

Just as there are teachers who simply go through the motions and drag us through the material in order to complete a required course, there are companies and jobs and bosses that do the same. That doesn’t mean you have to live with it. Avoid those fear-run workplaces. Quit those jobs.

Want to hear more on how to avoid a “default culture” at work? A post from Speakeasy may just have what you are looking for in your pursuit of happiness at work, and no it doesn’t necessarily involve working for a non-profit. For some intriguing advice, click on this link.

THE BEST AND WORST OF POLITICS 2013
The Washington Post has succinctly summarized the best and worst on the political scene for 2013. For the full score, go to this link.

THE 30 BEST SHOTS BY POLITICO’S STAFF
Politico has compiled its 30 and extremely compelling “Best Staff Photographs” for 2013.

Some are funny, some are sad, some are well…just politics. You can view them all at this link.

MARYLAND DEMOCRAT INCENSED OVER OBAMACARE ROLLOUT
Maryland gubernatorial candidate Doug Gansler is not happy with the “botched rollout” of the Affordable Care Act in his home state of Maryland. Really not happy.

He’s aghast at chronic problems with Maryland’s online enrollment platform and stunned that a state with “literally the smartest people in the country” would have hired a company from North Dakota, of all places, to help put its exchange in place. The whole spectacle, Gansler fumes, “is almost like a Saturday Night Live skit.”

Funny thing. Gansler is the state’s current attorney general, and a Democrat.

Washington has been locked for months in a series of partisan battles over the law known as Obamacare, as well as battles within the GOP over how best to oppose the ACA. But it’s the state just to the north that has served up the country’s first Democrat-on-Democrat brawl over the inept implementation of the law, offering perhaps a first test of Democratic voters’ patience with the ACA’s technical setbacks.

For the full story, click on this link from Politico.

A SOOTHER FOR ‘POLITICAL COMBAT’ AMONG REPUBLICANS
The New York Times has a possible antidote for acidic factions among the Republican Party. Sit down over the holiday break and peruse a couple of books from different eras.

As mainstream and Tea Party Republicans wrestle for control of their party, it might be wise over the holidays for each faction to crack open a pair of recent books that recount previous episodes of internecine political combat.

However disparate they may be, these two seasons of political soul searching, one a century ago and the other a quarter century ago, have echoes in the current Republican clash over the best course for reviving their party’s fortunes.

What books are on the reading list and what wisdom do they offer?  Go to this link to find out.

15 BEST DESIGN ESSAYS 0F 2013
Fast Company likes design. And so with a website dedicated to it, Co.Design offers its best essays from the past year. But there’s more to it that just jabbering on about what looks pretty.

Some people think design is all pretty flourishes, but it’s about a lot more than that: design encompasses not just the visual appearance of a thing, but also the intent behind it, and the experience of being exposed to it. These qualities are what make design such an important medium through which to thoughtfully explore our world, and that’s just what we tried to do in 2013 in many of our best essays examining the year’s most important design issues.

In the gallery, you’ll find 15 of our favorite essays that we published this year. Written by staff, freelancers, and designers, these pieces go in-depth on the design that fascinated us this year.

For the Fab-15, click on this link.

TO COMPETE FOR STUDENTS, COLLEGES ROLL OUT AMENITIES
Colleges and universities are competing for a new generation of students who are used to more upscale surroundings than when Baby Boomers attended those low-grade digs.

10 x 10 dorm rooms with bunk beds and communal bathrooms are making way for hotel-like rooms complete with granite countertops and two-sink bathrooms.

To be fair, granite countertops last longer. The amenities include classrooms and study space that are part of the dorm. Many of the residents are in the university’s Honors program. But do students really need Apple TV in the lounges, or a smartphone app that lets them check their laundry status from afar?

Marketplace has more at this link.