Weekend Digest: Scattered, Smothered And A Side Of Politics

For our weekend business and political readers:

NETWORKING MISTAKES TO AVOID
Harvard Business Review reports there are three major mistakes most commonly made with networking.

We all know networking has the potential to dramatically enhance our careers; making new connections can introduce us to valuable new information, job opportunities, and more. But despite that fact, many of us are doing it wrong. Many executives, even when they desperately want to cultivate a new contact, aren’t sure how to get noticed and make the right impression.

So how do you make the right impression when cultivating a new contact?

Networking expert Dorie Clark says, “If you want to network successfully with high-level professionals, you have to inspire them to want to connect with you. Through hard-won experience, I’ve learned some of the key mistakes aspiring networkers make in their quest to build relationships, and how to avoid them.”

Click here for the best networking lesson you may ever get.

FOR INDIAN ENGINEERS ‘SILICON VALLEY IS LIKE HOLLYWOOD’
Many aspire to be like Mark Zuckerberg.

Akshay Wattal, a 24-year-old from Delhi, agrees. “I aspire to be like Mark Zuckerberg. He started something from a dorm room.” Akshay says he came to Silicon Valley with the idea of doing the same — that is, starting up a tech company.

Shashank Garg was listening in. “Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, I literally worship them,” Garg says. He’s 25-years old and came to Silicon Valley with big dreams. “I want to be like them, I know at some point in time, I’ll be like them.”

Learn more from Forbes about the “audacious ideas” of these young Indians who are making big moves with their big dreams in the mostly white male-dominated networks in Silicon Valley at this link.

START-UP SPENDING 101
“What’s essential, what’s nice to have and what’s downright unnecessary?”

Vital points Forbes says you should consider for start-up spending.

Start-ups shelling out for swanky offices with beachfront views is a particularly Miami kind of problem, says 500 Startups Mentor Navid Zolfaghari, one of the first employees at Wildfire, which sold to Google in 2012. You’d be better off in a shared space or sub-leasing from another company he says.

You don’t even need an office, thinks Jared Kim, founder of WeGame, which sold to Tagged in 2011. But, “don’t be cheap when it comes to providing your team with everything it needs to be productive and happy.”

Set-up for success with no swag by clicking on this link.

DUCKDUCKGO…A BIG, LITTLE COMPANY
Ever heard of it? Come along for an inside look at this Philadelphia-based startup that Fast Company claims may have a go at Google.

In fact, DuckDuckGo is exploding.

When Gabriel Weinberg launched a search engine in 2008, plenty of people thought he was insane. How could DuckDuckGo, a tiny, Philadelphia-based startup, go up against Google? One way, he wagered, was by respecting user privacy. Six years later, we’re living in the post-Snowden era, and the idea doesn’t seem so crazy.

“Every year, we’ve grown 200-500%,” Weinberg says. “The numbers keep getting bigger.”

Go to this link for the big numbers and inside scoop from a little giant that’s sure to open your eyes.

SCATTERED, SMOTHERED AND A SIDE OF POLITICS
Do you love Waffle House? Who hasn’t made a late night binge at this venerable American icon? Waffle House, according to the Washington Post, has a track record for presidential performance numbers.

It’s a little complicated, but here’s the bottom line.

If you have a Waffle House in your state, you are more likely to support a Republican for president. If you don’t, you won’t.

Go figure. Well in fact the Post has the figures at this link, with some sausage.

ARKANSAS’ PRIVATE OPTION GARNERS NATIONAL ATTENTION
As the Arkansas legislature wrangles with funding for the private option for Medicaid, which it passed into law last year, PBS Newshour is scrutinizing the bill.

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that states do not have to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act, there have been big battles over that issue. NPR has a different take on the plan and how Arkansans feel about the divisive issue.

Go to this link for details.

TOUGH MISSISSIPPI SENATE FIGHT
It’s one of the hottest races of the 2014 election cycle.

As Sen. Thad Cochran faces a potentially career-ending primary challenge, his strategy for victory is straightforward: Stress his decades of bringing home federal largesse and his long relationships with home-state Republicans; tap Washington rainmakers to fill his campaign account; and bring in Mississippi political legends like Haley Barbour and Trent Lott to help seal the deal.

Cochran’s opponent in the June 3 showdown, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, is practically salivating over the contrast that it represents.

So for the full fist-fight, click on this link from POLITICO.

CAN GOP REDUCE RED TAPE?
According to The Hill, House Republicans next week will pass a legislative package aimed at making federal regulations more transparent and less costly to the economy.

The legislation is the GOP’s latest attempt to reduce the regulatory red tape they say is stifling job creation. Republicans have said getting Washington out of companies’ way is the best way to turn around an economy that still struggles to create jobs more than five years after the Great Recession.

For more on this evolving story, go to this link.

RADDISON RED
It’s a youth oriented approach.

The Radisson is creating a youth-oriented hotel brand, making its parent company, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, the latest entrant in a scramble to attract the millennial traveler.

The new brand, known as Radisson Red, will open its first location next year and plans to be operating 60 hotels around the globe by 2020, Carlson Rezidor executives say.

For the whole expansion plan go to this link from the Wall Street Journal.

WILLIE NELSON’S HEARTBREAKER BANQUET
It will be the third annual at Willie Nelson’s ranch. His getaway will be the site of the third annual Heartbreaker Banquet a daylong concert on Thursday, March 13th that includes “pop-up shops, local food, and performances by 18 rock, country and roots bands.”

The concert will take place on two stages this year, and the event will make use of the whole Luck, Texas “town.” The outdoor “Medicine Show” stage will be erected in front of Willie Nelson’s “World Headquarters” on the ranch’s main street and a “Chapel Stage,” built for acoustic performances, will be set up in the ranch’s 50-seat church.

For full details, go to this link.