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| MATR Newsletter - Fri Mar 27, 2015 |
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett,
AAA Mountain West
Kalispell Chamber of Commerce
- AAA Takes on Teenage Driving in New Study
"Simply chatting with other people in the car was the most common distraction leading to a crash for teen drivers."
Montana Data Focused Business Cluster
- Local business leaders team up to drive engagement in the Kalispell Chamber
In 2004, the "drive champion" earned a trip for two to a Green Bay Packers' game. This year's grand prize is a $2500 travel gift certificate.
Montana Department of Commerce
- Is your financial institution using the 20 critical controls for cyber defense to protect your information?
What is yours doing to protect itself and your data?
- C.I.A. Officers and F.B.I. Agents, Meet Your New Partner: The Analyst
"Who in the U.S. government is going to be thinking about longer-term threats?"
Northwestern Energy
- State's 'Made in Montana' program markets authentic local products
The Made in Montana program, which began in 1984, promotes itself to the public as a way to authenticate Montana products.
Sustainable Business Council
- Capital High is using the sun as an asset thanks to Northwestern Energy
The two rows of panels have been active for about two months and are expected to produce 13,535 kilowatt hours each year, saving Capital roughly $1,400 annually.
Visit Montana - Montana Dept. of Tourism
- Moving Missoula Toward Zero Waste Month: April 2015
"Visitors and new residents are often surprised by the scarcity of recycling options, especially when they compare us with other progressive communities. However, we face some unique challenges here, and one of them is a confused population."
Yellowfin Business Intelligence Solution
- John and Courtney McKee (Headframe Spirits in Butte) win two Montana Tourism awards - "The Orphan Girl"
The McKees also won the Tourism Ambassador of the Year award for their work showcasing Butte as a viable tourist destination, a culture and history leader and its potential for business innovation.
Inteneo Systems
- Goodbye Spreadsheets, Hello Alternatives
enterprise software that provides business users with the same ability to model, create reports and work with data the way they do in a desktop spreadsheet as well as update and modify these by themselves without any IT resources. http://www.yellowfinbi.com
Come Home Montana
- How Data Enables Business Disruption
Analytics will increasingly drive business decision-making.
- David Chang Says Big Data Can Save the Restaurant Industry
It's about doing customer loyalty and using that data to reward our guests," he said. "It's all about collecting data on what the customer wants. It's so simple."
- What Can Big Data Ever Tell Us About Human Behavior?
By some estimates, humankind now captures the same amount of data in any two days than in all of history prior to 2003.
Montana Business
- Montana Career Opportunities - Staff Recruiter, Financial Service Representative - Missoula Federal Credit Union
If you believe you possess a positive and passionate approach and the skills and knowledge to provide exceptional service to our members, we'd like to get to know you better.
- 43 notable, famous and infamous people who have called Montana home
Montana is an attractive state for people looking to find peace and quiet and a plethora of outdoor activities. It's also been home to a number of famous people, from musicians to award-winning actors to astronauts.
- Prospera Business Network Update: Executive Director Transition- Thanks and All the Best to Stuart Leidner
I am writing to announce a transition at Prospera Business Network. Stuart Leidner, our Executive Director, will be relocating to Anchorage, Alaska in May of 2015 to join his wife who has been offered a career opportunity with the National Park Service.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Executive Director - Prospera Business Network - Bozeman, Montana
Prospera Business Network is seeking an experienced Executive Director who can be a leader in driving business and economic growth in beautiful southwestern Montana.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Executive Director - Great Northern Development Corporation
Great Northern Development Corporation (GNDC) services a six county region of Northeast Montana: Valley, Daniels, Sheridan, Roosevelt, Garfield, and McCone.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Director of Lending - Montana CDC
The ideal candidate will have significant leadership experience and business lending experience or a very strong understanding of what it takes to make a business successful.
- Montana Career Opportunity - Planning Director - Flathead County, Montana
The tasks performed require the employee to prepare plans, programs and budgets on all aspects of the planning process and directs the administration and implementation of the pro grams on which the office is approved to conduct work .
- Montana drivers have among the shortest work commutes in the country
Montana has the fourth shortest work commute with a mean travel time to work of 18 minutes, according to the survey.
Montana Economic Development
- Bark beetles are killing forests - but they might be saving them, too
Asked at TEDx how she wants to change the world, she responded, "I don't want to change the world. We have changed the world to a point that it is barely recognizable. I think it's time to stop thinking change and try to hold on to what beauty and function remains."
- Great Falls Fire Within awards celebrate businesswomen
"The opportunity to celebrate amazing women, heading amazing businesses that are creating jobs in our community is an honor," said Lillian Sunwall, co-creator of the event.
- Pink Gloves Boxing - only comparing 'you' to 'you.'
Pink Gloves Boxing was never an idea of mine. It was the result of a group of women that believed in empowerment. I never founded Pink Gloves - Pink Gloves founded me.
- Missoula's Community Hospital sale - Win for low-income locals
Last week's announcement that Community Medical Center intends to pull a planned $10 million contribution to the University of Montana is being lauded as a major victory for low-income residents.
- How Growing Up in a Family Biz Prepped this Duo for Great Harvest Bakery Ownership
Their search ended when they took ownership of three existing Great Harvest bakeries that came with a business model and products that they both really believe in.
- Execs from Montana's Largest Mining Company Stillwater Mining Closing Billings Office, Moving to Denver
Former Gov. Brian Schweitzer - now Stillwater's chairman - questioned at the time how its platinum and palladium mines could be managed from outside Montana.
Startup Weekend in Montana Communities
- USDA Rural Development Montana 2014 Annual Report
Thanks to the 2014 Farm Bill, Rural Development had an outstanding year investing more than $291 million in Montana.
Careers
- Startup Bozeman - Insights from Jeff Trom, Co-Founder of Two $100m Software Companies
Jeff notes that in a start up things are always broken and always changing. Like a shark, a company not moving will die and there is a huge need to be comfortable with change. Jeff also highlighted that not everyone will survive each change or has the capacity to live in a perpetual state of flux.
Government
- GoDaddy CEO helps produce 'CODE,' a documentary about the gender gap
The gap between men and women in tech is a touchy subject that's been around for a bit. A new documentary, CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap tackles the question head on, examining just why women are often left out in the cold in today's hottest fields.
- Gender bias or intimidation? Why sex discrimination isn't business's biggest problem
If we accept that gender is the primary issue, then we might assume that this kind of intimidation is mainly happening to women. But is this intimidation based on gender, or is it based more on power?
Idaho Business
- The 'CEO-Mayors' Who Care About Cities Instead of Profits
I always have been concerned that the divide between the public and private sectors is too wide in this country.
Education
- Government ethics report: D minus for Idaho
Idaho is one of eight states without an agency or independent commission to oversee state ethics laws.
- To boost its economy, Idaho looks to the world
Before deciding where to build a new mushroom farm in the United States, Ronald Wilson wants to know where he can find some chicken manure.
Funding and Building your Business
- How to Raise a University's Profile: Pricing and Packaging
People don't buy Gucci bags merely for their beauty and functionality. They buy them because other people will know they can afford the price of purchase. The great virtue of a luxury good, from the manufacturer's standpoint, isn't just that people will pay extra money for the feeling associated with a name brand. It's that the high price is, in and of itself, a crucial part of what people are buying.
- How Rafter360 tricks you into loving suicide - The high cost of college textbooks
It's not so much what you're learning the University opposes, but how you're learning. When you criminalize and blockade avenues of learning you censor all content exclusive to that path, which may be a student's only choice.
Energy and Climate Change
- New York subway campaign targets minority coders
Calling all would-be advertising geniuses who understand the importance of a society that can write computer code - your ideas are needed.
- Finding Business Funding Online
"I knew I had a great product and a great idea, I just needed the money to put it together."
Connectivity & Communications
- Heat your home for free with heating provided by a computer server
The test is in line with Eneco's strategy to develop into an energy partner of its customers by introducing innovative sustainable services.
- Bracing for a big power grid attack: 'One is too many'
About once every four days, part of the nation's power grid -- a system whose failure could leave millions in the dark -- is struck by a cyber or physical attack.
- Why Rooftop Solar is Disruptive to Utilities -- and the Grid
There needs to be a discussion over how solar fits into the grid and how to ensure grid reliability.
- Snow Now Melts in Wyoming Two Weeks Early
The trend is part of a larger snow shortfall across the Western United States documented by many researchers.
Government Technology
- Senator Tester introduces legislation to improve phone service for rural families and small businesses
Tester's bill, the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act, addresses persistent phone call completion issues plaguing Montana's rural communities by directing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish basic quality standards for providers who transmit phone calls to all areas of the United States.
- Media world challenge: People love news, but won't pay for it
According to a new survey by Retale, a Chicago-based mobile platform that connects shoppers with retailers, only 19% of millennials have paid for print or digital news content in the last month, and 76% of the 1,000 respondents over age 55 said they were completely unwilling to pay for digital news access.
Non-Profit News
- What Data Analysis Technology Can Do for Tax Administration
Since our databases are integrated across the county, we can work closely with the recorder's, auditor's and assessor's offices ensuring that all of the data balances before we actually get to the tax-bill-printing stage.
Miscellaneous Ramblings
- One Montana - Moving Montana Forward by Uniting Rural and Urban Communities and Building Entrepreneurial Spirit
"One Montana plays a positive role in encouraging the next generation to be entrepreneurial. We especially appreciate their commitment to bridging the Urban - Rural divide." Mike Halligan, Executive Director of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation
Cool Stuff That's Coming
- Scientists have discovered a simple way to cook rice that dramatically cuts the calories
Like other starch-heavy foods, it has one central flaw: it isn't that good for you.
- Wooly Mammoth Genes Inserted into Elephant Cells
Longer term, Church and his team hope to first create hybrid elephant/mammoth embryos, grown in artificial wombs, and then raise hybrid elephants that could be genetically wired to thrive in colder climes -- hopefully expanding their range to live at a greater remove from humans.
Transportation
- Hulu's ex-CEO starts paid video site for YouTube stars
"We're a next generation video company," he says. "Allowing you early access to the creators you love, and optimized for the phone."
- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on artificial intelligence: 'The future is scary and very bad for people'
"Like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people," Wozniak said. "If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they'll think faster than us and they'll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently."
- Can iPad therapy mend speech after stroke?
The research further supports the idea that the brain is far more plastic and moldable than previously imagined, and it presents a simple, relatively inexpensive way for people to improve their long-term health.
- Mark Zuckerberg unveils Messenger platform at Facebook's F8 conference
The announcement was among a string of new tools the social media giant introduced at Fort Mason to help developers build, grow and make money from their apps.
- Elon Musk: Self-driving Tesla Model S will be here in three months
According to Musk, who thinks fully autonomous cars may one day lead to actual driving being outlawed, a software update scheduled for release in about three months will enable the Model S to handle highways and major roads by itself.
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